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FOCUS ON QUALITY IN REVAMPED PLANTARIA
Emphasis this year in the redesigned and restocked Highway plantaria is on quality and choice. Container-grown shrubs, trees, perennials and other garden favourites raised on specialist nurseries are all top-quality and new season stock carefully overwintered. There’s a rich selection of newer varieties.
Think carefully before you buy plants. Find out whether your soil is acid or alkaline (simple testing kits available in the shop) and select plants that will tolerate your soil. Is it free-draining or heavy and wet? Improve drainage if possible and work in well-rotted organic matter to improve structure and nutrient levels.
Then think about the future. Top-quality plants will settle down and furnish up strongly, helped by regular watering in dry weather and regular feeding. Cheap offers are usually little more than rooted cuttings or young plants that could take several years to grow into any size and start flowering.
In Highway’s 21st century plantaria the best of modern shrubs will be available fully labelled with planting advice, and you’ll find benches overflowing with shrubs that grow well together.
Colour is not restricted to flowers. There’s foliage that offers year-round interest, and fruits and stem colours are a bonus. Evergreen shrubs and conifers in a mixed border offer a superb backdrop to flowering favourites, and it is no longer taboo to have colourful vegetables in the mixed bed or border.
You’ll find strong promotion of looking-good shrubs and perennials this year for planting in beds, borders or containers. Where garden soil is unsuitable for plants you want to grow plant in large containers into suitable compost. Such as rhododendrons and azaleas into lime-free ericaceous compost. Rhododendrons need shallow planting into slightly acid soils enriched with well-rotted compost/manure and mulched heavily after planting to retain moisture. Opt for the compact-growing yakushimanum hybrids for pots.
Herbaceous perennials slot comfortably into mixed borders providing more flower power, foliage colour and architectural interest. Lift and divide older clumps this month and replant the younger outer segments into fresh soil.
IT’S WISE TO WAIT
Millions of seedlings and rooted cuttings in cell trays, small pots and Jiffy 7’s are moving through the post to gardeners tempted by mail order catalogues and adverts. These have to be grown on in larger pots of compost in the greenhouse where temperatures should stay around 14-16 deg.C to encourage steady growth. Through March and April this adds to the cost and come May you could be wondering why you grew so many of so few varieties, and how much they really cost.
Highway Garden and Leisure no longer offer these young patio plants. Wait until later in spring before buying top quality, in-flower plants ready for baskets and containers. The Highway greenhouse benches will be a sea of colour from pot grown and six-pack geraniums, petunias, begonias, verbenas, diascias and many others. Buy only enough for your needs and you’ll find the cost surprisingly favourable.
SPECTACULAR PRIMROSES
Visit the large greenhouses where thousands of home-grown primulas in 9 and 10.5 cm pots splash colour like never before. Cold weather has strengthened the plants and you’ll find subtle new colours, fascinating doubles and flower size ranging from natural wild primrose to giants 3– 4 cms across.
Primulas thrive in cooler temperatures and good indirect light. Keep them well watered and pull off old flower stems as they fade. Sit several pots in a large, shallow pebble tray for a really bold display. Keep water in the tray just below the top of the marbles/pebbles and the humidity helps growth.
Use primulas in patio containers. Where plants were lost through severe frost or snow remove the debris, stir up the compost incorporating a modest dressing of controlled-release fertiliser (available in the shop) and plant up with colourful prims. Or treat yourself to a few new containers, container compost and new plants and add to your display.
Primroses are the favourite Mother’s day gift plant.
DAHLIAS AND BEGONIAS
The range of pre-packed summer-flowering bulbs on display under cover as you enter the Highway plantaria has again been increased. Dahlias left in borders over winter will probably be dead unless heavily mulched for insulation. Interesting new varieties are on display so winter losses could be a blessing in disguise, encouraging replacement by healthier stock.
Small tubers in prepacks have been specially grown, well able to produce strong flowering plants come summer. Buy this month and store cool but frost-free until time to plant (April/May) or pot up into multipurpose compost, water lightly and start into growth in the greenhouse. Pinch out strong leading shoots to encourage bushy habit and more flowers.
Start off begonias. Large, double flowered varieties look great in containers of free-draining compost in good, indirect light. Non-Stops are best for bedding or filling large patio containers, and a mixture of colours will create a spectacular display all summer and into the autumn.
Begonia tubers need warmth. The secret is to produce strong roots before leaves, so push corms, hollow side up, into the compost but don’t bury them. Water lightly and force the plant to send out roots looking for more.
PLANT LILIES DEEP
Later this month plant the first batches of lilies and gladioli. The bigger the bulb the larger the flower. There’s a wide range of varieties on display in the Highway Bulb Department with superbly-illustrated prepacks and special large lily bulbs for pots.
Lilies demand free-draining rich soils so work in horticultural grit and well-rotted compost/manure where you want to plant. Spread a handful of grit into the planting hole and sit the bulb on top of it, before filling in. Most lilies are stem-rooting (above the bulb) so plant deep enough. Depth will be indicated on the prepacks.
When snowdrops finish flowering, lift and split up large clumps and replant.
ROSE PRUNING TIME
Bush roses benefit from careful pruning. Prolonged cold weather has held up growth but well-pruned bushes will respond quickly to warmer spring weather. Treat yourself to a new pair of secateurs. Established H.T. bushes produce strong growth and probably larger flowers if pruned hard but it is wise to simply remove dead and spindly growth and prune back the strongest shoots by no more than one-third.
Floribundas produce more blooms over a longer period than H.T’s so do not prune so hard. Remove weak and inward-growing growth and trim back main shoots by no more than one-quarter.
Rake all old leaves and debris off the beds after pruning, remove weeds and apply a generous mulch of well-rotted manure or compost keeping it away from the main stems.
DON’T FORGET….
Seed potatoes, onion sets, shallots, garlic and full ranges of flower and vegetable seeds are in the shop. A wide selection of vegetable plants will be available as planting time approaches, and to meet demand, container-grown fruit trees, bushes and soft fruits will be available.
HAPPY GARDENING!
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