START THE NEW GARDEN YEAR WITH A SMILE
Gardening is well known to be good for body and soul – it keeps you physically
active and is a natural mood booster – and sometimes it’s the simple things
that bring a smile to the face. Watching bumblebees in early spring, digging up
potatoes (one of life’s great adventures!) or catching the scent of sweet peas
on a summer’s afternoon can make your garden or outside space into a place
of natural contemplation and joy.
Research carried out at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2022 identified the top
three plants in the UK that are most likely to put a smile on your face – Lily of
the Valley, Sweet Pea and Jasmine – so they might make good additions to
your garden or containers this year. Lily of the Valley is a great choice for
shady area ground cover, but can be toxic to pets so be careful where you
plant it. A good alternative at this time of year could be the tenderly fragrant
snowdrop.
Galanthus ‘Atkinsii’ is one of the earliest flowering snowdrops. Honey scented
and loved by pollinators, this snowdrop flowers in January and February and is
a vigorous grower with distinctive long and slender outer petals. Each inner
petal has a green, heart-shaped mark at its tip. Planting snowdrops in the
green is the most successful planting method. Simply lift snowdrop plants just
after flowering and before the foliage has turned yellow, and replant
elsewhere. You can buy snowdrops in the green from garden centres or online.
They like well-drained soil in light shade – but if you have heavy soil then add a
little grit to the planting hole. Once snowdrops are established there’s no
maintenance required – just let foliage die back naturally to ensure the
nutrients from the leaves are returned to the bulbs and divide established
clumps every few years.
Another fragrant plant that also provides great ground cover and is robust
enough for UK winters is thyme. A compact evergreen shrub with small
aromatic leaves thyme (Thymus) is easy to grow in a warm, sunny spot, in free-
draining soil or in containers. It’s also drought tolerant and needs little
maintenance once established. Known widely as a culinary herb, thyme has
been used in complementary and alternative medicine for centuries. A thyme
herbal tea infusion can help soothe sore throats and relieve coughs thanks to
its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.
A lot of the jobs for January are preparing the garden and plants for the
growing season to come. Here are top tips for the month from the RHS:
Prune apple and pear trees
Clean pots, greenhouses and cold frames ready for spring
Keep an eye on watering house plants
Plant now to boost the winter fragrances in your garden
Keep an eye on figs and olives – guard against frost by fleecing in frost
Plan you vegetable crop rotations for the coming growing season
Keep putting out food and water for birds
Summer bulbs, seed potatoes and onion sets are available to buy mid
month
Prune soft fruit bushes eg currants and gooseberries, plus autumn
raspberries
And finally …
“The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may
look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are
getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks
before we become aware of the change.” Vita Sackville-West
