Sunday 27^th December 2009

What a difference a week makes!  The days are getting slightly longer in case you had not noticed and where has all the snow gone?

The last week has seen temperatures drop as low as – 4 oC but the snow will have protected some plants from freezing. This is what happens in the alps where the temperature under the snow is warmer that the air temps so keeping alpines dry and frost free!

My garden looks a little sad after the snow and there have been a few casualties! A lot of plants look like they are wilting but that’s a natural reaction to severe cold and most will pick up as it gets warmer.

Some plants in my garden such as the Nerines and Schizostylus flopped over in the snow and will probably not recover however my variegated abutilon, bought for 50pence two years ago was brought down with snow but is still in flower!  I will cut it down shortly and mulch it with bark chippings in the hope it will survive another year. My banana plant is black but hopefully the stems and roots were sufficiently protected by the Hessian sacking I placed around them a few weeks ago.

It is definitely a time for looking at catalogues and four dropped through my door this week:-

Harrod Horticultural  Everything you have always wanted for the garden from pots, containers, planters, fruit and veg cages to raised beds. www.harrodhorticultural.com

DT Browns Classic Flowers Catalogue. Did you hear on the news during the week that the army are asking us not to send any more  parcels to the troops? Well if you still want to support the troops why not buy Sweet Pea Help the Heroes. For every packet of seeds DT Brown is donating £1 to the Help the Heroes Charity. The Sweet Peas come in a mixture of three colours to represent the forces, red, light blue and dark blue. More details from www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk

Dobies  Easy to Grow Plants   A large selection of plug plants from flowers to vegetables of every sort. www.dobies.co.uk

And last but certainly not least! Chiltern Seeds. No pretty coloured photos here of plants but a gem if you know what you already want. You can get anything from Cacti to annual bedding plants. There are not many seeds catalogues where you can get four varieties of Honesty!  www.chilternseeds.co.uk

So stay indoors and read your seed catalogues and plan the garden for the summer.

The trouble with buying a magazine to see what to do this week in the garden is the magazines are usually produced months in advance so can only guess what the weather might be like and in a magazine that came out this week they were talking about protecting plants from the cold but that’s too late if you have not done so already and of course some years they talk about possible droughts in the summer when this summer we had rain so keep listening in to Phoenix 98 FM www.phoenixfm.com every Sunday morning from 10 to 12 for your up to date latest things to do in the garden!

How’s your Mistletoe?

Would you like to grow your own?  Read this article for sure fired successes:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/howtogrow/3345933/Mistletoe-How-to-grow.html

This week the Daily Mail announced that bowel cancer patients had fewer side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy if injected with an extract of Mistletoe.  See the full article here:- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1238414/Mistletoe-new-branch-cancer-treatment.html

Finally I bought myself a present this week with a digital voice recorder. ( an Olympus WS-560M for all those of you who are technophobes!) I often see things I want to tell you about as I go about my week and forget to write it down and often on my travels meet various people who I am sure you would want to hear from so now I have NO excuse when I next see Christine Walkden or Peter Seabrook to get them to say hello!

Happy Gardening

Andrew