The early March garden
March has arrived and the official start of spring isn’t too far off anymore. After a few cold, sunny days, we’re having some blustery weather with rain and strong wind predicted.
This past February and the start of March have been markedly cooler than the past two years, but I’ve been reminded that it snowed here in March 2018, and not just a little! After what feels like a long 2020-21 winter, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a March with more sunshine and no snow.
Here’s what’s been happening in our garden lately…
Tulips are continuing to emerge and grow in the ground and in pots. They seem to grow better in pots in our garden, so I plant the perennial types (the ones I grow just for the garden) in the flower beds and plant the double types that I use for bouquets in big pots. This also gives me the freedom to move the pots around to sunnier or shadier spots if I need to. Anemones (below, middle) are starting to push their buds and a few are even flowering. They’re always short at the very beginning of the season, but they’ll soon grow long stems, ready for some beautiful bouquets. Alliums are popping up everywhere around the garden! I planted lots of little and big bulbs over the past two years, because these are some of my favourite flowering plants and the insects love them too.
The earliest of the peonies is already a few inches tall (below, left)! Peonies are one of my absolute favourite spring flowers and seeing these is making me feel so happy and hopeful. I’ve built my sweet pea supports (below, middle), all ready for when I plant out the sweet peas which I’m hoping to do in the next two weeks. Hyacinths are growing at different speeds around the garden - some of the earliest ones are adding colour to the mossy lawn.
Primroses are waking up and flowering all around the garden - I just love the pink colour of this one (below, left). The row of daffodils next to our wood store is usually one of the first of the daffodils to come into bloom, and it looks like they’ll be opening in the next couple of weeks. They were growing here when we moved in, and I think I should probably divide them soon. This little patch of Muscari next to the daffodils always brings me a lot of joy - another gift left by the previous homeowner.
In the greenhouse, seeds have been sown and are germinating, larger seedlings are being potted up, and the dahlia tubers are sprouting nicely! Here are two tubers about two weeks after putting them on heat. Only one tuber isn’t showing any signs of budding yet - a variety called ‘Homey’ - and I vaguely remember it being slow to grow last year. I’ll give it a bit more time. Once the leafy shoots are a few inches tall, I’ll remove them from the mother tubers and transfer them to their own pots to grow on.
I’ll be back with another garden update in two weeks - maybe I’ll have some baby dahlia plants by then!
