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Gardening ace Alan Titchmarsh tells Mirror readers how he was preparing for the ‘manic’ days of Spring – and his first job is to tackle an overgrown boundary which was ‘encroaching on valuable planting space’
A few days of bright sunshine this week inspired a thorough examination of my garden because once the growing season gets underway around April, everything becomes manic.
In my head a list of jobs starts to accumulate, some of which I never get round to. My garden is over 10 years old, so when the sun was out I decided to tackle the projects that had been on the long finger.
One boundary had become very overgrown and was encroaching on valuable planting space as well as blocking out the light. In the autumn I had taken the decision to remove a large willow which had opened up a substantial area. Reluctantly, this week I also made the decision to remove two Sorbus aria trees which didn’t have enough room to flourish. Sorbus are great trees for wildlife with lots of nectar producing flowers in summer and tonnes of berries for birds in winter.
A good replacement might be our native Euonymus which has such beautiful pink and orange fruit in winter, as well as great autumnal foliage. I’ve also being doing a reassessment of the ‘ordinary’ shrubs left behind by the original landscaper. I’ve cut back and removed a lot of forsythia and ribes, as well as a light- blocking thuja. However, there are some plants worth keeping such as the Griselinia littoralis, a New Zealand native which has fresh lime green leaves.
Stripping the stems of branches and just leaving the top layer revealed an elegant, small, multi-stemmed tree. Stripping also works well for overgrown photinia, Prunus laurocerasus and Viburnum tinus.
Winter is a good time to do these jobs because the deciduous shrubs aren’t in leaf so it’s easier to see what you’re doing. The garden is at its barest with all the herbaceous material asleep. It also means you will have less material to get rid of.
As a lot of this is twiggy stuff, I’m hiring a shredder for the day. This will then break down more quickly in the compost heap and produce a finer, more useful product. And so to my long awaited project – building proper compost bins. For years I’ve just had a growing heap but it’s hard to manage and turn over.
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With two or more bins, it will be easier to control. As one lot of garden material becomes well decayed, it can be moved to the next bin, allowing fresh material to go in the first bin. With smaller gardens, one plastic composter is probably a more practical option. Composting is a natural process but there are ways of speeding up the process in addition to shredding.
Keep some twigs for the bottom layer because that will help aerate the heap. A good balance of brown and green material is important. Green means wet materials such as grass clippings, weeds and veg peelings which are high in moisture and nitrogen content.
Brown material is dry elements like cardboard, twigs and paper. These are high in carbon and you should aim for around three times more brown than green which should stop the compost becoming slimy and smelly.
Turning your heap will add oxygen which speeds up the process as well. The resulting compost can be used in a number of ways. Dig it into your soil as a conditioner – this will help aerate heavy soil and add bulk to sandy soils.
Use as a mulch to suppress weeds and feed shrubs and herbaceous materials. You can also use it as potting material too. If you think it’s too coarse, put it through a sieve which will produce a finer material, and return the coarse twiggy bits back to your compost heap to carry on the process of being broken down.
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