Will it ever stop raining? Oh yes it will and in no time at all we will be busy catching up, even if this very strange winter runs into early summer, maybe forgetting that we are supposed to have spring in between! In a recent conversation with another ‘old weather watcher’, he told me of a saying by his grandfather - “In a wet mild winter, when the rain stops there is going to be a drought because all the rain has fallen and there is no more left up there”. It is interesting to also note that the long term average rainfall rarely changes significantly, so, with over two thirds of our average rainfall already on the ground maybe he is right? One thing for sure: I think, with all the aquifers overflowing surely we can’t have a hosepipe ban! A very obvious casualty of the winter storms are our fences and hedges. Some will need replacing and any late plantings will need regular watering. Those hedges that were badly damaged should respond with a hard pruning to stimulate strong re-growth. Some of these hedges are also overgrowing adjacent pavements and now is a great opportunity to cut them back and keep them within their boundaries! We will have some frost this month, we always do, and maybe we will have a wintry shower or two possibly into April that could cause damage to spring bulbs and early soft growth. Even though we are going to be late sowing and planting, we need to take care and be ready to protect our vulnerable plants. We are not yet able to assess the damage to our wildlife but we can be sure that many species will have suffered. We need to take extra care not to disturb nesting sites and do our best to help to give them the best chance to recover. As soon as the ground is workable sow parsnips, early carrots, early lettuce varieties, spring onions, plant onion sets, shallots, start chitting potatoes, but wait until the ground is warmer before sowing peas and
0 Comments
I read a comment by a very well known gardening journalist a couple of weeks ago that now was a very good time to plant shallots and onion sets. She clearly lives in that special place where it never rains and the soil falls into a ready tilth at the touch of a fork! Please do not try this in Tatsfield until the end of the month at the earliest! Our heavy clay should be dry enough by the end of the month for light cultivation; trying to ‘hurry it up’ won’t work and will result in a real mess, so please be patient! When conditions improve you can start pruning some shrubs such as roses, Buddleia, Spiraea, Caryopteris and Hypericum. How many fragrant flowers do you have in your garden right now? What a lovely thing to be able to enjoy flower and fragrance in late winter – Mahonia, Hamamellis, Daphne, Lonicera fragrantissima, Sarcococca and many more – buy them now in flower and enjoy them for many years to come! When pruning and tidying up, make sure to check your larger shrubs to see if they have been moved by the high winds. Re-firming them by treading around before applying a mulch can make a big difference to their recovery after a tough winter. Trying to find out how much rain we have had and comparing that against the so called average rainfall is a bit of a tricky business. Sadly my own weather station is no longer working so I would be very interested to hear if anyone has captured our monthly totals from October to January. The Environment Agency tells us that a total of 14” of rain fell from October to December with 4” of rain falling so far this January already – these figures compare with an average of 9" for this period but this is not a reliable figure especially for our particular area – more on this anon! The series of winter storms combined with the heavy rain took its toll of our trees, fences and roof tiles. It is possible that evergreen trees and shrubs have yet to show symptoms of damage in the form of the characteristic ‘scorching’ effect. The wind was mainly from a southerly direction so the damage should be minimal. It is when it blows strongly from the east to north east that the damage can occur. If February is not a drier month and we have more wind, I fear that more trees and fences will come down as the ground is very wet around roots and foundations. Jon Allbutt (Tel: 577100 Email: [email protected]) |
|