January 2006

Hints and Tips for Winter

• Order seeds and summer bulbs for next season.
• Replan your garden and get ready to plant up your herbaceous in late winter/early spring. It is a perfect time to plant trees and hardy shrubs. Bare rooted hedging and trees should be planted between December until the end of March.
• See that all half-hardy shrubs are fully protected if the weather is cold.
• Wrap or cover plants in fleece to protect them from the frost.
• Finish pruning fruit and deciduous trees into shape.
• Shorten or tie in long stems of plants to prevent wind damage.
• Plant soft fruit.

Plants for Winter Interest

Top Tier
Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’ is the best tree to achieve flowers throughout the cold weather. It is available in white and pink semi-double flowers.
Cotoneaster x ‘Cornubia’ in tree form provides a good show of long-lasting berries.

Middle Tier
Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ has orange-red winter stems providing an attractive show. This variety also provided a fantastic display of fiery autumn foliage.
Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ is an evergreen shrub which will tolerate shade. It has yellow racemes of fragrant flowers.
Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’ is an evergreen plant which carries large clouds of red buds all winter. These open into white flowers in spring.
Viburnum tinus is one of the best winter-flowering shrubs with dark green leaves and fragrant pink-white flowers. The cultivar ‘Eve Price’ is a more compact form of Viburnum tinus.

Bottom Tier
Bergenia cordifolia or elephant’s ears provide a glowing red colour from their large, leathery leaves. Pink or white spring flowers appear from the different cultivars.
Helleborus niger the Christmas rose, is a lovely evergreen which produces white flowers from December to March. Other hybrid varieties like ‘Ashwood Garden’ provide the speckled markings on the flowers. Heuchera varieties such as ‘Purple Palace’ give a splash of purple foliage during the winter months.

Choosing Your Christmas Tree

Nordman fir (Abies nordmanniana)
This tree has light green leaves which are softer to the touch than the traditional spruce. This has become the most popular cut Christmas trees in recent years because of the capacity to retain its needles. People often refer to them as the ‘Reduced Needle Drop Trees’.
Prices range from £15.00 for a 4-6ft cut tree.

Norway spruce (Picea abies)
This is often referred to as the ‘Traditional’ Christmas tree. It has pointed, green needles and is the second best seller in Britain.

Other varieties that may be available for sale are; Scots pine, Noble fir, and blue spruce. It is also possible to purchase container-grown trees from as little as £12.00 for a 15lt, 1.20m high.

Caring for your tree

A cut Christmas tree will need regular watering if it is to last throughout the festive season. Here are some good tips to ensure they last the distance . . .

• To enable your Christmas tree to take up water, cut off the bottom 1cm of the main trunk after you have got it home. Stand it in a bucket of water outside in a cool but sheltered place and keep the water topped up.
• Once it has been brought inside, try and use a stand or bucket, which will still retain water. Position it away from sources of heat like radiators and fires and keep the water level topped up at all times.
• Freshly cut Christmas trees are classed as garden or green waste by local authorities and can be recycled at all household waste recycling centers. Often the local councils offer a collection date for recycling so watch out for information in your area.

As a rule, Nicholson Nurseries have the Nordman trees available from the first week in December.

Contacts
The regular "In the Garden" features for Monkey Magazine are written and researched by Cat Wilkins. If you have a comment, or would like to make a suggestion for possible future topics, please feel free to email her by clicking on this link:
Cat Wilkins