It is mid April and spring has well and truly sprung here in Sheffield. Seedlings are rapidly growing all over sunny window ledges and in greenhouses; cold frames contain new plants to harden off ready to plant out, and the excitement of the season to come, creating a happy bubble around most gardeners!
If you feel your fingers aren’t exactly green, or that your garden isn’t feeling the buzz of spring yet here are some ideas to get you going.
Spring flowering bulbs give a wonderful display and return every year. Planting bulbs in the autumn is the most cost effective way to plan ahead for your spring colour, but you can also buy ready planted bulbs when they are in flower. They will cost a little more, but plant them out now in large pots or a border and you get to enjoy an instant display as well as knowing what will then return the following spring.
If you are canny, you might pick up dying off daffodils or tulips at the end of spring at vastly reduced prices. They may look a little past their best, but they will look fantastic again next year, when planted out in your garden.
Tulips bulbs are said to do better if they are dug up and left dormant in a sheltered dark place before planting out again the following autumn. But that sounds a lot of work for a reluctant gardener. Many tulip varieties have been bred for just one flowering to be used in the cut flower industry, so eventually the bulbs, if left in the ground, produce only foliage and not blooms. There are perenial varieties of tulip though, which will happily repeat every year. Look for words on lables such as ‘Perrenial’ and ‘naturalizing’.
A lovely pot would be a layer of tete a tete daffodils, underplanted with small ferns and violas. These plants can all be added to your garden at a later date and will flower in subsequent years. Keep dead heading your violas before the flower heads turn into seed pods and you will get flowers for longer into the season.
So get out there and for only a small cost and a bit of effort, you can start to brighten up your garden and reap the rewards year after year.
Sheffield Garden Angel 