Issue 28The Last Word

THE LAST WORD
My Garden PlansSpring is just around the corner and we can see it everywhere if we but just look for it. As the hours of daylight extend ever so slightly, day by day, we will start to see that growth spurt in our spring bulbs and the sleeping perennials bursting into life. It’s always an exciting time in the garden.

I have to admit, like many of us, to be longing for longer, lighter days, just to be able to have more time in the garden. At this time of year, the garden to-do list seems never ending and sometimes the amount of jobs to get going with can lead to inertia.
I’ve got big plans to move the two large raised veg beds this year - well, that was actually a winter plan but it didn’t quite get finished as digging out enough soil to be able to move them proved to be a more labour-intensive job than the weather and hours of daylight allowed, but one is ready to be moved, and the other almost there. I’ve saved loads of cardboard over the last few months as a base layer as they’ll be moving to the side of the lawn and I don’t want to be digging up the grass unnecessarily. As an aside, I am looking forward to having less lawn, it’s been my secret plan for years.
As well as getting these raised beds moved, filled, settled, and planted up, I have the space they will vacate to design which I somehow have to seamlessly tie in with the existing flower borders in a kind of sinuous curve - and all before the weeds colonise the space when they sniff a patch of unplanted ground.
There’s also the creation of the new border started last year which is still covered with cardboard and carpet - more grass killing - to be planted up. I managed to get half planted before autumn so it’s time to plan out and plant up the other half.
These are just three of this year’s garden projects which I want to fit in amongst the regular sowing, growing, weeding, cutting back, pruning, and the mild panic to see if my dahlias have survived the winter. I am avoiding telling you the bits still to be cleared from the aftermath of Storm Éowyn as that may well put the to-do list, and my sanity, over the edge.
It’ll all get done, she says crossing her fingers and wishing on a shooting star, and I’ll feel all the better for doing it. With fresh air in my lungs, my hands in the soil, and the garden clearing my head, I’m away to grab my wellies and hoe!
You can follow our Editor’s gardening on her Instagram page to keep up with what she loves in the garden.
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