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Winter evenings are among my favourite times. There’s an hour at dusk when the wind drops and it’s impossible to go indoors, there’s always one more thing to do. Only the sight of the Southern Cross is enough to drag me away, first the two pointers, then the great Cross itself, the smallest but brightest constellation in the firmament.
My romantic musings are invariably interrupted by the horrid realisation that the dogs are barking for bones, we’re dreadfully low in dry kindling and I can’t immediately think of what to have for dinner. From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step, as Napoleon remarked during the 1812 retreat from Moscow.
Winter is the best month for planting anything bare-rooted. It is much cheaper to buy shrubs and trees that have had their soil removed than ones growing in pots, and nurseries always carry a good range in winter. The same applies to roses, but get in quickly as bare-rooted stocks are soon snapped up.
Ideally you plant everything straight from the boot of the car, but if you’re like me and don’t get around to it until the weekend, heel in your purchases (i.e. cover their roots thickly with sawdust or leaf mould), and keep them damp.
Midwinter is a good time for moving evergreen shrubs. Gardens aren’t carved in stone; if you’re unhappy with a plant in a particular spot, shift it. Make sure you get as much root as possible when lifting, dig a nice, large, new hole, and reduce the leaf canopy. Moving plants disturbs their delicately calculated proportion of root to leaf, and you need to restore the balance.
Winter is also an ideal time to take hardwood cuttings. Lengths of up to about thirty centimetres can be planted in a sheltered corner, or in a box in a mixture of half-and-half grit and potting mix. A hormone cutting powder speeds things along and produces longer, stronger roots. However it must be fresh - if it’s old it’s useless - so check the use-by date when buying.
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One of the flowers I love most is the fabulous, scented ginger lily (Hedychium gardnerianum). Unfortunately it does not love me, it prefers damp summers and mild winters. It flourishes on the coast, but here although it grows - just - it refuses to flower.
No one agrees on the right size for an asparagus bed, but all agree about good drainage. Build a raised bed if necessary, in full sun, surrounded by whatever is handy – bricks, stones, railway sleepers if you have them. Loosen the ground as deeply as you can and build up the bed with grit, wood ash, straw, manure, compost and blood-and-bone.
Alternatively, dig a 30 centimetres deep trench and incorporate organic matter as you go. I won’t pretend all this digging isn’t hard work; just remind yourself that your asparagus bed is going to last FOR EVER.
The only way round this if you live in a frosty part of the country is to treat the plant like a dahlia and dig it up in winter. Cut off its stalks and store the long-rooted tubers in a shed, in a large box with drainage holes (I use a polyfoam fruit box), in damp sawdust or compost. You can brush each tuber with fungicide powder if you can spare the time . (and find the fungicide).
In spring, when shoots emerge from the ‘eyes’ of the tubers, you split and replant them. Don’t do it earlier, they may rot. Mine go into a big pot in a sunny, sheltered corner, and with regular watering they flower for several weeks.
If you have rich soil and summer rainfall you can plant them in the garden, but not until the last frost is well and truly over.
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Another useful June task is to make an asparagus bed. Asparagus is a plant that, like the ginger lily, repays you a thousandfold for the effort put into growing it. It is a long-term proposition, three years from crowns, four from seed, but once established you have it for life. Its taste is incomparable and best of all, it’s easy to cook.
20 crowns are enough to start with, you can always add more later. Plant them about 15-20cm. deep, at least 45cm. apart.
The bad news which I have left to the end is that for best, long term results you faithfully feed, weed, water, mulch and cut down your plants in autumn but you don’t eat them for a couple of years. You can then harvest them for one month; wait another year before letting loose altogether. This allows them to build strength for the future.
Ideally you cull female plants (the skimpier, berry producing ones) or you will be plagued by seedlings, but this may mean ordering more plants to replace them, some of which will inevitably be female - this could go on forever - you might not want to bother - just pot up the seedlings, you’ll be incredibly popular with the people who run the plant stall at the local fete.
If you have heavy frosts but love Louisiana irises, they’ll need moving to a sheltered corner in winter. For most of the year mine grow in pots in a pond, where they flower in November, but I put the pots in a plastic washing up bowl filled with water and put it in a sheltered corner for winter.
Raking leaves is another winter job. For years I was never sure if it was easier to leave them until they had all fallen and then collect the lot in one backbreaking session, or rake them every day as they fell.
Then one year we went on holiday just as they began to turn and when we returned most of them had simply vanished, leaving me with no leaves for the compost heap. So now I rake as I go.
Lastly, winter is the time to plant some Christmas lilies (Lilium longiflorum) in a pot. Even a few produce a wonderful display and they honestly couldn’t be easier as long as you never let the bulbs dry out |
