January 2023 - For the Love of Gardening
Barking Mad! It’s a wonderful time of year to notice decorative bark and stems
Happy New Year Everyone!
New Year’s resolutions aren’t really my thing - the mere thought fills me with a sense of foreboding! But during this season of short days and long evenings I’ve been reflecting about what I’d like to achieve in our garden over the months ahead, it’s a new garden for us, were getting to know each other and I’m having fun learning about what it contains, what it lacks and what it needs to create the beneficial habitat and aesthetic that Russ and I would slowly like to achieve. There’s no rush because we want to enjoy the process, so I’m drawing up plans to guide us and I’m creating seasonal lists to managing the stages and lessen the overwhelm., one gardening session at a time!
This dormant season is the perfect time to plant trees and hedges and bare root roses. We don’t have any fruit trees at the Lynchetts so my New Years intention (not resolution!) is to plant a small orchard, as even the smallest of gardens can accommodate a tree or two,. Tree’s are such a benefit to the environment, attracting wildlife and creating shade and wind breaks and hopefully ours will also produce an abundance of fruit to share..what’s not to love!
January Hints and Tip’s
Here’s a design tip: If you’re planning to make changes to your garden this year, now is a great time to take some photos of your garden in its winter glory. The lack of summer colour highlights your garden’s bare bones, use your photos or sketches to really look at where the gaps are, draw over the photos and make notes, think about whether you need to enhance your gardens skeleton with evergreen planting, perhaps you would benefit from a wind break of trees or some hedging to divide the space to create interesting outdoor rooms. Can you see where you’ve been walking over your lawn and if your footfall is churning it up, could you benefit from a path? Has leaf fall opened views that you want to hide, or keep? It really is a lovely time of year to observe and make notes and plan!
“We can complain because roses bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses!” Abraham Lincoln.
Things to do this month:
Get your pencil out and make plans!
Plant trees and bare root hedging and roses.
Keep putting out food and water for hungry birds
Get scrubbing! Clean pots and greenhouses ready for the springOrder seed and bulb catalogues and start choosing. To help our bees and other pollinators, please choose blooms with simple open flowers, our insect friends really struggle to find the stamens and gather nectar from the fancy double petal varieties.
Visit local gardens and plant centres: Notice scented winter shrubs such as Witch-Hazel ( Hamamelis) Sweet box (, Sarcocca ) and Wintersweet (Chimonanthus) , also trees with interesting bark such as the snake bark maple and paper bark maple. (Acer David I “Ernest Wilson’ and Acer griseum AGM) and consider planting them in your own garden for next winters delight.
Order seed and bulb catalogues. To help our bees and other pollinators, please choose blooms with simple open flowers, our insect friends really struggle to find the stamens and gather nectar from the frilly double petal varieties.
Bee Happy - choose simple open flowers that bloom early!