March

March and the daffodils should coming into in full flower, particularly given the mild end to February. The soil is warming up and now is the second best time for planting trees, shrubs and perennials – the best time is really the autumn when the soil is warmer and the winter rains help get hardy plants established. The downside of planting in spring is the need to keep new plants well watered during any prolonged dry spells.

It is also the time to cut down deciduous grasses, hopefully just before new growth starts, as well as other herbaceous perennials that have been left to show off their seed heads through the winter and to divide congested clumps of snowdrops and winter aconites.

If you have an area under deciduous trees that gets sun during the winter – this could be a flower bed under a large apple tree or maybe a small woodland area then it should look at its best during March and April with early bulbs and perennials forming a carpet of flowers. During the summer the leaves will form a green carpet under the trees.

Some plants which look good in spring, assuming it is a smallish area without the need for vigorous ground cover, include Anemone nemorosa, the native white is wonderful and the very pale blue A. nemorosa ‘Robinsoniana’ is lovely. Small daffodils also look good in this situation, try Narcissus cyclamineus or N. ‘Tete a Tete’ with the native pale yellow primroses. Epimediums – cultivars of E. x versicolor and E. x rubrum provide good ground cover in shade with attractive flowers. Pulmonarias prefer moisture retentive soil and normally have blue or pink flowers, most cultivars have attractive mottled leaves but P. Blue Ensign has gentian blue flowers with plain leaves. The gold leaves of Bowles Golden Grass, Milium effusum ‘Aureum’ will brighten spaces between the perennials.

Also in late March sow annuals direct into prepared soil – a good way to fill in sunny spaces in new beds and borders – consider cornflowers, nigella, Californian poppies, Shirley poppies and lavatera. Sow in short straight lines creating pools of each type, this makes it easier to weed and once the plants grow then the straight lines disappear. Be ruthless and thin according to the packet instructions!

CAF