THE MODERN MINT BLOG
People ask us what is our number one top tip for working in the garden in spring. It is not a simple answer, because there is always so much to do (the sap is rising) but we live by one tenet at this time of year…
KEEP ON TOP!
The ground elder, the nettles, the chickweed, the dandelions (all of these plants are edible by the way) – they seem to be flying through the borders right now, mixing themselves amongst the plants you want and making it more and more difficult to get in amongst it all and clear them out. A few brambles may be lurking too, peering around like meerkats on the savannah, choosing which way to grow up up up and then flop over, crushing your lovely delphiniums and iris.
It seems nigh on impossible to find the time to get through the borders – after all, every chance you have to get out in the garden is taken up with bad weather… or too good weather (meaning you have to spend extra time helping your seedlings with a bit of water) or it is a bank holiday and someone has invited you over for a long and leisurely lunch…
It is easy to be overwhelmed by gardening in the springtime.
But our top tip again comes to the fore, becomes a mantra, a silent prayer… keep on top!
Get out there through hell and high water. Get out there and get stuck in. Get out there and… don’t worry about being thorough. If you miss the odd weed that is hiding amongst the forget-me-nots then consider it a tragic irony, enjoy it for what it is, and know you need to do the important part now of getting the bulk done in order to have time later in the year to do it properly. Because you will get that time, when the first rush of growth has slowed down in a month or two, and all that flush of foliage becomes a concentration on flower instead.
It makes it sound easy, doesn’t it? Telling people not to worry about being thorough, just get it done. It is not easy though (and you know this!) Because you mustn’t be careless. You mustn’t rush, and crush the plants you do want to keep, or remove seedlings before you know what glorious flower they might become. Please bear that in mind, when you repeat to yourself ‘keep on top’.
That is our top tip then, for the work you do in your garden in spring – don’t shy away from it now, don’t be nonchalant or inattentive, because a hard, intense session of gardening now will reap rewards for you later on.
So keep on top!
EBTS Boxwood Growers Forum
Through the European Boxwood and Topiary Society I worked with Chris Poole and Sue Mesher, members of the EBTS board, and we set up a Boxwood Growers Forum. This was to discuss how to make sure this wonderful topiary plant stays in the public conscioussness – we know many growers, suppliers and distributors have stopped selling it as the cost of replacing boxwood that has blight, or is nibbled by the boxwood caterpillar, makes it unviable to offer to clients and gardeners. But Boxwood is a phoenix plant, and there are ways to deal with the problems associated with Buxus. …
Modern Topiarist @ Garden Masterclass Poland
My video on Modern Topiary for Garden Masterclass has been translated into Polish, for the keen gardeners (and happy pruners!) of Garedn Masterclass in Poland. Tickets for the first showing and q and a were available here. But it will become available on the Garden Masterclass Poland website at some point in the near future – so if you are a keen clipper and want to know more, but speak Polish and not English, then I suggest you visit the website and get watching. (Of course, if you don’t speak English, you may not be able to read this…. hmmm… …
Topiary Hotline
The European Boxwood & Topiary Society are to run a Topiary Hotline for keen gardeners and people who love to clip. Date is tomorrow, April 16th 2024, and you can get a ticket for the Zoom meeting here – Topiary Hotline. Run by Chris Poole and myself, we set this up as an antidote to the huge amount of questions we have to answer about topiary throughout the summer. The plus is that their is an excitement around topiary and pruning. The problem is we need to help people in a better way… … so we will be giving people …