Longer days, lighter mornings: I for one often associate “spring”with warm April or May days, when blossom is out and you might even risk a t-shirt, but early March reminds me of how much is happening now, and how much is at stake for the other inhabitants of this space. Every day sees vicious turf wars amongst the blackbirds, with males attacking rivals to protect their patch. Sometimes they appear to gang up - a cacophony outside the kitchen door last week signalled three males attacking one hapless individual whom they had pinned down between the wall and a large terracotta pot. Always wary of over-anthropomorphising, but you’ve got to wonder what he had done to warrant three bullies picking on him. When they finally finish fighting, blackbird song fills the dusk - they appear happier to perform at the close of the day rather than the start. Wood pigeons are also about their business with their customary noise and clatter, crashing about on branches as they spar, and erupting from roosts when you least expect it. The ducks whose erratic parenting kept us preoccupied last spring are also back, house-hunting around our old pond to one side and our neighbours’ on the other side and making a great to-do in the backing and forthing over our roof every morning and evening which that entails. Just as last year, the duck has two drakes in tow, one favoured and one awaiting his chance, both identical in their gleaming emerald caps and sapphire-stamped jackets. Mallard no 2 will have to bide his time: the duck has just started re-appraising our old planter in which she hatched a fine brood last year, so whether he intends to despatch his opponent’s offspring when they hatch or appropriate her - or both - he will have to hang around for almost a month to do so.
Back in the beds, spring tidying continued, revealing all the weeds that had snuck in under cover of last year’s foliage. At this point old stems and leaves can be cut back, at the risk of evicting some sleepy ladybirds, to allow light and space for the tiny new leaves starting to emerge. Grasses require different treatment depending on their variety - some are annual, some deciduous, some (quasi) evergreen - and for the latter, the best option in spring is removing the dead stems. This may sound logical and straightforward but if you simply pull, you risk detaching the fresh young growth as well, so in the search for the perfect tool I came across the mini-rake - intended I believe for titivating small-scale areas like Alpine beds, but in effect a giant comb, and as such, perfect for grass-coiffing. The two large varieties I have currently (giant oats/stipa gigantea and calamagrostis “Karl Förster) are now freshly styled and ready for the new season, and even the softer more delicate perennial quaking oats (briza media - not to be confused with the annual briza maxima) benefitted from a quick comb through.
Mulching is one of the less glamorous but essential jobs in the calendar, and not one I had ever engaged in previously in my brief pre-Gulf gardening life. Mulch is essentially organic material applied in a layer on soil and around plants, and what you use depends on what you can get hold of and/or afford, and also the target of your mulching. The image most people have is of their parents going to any lengths to obtain well-rotted horse manure for those much loved formal rose beds; as owners of those equine poo producers, I can testify to a steady stream of my parents’ friends arriving at our gate in early spring armed with spades and sacks, only to depart an hour or so later with backache and hitherto immaculate cars smelling richly of the countryside. Mulch does not have to be nutritious: it is used also to suppress weeds and to retain moisture in beds as the warmer weather approaches. Spent mushroom compost has been a favourite in more recent times, though I am now regretting my order for three huge bags having read about its peat content. Home made compost is preferable, though many people do not have space to generate enough for their gardens, and here we are too early in the composting process to have anything like the quantities required. Mineralised straw is a fine option which I used this year, especially where you want something lighter, and we also have an enormous heap of wood chip, which while not very nutritious, will serve as a good moisture retention layer. Very happily indeed, straw and wood chip seem to deter both pheasants and rabbits from their eternal Olympics in and around the fruit bushes, although nothing can protect the yellow crocus from shredding by the pheasants. Apparently they are seeking carotenoids, which birds are incapable of making for themselves - go seek a carrot, I say, and leave the early flowers to the bees who really need them. Back to mulching, and conscious of how the majority of the new beds from last year are sun-baked south-west facing, I calculate that a back-breaking week spent barrowing back and forth will be rewarded later in the year. There is also something satisfyingly professional about seeing your plants snugly surrounded, even if that comes at the cost of highlighting just how scruffy everywhere else in the garden now appears.
New planting also continues, though I have yet to start any seed sowing. Last year blackcurrants and raspberries did well, and so I have added white currants, red currants and out of curiosity, and as almost an inevitable colour conclusion, a couple of pink currant bushes. Neil has ordered a batch of vegetable seeds, and there are potatoes chitting in the cool of the utility room. I am still waiting on my big order of dahlias and summer bulbs, and a dozen each of hardy geraniums and sedums (I am with Claire Austin on this and refuse to call them hylotelephiums) are sitting awaiting planting out. I am anxious about putting in copper beech whips for the new hedging in the middle of May when the contractors start the next phase of landscaping, aware that early death awaits them if it is anything like as hot as last year, and so are looking at buying soon and potting up to have them on standby. The plant plans for those new beds need to be finalised soon too, with my ideas of herb beds and more traditional cottage garden-type schemes a world away from the fire and dazzle of the terrace. Sometimes when all those plans need some percolating, the wood offers a calm green haven, though not without its excitements too - the first evidence last week that the ransoms (wild garlic) or “squids” as Neil christened them - which we planted last autumn have germinated. Proof that sometimes a little benign neglect is just what is needed.
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