Time to get in the garden (From Campaign Series)

Time to get in the garden

4:52pm Thursday 31st January 2008

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THE CAMPAIGN'S gardening expert Roger Crookes gives readers the benefit of his years of experience.

One month gone already....!

Now I don't wish to alarm you, but one month of 2008 has already gone, and do you realise that in little more than six weeks time it will be Easter!

During my happy years in Garden centres, it always amazed me how folks would stay away from the centre during February; often when the weather was nice, the plants looked great, the car park was empty and the staff available.

Then at about 10 o'clock in the morning on Good Friday, half of South Wales would all turn up together - and complain that the Garden Centre was always too busy and must be making a fortune!

So why not avoid the crowds and go take a look around your local Garden Centres and Nurseries this weekend - if nothing else you can get some fresh air and some ideas or inspiration for your garden this year.

Some plants you should find in abundance at this time of year are Primroses. They are one of the few 'bedding plants' which will be in flower this early, and can cope with quite a bit of late winter weather, and can usually go straight outside. So if you have some borders, tubs or even hanging baskets - which you want to cheer up with some instant colour NOW - instead of waiting until May, when all the 'summer bedding' will ok to go outside - go and get all 'Primrosed out' in your Garden.

My Beloved planted up this little tub with Primroses, and mini daffodils a few weeks ago; and for a beginner I think it looks quite good...!

Now is a great time to go pruning some (not all) plants in the Garden. Wisterias are one plant that can benefit from a good prune now.

"Why doesn't my Wisteria flower" is one of the commonest questions I get asked when I do Gardening talks around the country. I can understand people's frustration as Wisterias can take several years to start flowering - but once they get going they are gorgeous - as you can see from this photo (editorial please insert Wisteria photo 945) All you need to is cut back the new growth from last year (this will be the smooth paler looking twigs) to about 2-3 buds, which in practice means about 2-3 inches from the old growth - you leave the old 'wrinkly' growth untouched. This can be quite a drastic prune, which is what we want as it will hope fully 'shock' your Wisteria in to flower - good luck, please let me know how you get on.

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