How to garden in January
How to garden in January
Jobs to do and not to do this month, how to build a raised bed, some show garden news, and some very special summer bulbs to buy now
Welcome to this edition of The Gardening Mind: I’m Jo Thompson, a garden designer, sharing all the gardening lessons I’ve learned along the way: how to design your garden, gardening how-to tips, visits to inspirational gardens and flower shows, plant advice, and much more.
It’s a bumper edition of The Gardening Mind this week: if you’re new here and wondering what on earth to do and how on earth to go about finding it all, I’m holding a Zoom just for you - you can find details at the end of this post.
I’m going to be showing you how to build a raised bed so that you can get cracking and sow some seeds - it’s so simple, and as ever, if I can do it, I promise you that you’ll find it a piece of cake.
In the meantime, have a look at some of the sections - for example, if you want to design a small garden, you can find ideas here. If you want to design a border, you can find our Border Planting Design course here. If you’re interested in plants and planting design, there’s a lot to browse through at your leisure. I’ll be showing you where all this information is and how to access it easily.
It’s crispy and crunchy out there - just crunchy enough to form a hard surface over the mud, which lulls you into a false sense of security. You put your weight on it and any illusion of skating over it is dispelled as crack, your boot thumps right through to the mud below. The ice isn’t even thick enough to take a dog’s weight, as Basil Labrador discovers much to his surprise every time any of his four paws hits the ground.
January is a month of contrasts
The grey days are definitely a staying-in and planning time, but then, right at the point when we’ve really had enough of all of that staying in, the skies switch on their blue. And as soon as this happens, as soon as there’s just about enough blue for a sailor’s trousers1, it becomes a bit easier to push ourselves out there, soaking up all that Vitamin D, breathing in the fresh air, blowing the cobwebs away. Whichever of these ways you use to describe Nature’s reward for stepping out into the cold, it’s a fact that the blue sweeps away the grey and hope flies back in. In these wintry days, we take the optimism where we can find it.
I can tell you exactly what I’m not doing, which is pretty much the same as February’s list from last year - keep off the grass as you’ll make one great big mess! It’s so tempting to go searching for the first signs of spring bulbs as they periscope up to check on the conditions, but restrain yourselves, for heavy feet on frozen grass won’t do any good at all.
This week, we’ve got a To-do list as well as a not-to-do; for new gardeners eager to get going with doing some actual planting, I’m also taking a look at how to create an easy places for all these seeds and bulbs.
If you’re new to gardening, at this point you might like to have a browse through all of the How To Garden section: it’s set out like a cookery book as I take us through the superskills necessary to create a garden, removing the mystery that seems to fog up gardening. Talking of mysteries, there’s a treat coming up in a few weeks’ time - a little bit of a Latin lesson! Don’t run away… I promise you, it will be a revelation and it will possibly even change your life a tiny bit.
Don’t run away if this looks too technical - as ever, I promise you that if I can do it, so can you. It honestly isn’t hard - it would obviously take you longer if you’re a perfectionist and use spirit levels and the like, but if you’re anything like me, slightly uneven beds are going to make you very happy indeed.
I’m also going to be taking a first look at the summer bulb catalogues as they start appearing through our letterboxes, and I'm drooling over two beauties in particular - by the way, you can also find some more summer bulb ideas from previous years here and here.
And to wrap up today, I’m telling you about the show garden design, whose progress I last week committed to sharing with you
I could have made life so easy for myself, couldn’t I? I could have waited until the end of March, when the garden was built, and just shown you pretty pictures instead. But oh no, I have to go and do something different and make life difficult for myself in the process, because doing the same thing just doesn’t sit well with my intention of always wanting to give you Gardening Minds something new.
I’ll be sharing the actual garden plan (I’m still designing it, so this is genuinely real-time updating as promised!) with you in the Zoom in just over a week’s time: you can find the details at the end of this post.
So, what is there to do in the garden this week?
I can tell you exactly what I’m not doing, which is pretty much the same as February’s list from last year: keep off the grass as you’ll make one great big mess! It’s so tempting to go searching for the first signs of spring bulbs as they periscope up to check on the conditions, but restrain yourselves, for heavy feet on frozen grass won’t do any good at all.
And if you forgot to plant tiny bulbs in pots near the house so that you could now in January see them easily without needing to go hunting the flowers, you’ll have another chance in the autumn. Tiny daffodils and other spring sparkles: in next month’s Gardens Illustrated I’ll be showing you some gorgeous bulb combinations next month in the first part of my new series on container planting through the year.
What you CAN be getting on with in the garden:
Do keep putting the bird food out. They need it.
The ground may be frozen, but when it softens up and it’s easy to dig a hole deep enough, continue to get those bare-root roses, trees and shrubs in. They love being planted at this time of year, when they’re dormant.
if you’re lucky enough to have a greenhouse, you can be sowing some seeds, including snapdragons and sweet peas: this is when those saved loo rolls come in handy as the peas seeds enjoy sending their shoots straight down. There are excellent how-tos here and here.
If you don’t have a greenhouse or plentiful windowsill space, then instead continue poring over/mulling through those seed catalogues, choosing your annuals - seeds that don’t mind being put straight into the ground from around March. But there are things you can be sowing now: I’m still popping in winter salad leaves every few weeks. And if you’re in need of flowery inspiration, take a look at the annual seeds listed in last week’s romantic plant collection.
Snow and frost can leave a bit of a mess, and there’s probably still quite a lot of tidying-up to be getting on with: hellebore leaves can be looking a bit straggly by now, and containers may need a bit of a manicure, so nip off dead pansy and viola flowers.These are good non-thinking jobs on those days when you just don’t want to concentrate.
Mend those fence panels and any feature that might have got knocked about in the wind. I’ve discovered I have some very wobbly pergola post and I really do need to get them sorted before we have yet another Storm with a Name, for I know exactly what’ll happen if I don’t.
Is your Christmas tree still lurking at the back door? Mine is, and shredding it is the next job. Did you know you can compost your Christmas tree - I chop mine up and put it in the hot compost bin, and then the trunk gets chopped up and piled up in order to create little wildlife habitats: the creepy-crawlies love it.
Or, you could eat your Christmas tree. I kid you not - it’s an actual book. With subheadings such as How to prepare your tree needles and Is this going to kill me, I’m not going to be trying this at home. But do let us all know if you decide to have a go!
Climbing roses - now is the time to prune them. Cut out the dead wood, look for those tiny little bronzey-red buds along the stems, and pull down and tie the stems horizontally where you can. The new shoots will emerge from those buds and grow upwards. Magic.
If you lifted your dahlia tubers in the autumn to store them, go and have a check to see they’re not completely dried out, as they won’t grow if they are bone dry. And also check they’re not rotting either. This faffing is precisely why I leave mine in the ground and hope for the best, as here in Southern UK there’s a chance they might come back, but you may not have the luxury of this slightly milder climate so I’m definitely not recommending that they get left in everywhere.
For the galanthophiles2 amongst you who have a hefty £15-150 to spend on ONE PLANT (Olive Mason, anybody?), the spring catalogues also have snowdrops in the green available - these are for planting right now. It’s worth a look just for a drool. For more reasonable prices, take a look here and here.
The bulb catalogues are so seductive, and let’s face it, armchair window-shopping is fun, so start having look at those summer bulbs - dahlias yes, but remember our gladioli chat? It’s time to look at these funny old love-hate plants - we’ve had fabulous chats about them previously:
This year, two varieties in particular have caught my eye:
Just look at these tones: moody pink-to-purple, a kind of crushed raspberry with hints of mulberry. A mouth-watering palette of tall velvety spires, sure to be a showstopper in your summer planting.