I have attempted the first bit of weeding in the garden. Mainly removing moss and grass which have worked their way into the borders from the lawn and under the fence from next door. One of the great things about having a small garden is being able to control the weeds organically without weedkiller, though even in our small space it can still be challenging. I have made a video about the basics of weeding, what a weed is, how to try and spot them early and whether to remove them.
Once I had done the first bit of weeding, I had a look around the garden to see what is starting to grow. The mild wet winter has started to draw to an end and is being replaced with a colder and slightly drier start to spring. As many of the plants are ahead of themselves in terms of their growth this year it may well be the case that some of our plants could suffer from this sudden cold burst. We shall wait and see if the frosts cause the plants any trouble.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
Tidying the borders ready for the tulips which are coming through nicely
We have our first narcissus in the borders, I have seen many out early in other gardens but the shade in our garden means that it always a little behind many of the other local gardens in terms of flowering, which may be a good thing for our spring plants and flowers as some of the early spring flowers were damaged badly by wind and rain.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
Narcissus Staring at their reflections with their golden nodding heads
Roses have really enjoyed the mild winter and are already looking strong and should grow well this year. They all flowered for a really prolonged period last year and were great. Hopefully we will have a repeat of that this year too. We have seven different roses on the back garden so they could produce a lot of interest for the garden.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
New shoots on one of our climbing roses 'Summer Wine'
We have an apple tree and a pear tree in the garden and they are both producing buds. Four apples grew on our Braeburn tree last year, which is not a massive haul of fruit but it is a young tree and planted in a reasonably small container. We shall see how it grows this year and decide whether we should replant it into a bigger pot. The pear tree we bought late last year, it did not bear any fruit so it will be interesting to see how it does this year. We have it planted in a ceramic blue pot so it should look great even if it doesn't fruit heavily.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
Buds are emerging on our pear tree
Our most mature Hydrangea, that I recently replanted into a forty five Litre pot seems very happy. It is near the house which is sheltered and warmer than the rest of the garden. Leaves are already coming through quite strongly, which is impressive but slightly concerning as we have had a couple of nights of strong frost, which may damage this new growth and potentially impact the performance of the plant later in the year. We shall have to wait and see what happens.
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| Copyright Robert Widdowson 2016 |
The new growth on our Hydrangea is looking healthy at the moment
I have already planted my tomato seeds and they in our bedroom next to the window. There is no sign of growth, but it has been less than a week so I am probably a bit optimistic to expect any growth yet. I will be planting more seeds soon, I will have to plan what I plant carefully as we have limited space inside and in our cold frame outside. I am going to concentrate on producing quality plants rather than sheer quantity, which was my general approach last year and although it worked well enough, there is always room for improvement.
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