Frosty Rose 'Pilgrim'
You could be forgiven for thinking that there is not much gardening to be done in January. To a degree you are right. As I sit here now, looking somewhat wistfully out the window, I can see the frost on the lawn and a whole lot of grey borders. It's not tempting me to get out there if I'm honest. But with our winters being what they are these days, the frost doesn't last more than a few days at a time and although it tends to be replaced with endless grey, wet and windy weather, there are usually a few valuable moments to spend outside.
Frosty Leaves Waiting to be Cleared
'What on earth am I finding to do out there?' I hear you cry.
There's actually quite a list of tasks and I'll be honest the list will be repeated for the next few months until I've worked my way around the garden. I'm going to call my list The Winter Tidy Check List (but it could as easily be the Spring Tidy Check List) and it's in no particular order:-
- Prune shrub roses
- Cut off hellebore leaves
- Clear leaves from paths and main borders
- Trim back perennials
- Shape evergreens
- Trim natural hedges
- Plant out any left over bulbs
- Clear weeds
- Cut back grasses
- Remove any self seeded perennials that got carried away
- Mulch
Now, this may sound a fairly straight forward and relatively short list of winter jobs but by the time this is applied to the whole garden it constitutes a huge amount of work. Our garden is approximately a third of an acre. Part is laid to lawn, a few paths, patios and the less well tended woodland garden account for some. Otherwise, there are plenty of shrub and flower borders for me to tend by myself. Add to this that a significant amount of the work involves bending for long periods of time, factor in the weather and general apathy, and to be honest, I'm lucky to get around the whole garden by spring. In fact last year, I didn't get all the areas done and they had to fend for themselves. That only really makes for a more significant job required this year.
Greenhouse (with uncut Penstemons)
It would be easy to get overwhelmed. Instead, I break down the garden into sections in my head and tackle it in no longer than two hour blocks. So far, I have completed approximately one side of the house's borders (the north side) which is closest to the house and therefore of course most visible on a day to day basis. This gives me the illusion of tidiness and good progress. I have chosen to complete the jobs area at a time rather than going out to prune all the roses for example. This works well in the early season, but there may well come a time when the job needs doing all over the garden because that plant is shooting - the hellebores are a case in point. I'll be interrupting my natural progression around the patch to divert to the woodland area. Here I have a very large patch of hellebores which flower alongside spring bulbs in February/March. I can see the flower stems appearing but they are not all easily seen and the area currently looks messy mainly due to the old leaves on the hellebores. Cutting the leaves off the hellebores now helps the flowers to be seen, and prevents the old leaves from rotting down. This reduces the risk of diseases such as black spot affecting the plant which can make new leaves, and indeed flowers, look unsightly. Ideally, I would have done this job earlier before the flower stems were up as now I will need to tend each plant with care, making sure I do not cut through the flower stem by mistake. Certainly, not a job to be left much longer.
Hellebores from the Woodland in March
Rose pruning is a satisfying job in the main as the roses are looking tatty at this time of year and it won't be long before their new shoots appear. New rose shoots are often a glorious bronze/red colour which contrasts so well with spring bulbs, especially tulips. When pruning, I like to think of each rose bush as a goblet or wine glass shape - the aim is to have a stem free middle allowing the rose to have good air circulation around it. Note, this is an aim, few of mine actually have this structure in reality but the principle of keeping the plant open and not congested applies. I remove any deadwood and any spindly stems less than a pencil in diameter. From there, I consider the position and desired height of the flowers. Some of my roses are in less than ideal spots, whereby they are flowering over the top of a box bush or as part of shrubbery. These roses, I do not prune quite so low, preferring instead to keep the strong new stems from last year longer. I prune back to a bud that is facing the outside of the plant and make my cut on the diagonal. This enables the shoot to grow away from the inside goblet shape (keeping the rose as open to air circulation as possible) and the diagonal cut allows water to run off the cut stem (or at least that's the theory). I find in general, that roses which are grown in mixed borders rather than an open sight, need to be pruned higher (i.e. with less taken off the plant) to reduce their competition with other low growing perennials in the border. If in any doubt, go for a prune. Roses are robust and you are unlikely to do any long term damage. They do benefit from being cut back and I would always advise having a go rather than leaving well alone.
'First Frost'
I like to clear most of the fallen leaves from our ornamental borders. This is potentially a controversial thing to do. Many gardeners are actively supporting wildlife and choose to leave the leaves on the border to rot down naturally. This will condition the soil, improving its structure whilst providing habitat for insects and the like. However, I still clear most of mine. My reason for this is that we have a great deal of leaves. With numerous fully mature lime trees down one side of the garden, plus other trees and shrubs I have planted over the years, we have a huge amount of leaves. In some parts of the garden the leaves are left, but in the flower borders, particularly those nearest the house, I clear them. I do this because the leaves are very wet and slimy at this time of year, they are a great place for slugs and snails which I wish to avoid where I can. I do not tackle these pests other than naturally. Our garden is not blessed with a great deal of sun and so the leaves would take some time to dry out - a good thing perhaps in a drought but a drought cannot yet be a guaranteed part of our summer, often summers are wet. Many of my ornamental plants require sun and free draining soil and to have their new shoots sitting under wet soggy leaves would probably kill them off. The other reason is that by removing them early in the year, I can see new weed shoots coming through. Weeds by their nature tend to be hardy and well adapted to the local climate, they will survive happily under the leaves, revealing themselves as established plants at an inconvenient point in the season when my attention is turning away from weeding and onto more enjoyable matters of seeds, flowers and sitting outside. An early, and thorough weed now will often last the garden for many months. Leaving the leaves in place denies me that advantage.
Cutting back perennials and grasses can be an equally controversial point for the same reasons. These do provide welcome sources of food and shelter for birds and wild life over winter. However, I do think that my slow progression around the garden enables the wildlife to move on, finding a new spot with plenty to choose from until the warm spring sunshine finally takes hold. I couldn't clear the garden in a day, even if I wanted too. I like to cut back most of my perennials but I do leave a few such as my penstemons. The small leaved varieties are hardy in our garden but the frost and cold nights we have been having will be causing much of the top growth to die back. If I cut this too soon, the protection it affords the crown of the plant will be lost and I run the risk of losing the plant altogether. It is important to my summer display that this doesn't happen so I leave them, despite them forming a rather unsightly brown mass in the border.
Beautiful but Pesky Fennel Seed Heads
Grasses and some of the more sturdy perennials are left later so that their form can be admired after a heavy frost. There is no doubt of the beauty of a forgotten frosted rose bud or a fennel seed head in heavy frost. That said, fennel is only allowed one frost before I cut it back because I find the seeds are a menace and once that seedling starts to grow in Spring, perhaps unnoticed at first, the long tap root is a devil to remove it it's in the wrong place. Grasses do tend to be left to nearer the end of the season, in part because the grass border is out of the direct line of sight from the house and therefore is long down list of areas to be tackled, but also because they are protected from the hard frost by the old growth. Many are super hardy but not all vulnerable from frost but it is worth checking which will not appreciate an early trim. Some of my grasses are not trimmed at all, but I do find that those more evergreen varieties still benefit from a 'comb through' to remove any dead material.
Trimming back natural hedges and evergreens might be a bit of an unorthodox task to be doing at this time of year but to be honest, it is the only slot that the mood might take me to tend to them. The hedges are accessible as the perennials have died back, the birds are not yet nesting and I have more time than later in the season. The aim of the game is to keep the hedges at a manageable height - something I've sometimes neglected making for a huge job later in the year. I used to do this job with shears but I don't have the energy for this so where I can I use an electric trimmer.
Me Cutting Back in the North Border
I tidy the self seeded holly bushes now too. I will have picked over them for Christmas foliage and the task is therefore part done. Now is the time that I try to give them an interesting shape - many a standard bush is created in January I find. I have also been trimming my box balls or to be more accurate my box jellies. I cannot really call them balls as I don't have the patience or skill to achieve the spherical topiary shape. It is not really the time of year for pruning box and I am cautious that it is not too wet nor too frosty, but to be honest, they are currently still healthy and I need them to look smarter having quite a few that missed a summer trim.
You'll notice that I added 'plant out any left over bulbs' to my list for January. This works two fold. I often have a bag of bulbs left in the garage that missed my autumn bulb planting drive. These tend to be tulips as they are better planted once the weather turns colder and this year, that wasn't until December. The Christmas rush took hold and they were forgotten. However, assuming the bulbs have not got mould on from the wet, warm conditions of Autumn, the bulbs can still be planted now - but only just. They will still flower if perhaps a little later than their usual time. My left over bulbs tend to be those that I intended to go in the ground but couldn't find a space for at the time of planting out - spaces are certainly appearing now but the soil is not attractive being very wet and if not wet, frozen. I might well be best placed to plant in a pot and consider transferring to the garden if they do well and the bulbs are big enough at the end of the season.
Fox Finally Caught on Camera
Finally, that leads me on to mulching. The benefits of mulching are many. I am not a great mulcher, largely because I don't often get around to it, but it is on my list and I'd advise anyone to give it a go. What you mulch with will depend very much on what you have and what your soil and plants need. I, not surprisingly, have an abundance of leaf mould. I use this as a mulch to improve the depth or texture of the soil. It will not add fertility particularly. It will however, help keep moisture in should we have a summer drought again this year. I have been known to add compost to the raised beds by way of adding fertility. This is important if you are growing vegetables and some flowers that are hungry feeders such as sweet peas or dahlias. Many flowers grown by seed do not require high fertility in their soil and are happier with good drainage. I have been known to incorporate sand or grit to help the texture of the soil if it is compacted for example. Finally, I sometimes buy a rose top dressing which is just added around the base of the roses, providing them with a feed. I haven't done this for a few years and I can't say the roses have been struggling so far. That being said, if we have repeated difficult seasons like last year, a feed will be most welcome.
I hope you've enjoyed my gardening activity in January. I hope you'll be back to read next month's garden journal.
Best wishes,
Claire
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