This Month in Your Garden - January

You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind. Old Irish proverb

When we hoped we would put the tribulations of 2020 behind us here we are in a new year of restriction. On the other hand, many have got closer to their gardens and nature in these strange times. 

The January forecast says mild and wet followed by a colder February so rather than just thinking about what we might do in the garden there’s plenty we can get on with as the days lengthen and things start growing. 

If the ground is soft we can be out in the fresh air removing chickweed and groundsel, digging borders, adding compost and planting bare root roses and fruit bushes. Check young trees and stakes before and after the winds, prune late vines and recycle the Christmas tree by shredding it into mulch. 

Carry on pruning apple and pear trees, turn compost and clean the greenhouse if that’s a job not yet done. It’s last chance time for sowing seeds that need frost to germinate, such as native shrubs and trees. Asparagus can be sown under glass and you can begin forcing rhubarb. If you are driven indoors by the weather you can start spring by sowing annuals and bedding plants in modules along with chitting seed potatoes. You will find egg boxes handy for this purpose.

• Have your garden tractor, mower and power tools serviced if not already done
• Feed the birds
• Pot on sweet peas sown in autumn
• Sow begonias, pelargoniums, salvia and lobelia in the heated greenhouse or propagator
• In mild areas lift and divide herbaceous perennials
• Take root cuttings now such as of poppies, phlox and Verbascum