Planning your garden and looking forward
As January begins, our gardens are resting and tucked up from the cold winter weather. So as gardeners, what can we do this season?
The more we experience in our gardens and the more show and professional gardens we visit, we learn that planning ahead is key to a healthy, full and glorious garden. The winter is the perfect time to stake stock and review the year just gone, and plan the year ahead.
What did well and was a big success? Was there a plant that didn't do very well in your garden conditions? Do you wish you had added more colour or structure to your garden design? Make a Wishlist for 2022, filled with what you wish you had done in the last 12 months. Perhaps you have moved into a new home and are starting from scratch? Maybe you have taken out an area of lawn to make way for a vegetable patch, or you want to try and make your garden far more wildlife friendly?
We recommend getting a notebook or planner, so that you can keep notes throughout the year. It's a great idea to jot down any successes or failures. Don't get upset about things going wrong, learn from them and make the change next year. It takes a long time to really get to know our gardens and conditions, and we gardeners are always learning. It's great to visualise your ideas, draw sketches of changes you'd like to make, from little corners of the garden, to a birds eye view of the whole plot. You don't need to be an artist, a rough sketch, or even cut outs of flowers and plants from magazines will really help you to get a good idea of the year ahead.
If you want to remove plants from your garden, why not consider gifting them to friends and neighbours? What you think doesn't work with your gardening scheme, may be perfect for your neighbour.
Vegetable plots are a great way to get children involved with gardening, but they do need a fair amount of planning. Luckily, seasonally we stock many varieties of vegetables as seeds and lots of young plants, so you can get a head start. Herb gardens can be created in the smallest of spaces, from a single container to a windowsill.
Maybe you'd like to add more into your garden that encourages wildlife. A pond or water feature is a great place to start, as water will naturally attract wild birds, give them a place to drink and bathe. As well as hedgehogs, insects, frogs and newts. Wildflowers attract bees and butterflies, and plants with berries provide food for visiting garden birds.
Look into the seasonal planting times for your new plan, makes notes to visit us in one of our stores to make sure you don't miss out on that new veg patch or floral display. Here are our store locations!
Maybe it's time to update your garden tools? Is the handle of your trowel on its last legs? Maybe your rake has worked hard and is time for it to retire? We have lots of garden tools in our stores! Treat yourself to a fresh start for 2022.