March Garden Update
Take Things Always By Their Smooth Handle
One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges. A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.
Aldo Leopold, A sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There, 1949
I recently came across Thomas Jefferson’s Canons of Conduct, in which he advises the reader on matters of behaviour. I was particularly struck by his advice to ‘take things always by their smooth handle’. It’s a peculiar phrase that once unpicked urges one to take the route that offers the least resistance but delivers the greatest benefit, and it occurred to me that this is increasingly how we approach our work as gardeners. I had this phrase in my mind this week as we were cutting back a big herbaceous border. When doing this, my preference is to chop everything into small pieces and leave it either covering the soil or piled up along the back of the border. This saves time and means we don’t use diesel carting it all away and then back again as compost once it’s broken down; it instead breaks down in-situ to improve soil structure, and covers the soil to prevent weed seeds germinating. Thinking logically, the best thing for a plant – whether it is a large tree or an herbaceous perennial - will be for it to mulch itself with it’s own detritus and so we are supporting this rather than hindering it and making additional work for ourselves. Additionally, these piles and strewings provide cover for myriad invertebrates which support many other birds and mammals – just this week I have seen evidence of hedgehog activity in the garden.
In the interest of balance I will say that there are drawbacks – I cannot pretend that it’s as aesthetically pleasing as beautifully tickled over soil, but in a few weeks’ time it’ll be completely covered by emerging foliage. It also provides cover for mammals such as voles, which can be considered garden pests but are realistically now just a part of the garden ecosystem. Voles are known to eat bulbs and tubers and so we can’t plant those in certain areas which is a shame, but it does mean I sometimes see the barn owl gliding silently over the grass in the early mornings, and I know which one I’d choose.
The borders and pots where we do brave the voles and plant tulips are bursting into life, and daffodils are ramping up now. This is all despite the unseasonal chill, which, to be honest, has been a blessing because it’s meant we can have a couple more weeks to catch up on the last winter jobs. These have included a bit of rose pruning here and there and cutting of the large Acer campestre hedge before the sap rises. We’ve similarly been harvesting birch, beech, and hazel poles from estate woodland to make plant supports, which are just so much nicer and more sustainable than bamboo. Over the next few weeks we’ll continue seed sowing and gingerly start pricking out those that have already germinated from last month’s sowings. We’ve got a lot of dividing and planting of herbaceous material to do, to fill up our newly emptied and edged border, as well as some exciting new things to plant. I’ve been potting up Dahlia tubers that, against my usual advice to leave and mulch, I did lift because they were very small and grown from expensive seeds. These are now happily sprouting away in the heated propagator and will be potted on once or twice before going out in summer. Lastly, I am dreaming of installing some training wires in the NW corner, to tidy an unruly but beautiful climbing rose/Clematis combo before they both start rocketing away.
I’ll round up this overlong update to say thanks to everyone who came along to our Snowdrop Weekend, we raised a nice amount for MY Name’5 Doddie Foundation and the sun even graced us for a while. The next event in the garden calendar is Rosemains Spring Market on the 29th of March, where we’ll be selling posies, daffodils, snowdrops in the green, and blossomy branches so you can take a bit of garden magic home with you.
Kate