GARDENS
GARDE N How does your GR O W?
ANNA TAYLOR, OWNER OF ANNA’S FLOWER FARM IN AUDLEY END, SHARES WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE GARDEN THIS MONTH
M arch has always been a pivotal month. With the vernal equinox, the days and nights are of equal length, tipping us over into spring. In the Roman calendar, March was the first month of the year, and in Britain until 1752, Lady Day on 25 March was the beginning of the legal year. It seems far easier and more productive to make new year resolutions now than in dark, cold January. The most changeable month, March is almost always windy. ‘In like a lamb and out like a lion, in like a lion and out like a lamb’ is an old saying that tends to be true – strong west winds bring rain, eastern northerly ones bring cold, while a southerly wind will dry out and warm the soil. Conditions will dictate what we can start doing in the garden. The tasks must wait if it is very wet and the soil sodden – otherwise, you can get out there, weed, prepare the ground, cut the grass and plant. Whatever the weather, the days lengthen, the sun is higher in the sky and March is one of the busiest gardening months of the year. While I am desperate to sow seeds, there are very few I do sow until later in the month or April. Hold off and I promise you will have bigger and better plants to enjoy in the summer. Remember those dahlias from my first column in November? Now we can get them out and start potting them up. We look for ‘eyes’, little growth points, and cut off all the tubers – if we don’t, they’ll come to nothing. Then we either pot up in large pots of multipurpose compost under cover (out of the frost to start growing before planting out in late May) or grow on to take cuttings. This is such a satisfying job and really marks the beginning of the growing season for us. To make lots of new plants from the precious tubers we loved from the previous year is so satisfying, and you can do this with your newly bought tubers as well. We lay tubers in shallow trays of soil with their necks and shoulders out, exposing
those growth points. We use heat benches (heat cables running through sand boxes) to encourage faster growth, as we want to create as many plants as possible, but you can do this on your windowsill inside. When you see a good, healthy shoot, you need to slice it off with a little piece of the tuber, then pot it, pressed into the side of a pot, to grow on. Don’t water too much and allow roots to drive down, creating strong new plants. These tiny cuttings will perform far better than last year’s tubers. Find a tutorial for this technique on our website and YouTube channel. In the studio, we will be using our first bulbs: narcissus, early tulips, ranunculus, anemones and fritillaries. Our fruit trees are blossoming, and new growth enables us to create fresh arrangements with our bounty. The availability of flowers and foliage to cut will from now on only get more bountiful. Welcome to spring. l
THIS MONTH Anna ’ s at Cambridge Distillery on 30 March, running workshops on making hand-tied bouquets and jam jar posies (for children age 5+). You can also order gin and flower bouquet packages for Mother ’ s Day. annasflowerfarm.com
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