Green Fingers: The avalanche of flowers is coming
'I like the long lead into the impending explosion of flowers in our gardens... I want to savour each moment as the flowers move from closed buds into fully opened flowers.'
We are in an in-between period as we can all see and feel that the winter is over, and while spring is not here yet, there is something quite peaceful about the garden, which might have a few flowers out here and there, including our welcome daffodils.
I am glad that we have a gradual move into our seasons and spring is no exception where there are buds showing life with a sprinkling of shrubs in flower, such as flowering currant, forsythia, camellia and viburnum.
I like the long lead into the impending explosion of flowers in our gardens, which will come from April onwards; for now I want to savour each moment as the flowers move from closed buds into fully opened flowers.
I think I would not like a sudden abundance of flowers to just appear after our winter.
Every year there is a new generation of people moving into their own homes and with it comes an opportunity to have some nice plants in their garden. These are the people who, quite naturally, when the warm weather arrives wish to pretty up their garden in the spring and early summer and they head out to buy plants, which usually means that they are in flower and they end up with plants that look colourful at that time and not later in the season.
In one way it is quite reasonable to have most of the colour then as that is when these new homeowners will spend most of their time in the garden but, as we have suggested before, it would be nice to include a few plants that flower outside those few months and extend the season of colour by including varieties that flower during the other nine months of the year.
Gardens continue to become smaller, especially in urban areas, and therefore space is limited so the choice of plants should be taken with care and possibly confined to those that give the longest colourful display.
Country gardens on the other hand are still quite large and therefore there is no restriction on the amount and variety of plants but, again, care needs to be taken on choice such as where to place the plants without spoiling the view or to make sure that the spacing and plant type suits the site. Conditions can vary from location to location, and a coastal or hillside would be treated differently to a warm sheltered site.
The choice of flowering plants during the spring months is enormous, and it would be quite difficult to decide what types to plant. I am going to suggest some suitable plants and you may have some already but there may be a few that you have not considered or come across before, and some have enough variations within the group that more than one would not go amiss.
Amelanchier (small tree), Azalea, Camellia, Chaenomeles (japonica), Choisya, Clematis montana (climber), Daphne, Erica, Hebe, Magnolia, Osmanthus, Pieris, Rhododendron, Rosemary and Spirea. Some perennials will include Aubretia, Arabis, Bergenia, Euphorbia, Hellebores and Pulmonaria.
There is an Irish tradition that says potatoes should be planted by St Patrick's Day and that is reasonable advice to indicate an approximate period for ‘setting spuds’. In practice, most potatoes, including commercial crops, are planted within 30 days after Patrick's Day as, quite frankly, the ground conditions are never the best before that date unless you grow them in a tunnel.
If you have any comments or queries you are welcome to share them with me on 051-384273 or orchardstowngardencentre@hotmail.com and if of general interest I will include them in a future article.
