Toughing it out (From York Press)

Toughing it out

9:20am Saturday 11th February 2012 in Gardening By Gina Parkinson

GINA PARKINSON checks up on her snow-bound garden.

OUR gardens were returned to winter at the beginning of the week, covered in white after a thick fall of snow on Saturday.

We got up early on Sunday and did a circular walk from our house, down long Beckfield Lane and into Poppleton, picture book perfect in the foggy morning light, then back sunwards through Knapton.

Home again, our garden lost its morning mistiness as the sun rose and the sky cleared to piercing blue. It was too cold to stay out for long, droplets of moisture on my hair froze, but I walked its length pausing to shake the snow from laden conifer branches. Last year one of the trees split with the prolonged weight.

Early spring plants I have been popping out to see over the past few weeks are hidden under the snow. These tough beasties will survive the winter weather, as they always do, and as soon as the thaw comes they will be waiting flowers intact to give their show.

The Lenten roses have put on a good amount of growth since the old leaves were removed. I do this as soon as the flower buds begin to curl upwards from the soil, usually in the first or second week in January. Christmas lethargy is soon dispelled once back outside looking for jobs to clear the head and start the gardening New Year.

As the shoots stretch and strengthen, the flower buds that top them swell and by mid-February the first flowers have opened. These will stay for weeks, spotting the garden with colour and partnering the clumps of white snowdrops in full growth this month.

Despite being often the coldest month, February sees much stirring and growth in the garden as the days slowly lengthen. Colours are muted, white from snowdrops and Lenten roses and lime green on other early hellebores, with the cream and yellow of fragrant shrubby honeysuckle and mahonia.

These latter plants fill the garden with scent and on a sunny day will attract nectar-seeking insects stirred from their winter quarters by the warmth and fragrance.

Apart from shaking the snow from evergreens, it is best to leave the snow in the rest of the garden as it is. Most plants will survive and the snow will insulate them from icy temperatures.

Removing snow will cause a little thaw which could then freeze solid during the night, causing more damage to the plant. The long winter we had last year showed which plants can cope. We lost two ceanothus and a pittosporum, and most that came through last time should do so again.

Weekend catch-up

WHILE there is little to do in a garden beneath six inches of snow, feeding the birds will take the frustrated gardeners outside. Bread scraps and fatballs, seeds and nuts will all be welcome as these hungry creatures look for food.

Bread put on the lawn here last weekend attracted a large number of birds, more than we’ve seen for ages. Squabbling blackbirds were first to arrive, followed by tits who hung around on the nearby shrubs before picking their way to outlying crumbs missed by the larger birds.

We have a cat so we try to put the food out when she is safely indoors asleep, and always put it in the centre of the lawn where the birds have more chance of flying away.

Gardening TV and radio

Sunday

8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Seth Bennett and Joe Maiden.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. From Denbigh, where Matthew Biggs, Pippa Greenwood, Bunny Guinness and chairman Peter Gibbs meet members of the Cottage Garden Society. There is also a report from a nursery with a history of plant hunting.

Tuesday

9pm, BB2, How To Grow A Planet. Iain Stewart looks at ‘The Power of Flowers’ and their role in evolution. He tracks down the earliest flowers in the South Pacific and explains how they transformed the barren landscapes in Africa and Vietnam.

Wednesday

8pm, BBC2, Bees, Butterflies and Blooms. Sarah Raven continues her quest to encourage more habitats for pollinating insects. This week she looks at problems for insects in urban areas.

Friday

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chairman Peter Gibbs is joined by panellists Matthew Biggs, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank at Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria. Eric Robson visits the topiary garden at Levens Hall.

Saturday, February 18

7am, BBC Radio York, Julia Booth. Presenter Julia Booth explores Yorkshire’s great outdoors and holds her weekly plant surgery.