‘Spring is the time of plans and projects’ Leo Tolstoy
This blog post was written in March, but the Blooming Old Gardener's blog assistant has published it late.
It’s the end of March and the beginning of spring and the garden is well worth a walk round, especially on sunny days. Large solitary bees are being seen in the garden again, being woken up by the sunshine. Luckily we have spring flowers full of nectar, ready for them. Other non-flowering plants are also lovely to look at. Our variegated shrubs and grasses give variety to the garden.
Our local birds are starting to nest. Some birds, like tits, make several nests. Then choose the one they like best. If you have a bird box in your garden you may notice that they peck round the entrance. If it’s the female doing this, it is thought that she is testing out how well the box has been built. So make sure you have made it well, as females are very fussy when it comes to house hunting. It’s a great time to listen to the spring songs of the birds too. Now is the time they sing to attract a mate and protect their territory. I’ve seen our regular robin and blackbirds throughout the winter. At least I think they are the same ones. How do you tell?
There’s a lot of work to do now that the winter is over (I hope). Shrubs to be cut back, weeds to be pulled up and dead plants to be composted. The garden needs a general tidy up too. So we will be gradually working our way round the garden, clearing away any containers that have been finished with and repotting some of the plants too. But there are fun things too, like painting replacement tiles for our noughts and crosses game and rearranging our dinosaurs. Something that our volunteer Heather has enjoyed doing recently.
The veg garden has cabbage plants that have over-wintered, ready to eat later this year. The broad beans have just been planted in one of the raised beds. And I pulled the first of our rhubarb at the beginning of the month. I love the first pink stems with apple in a crumble.
It’s spring, so following Leo Tolstoy’s idea, we have been making plans and thinking up projects. We have had our first planning meeting of the year. For a start, Bloomers are going to start meeting up in the garden again.
Our regular session is going to be the first Sunday morning of each month, 10-12 ish, but for this month only, it will be the second Sunday in April. So if you would like to come along and join us on 10th of April you will be very welcome. There will be extra sessions to prepare for special events too. For example we are planning a picnic and plant sale in the garden on Sat 4th June. So there will be an extra session on 29th May. Before that, we are supporting ‘no mow’ May, to allow our wild flowers to thrive in parts of the garden. We also have lots of plans for decorating the garden. It’s all very exciting.
The Blooming Old Gardener