February in the garden
The storms are over, and March is upon us, and things are looking brighter by the day. This is the time we are grateful for past hard labours of digging and splitting up clumps of snowdrops to create drifts through the garden; for poking little crocus bulbs into hard soil and fending off the mice and squirrels. The delight on a sunny March day to look under our great weeping lime and see the jewelled colours of crocus, drooping white heads of snowdrops and starry aconites dispels all remembrance of the dark stormy February days. So, this weekend, I will take my trowel and dig, split and replant as many snowdrops as possible with this in mind.
March is a great time for planting a new hedge. There is nothing like a yew hedge to contain a space or create a division. It is reasonably fast growing and doesn’t get blight or caterpillars, so this is what we have chosen to give a clear boundary between The Small House garden and the garden here at Falconhurst. The Small House was renovated by us thirty years ago for my mother-in-law, Cynthia, to live when we moved into ‘the big house’. Since then, we have had some lovely tenants including the glamorous Tanya Mallett (ex Bond girl), and Natalie (should have been a Bond girl) and now some of our family. We have plans to refurbish the house as a stunning holiday house and to this end a sunny terrace with amazing views discreetly enclosed behind a yew hedge will be a great asset.
On the market garden front the greenhouse is now packed with seedlings of chilli, peppers, spring onions, aubergine, lettuces of all sorts, rocket, spinach, rainbow chard as well as many, many pots of ornamental annuals, dahlias and cannas. The power failure was a worry at this crucial time but the weather was not too cold and the seedlings all tucked up in their propagators have, like us, survived the storms. We have put up our new polytunnel. Not a one-day job as the nice man on You Tube displayed but a three-day job for two men. I cannot now wait to get growing! Purple sprouting broccoli is now coming on nicely and lots of different salad leaves too so watch out in the shop for these.