With the milder weather on its way and the first signs of spring-time now here, it’s great to get back out in the garden and begin to tackle the jobs that you will see the benefits of later on in the season.
Some jobs to be getting on with this week:
• Start to clear away last years dead foliage from herbaceous plants. It is always important not to do this too early in the season as it gives great protection to the crown of the plant over the winter months – but now is the time to clear it away.
• Tidy up pansies and violas. Over the harsh winter months, winter Pansies and Violas often shut down and stop flowering, but they will begin to start flowering again shortly. To give them the best chance of doing this, clear away the old dead flowers to allow the new ones to emerge.
• Believe it or not, now is the best time to plant hedging. If you are looking to plant a hedge the best way to plant it is from field grown bare root plants. These offer brilliant value for money and can be planted up until early March.
Plant of the week: Hamamelis ‘Arnold Promise’
This brilliant variety of witch hazel is looking at its best now in Scottish gardens. Hamamelis ‘Arnold Promise’ is a stunning bright variety which gets covered in sweetly scented flowers in late winter. It’s amazing how mature works as during really cold periods the flowers curl up and almost close completely to prevent damage from freezing temperatures.
It is 100% hardy in Scotland, looks great in a mixed shrub border, is very low maintenance and is also deer resistant. If all of that is not enough to tempt you, before it drops its leaves in the autumn, they turn an amazing shade of orange and give you a fantastic display of autumn colour.
Colin Barrie has been working in the gardening industry for more than 30 years and owns seven garden centres across central Scotland and is passionate about Scottish plants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here