Winter is busiest time for gardeners

By Matt Jackson Published: 7:45AM GMT twenty-two February 2010

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Previous of Images Next Matt Jackson slicing a tree Matt Jackson finishing the charge Yew hedges at Doddington Place Photo: CHRISTINE BOYD Arches are cut in to the Yew hedges to concede young kids to paly inside Photo: CHRISTINE BOYD Yew hedges lead down to the unsteadiness at Doddington Place Photo: CHRISTINE BOYD Another outrageous Yew sidestep Photo: CHRISTINE BOYD

Dripping with sweat, I switch off my chainsaw and set it down. It is 28F (-2C), there is 6 inches of sleet at my feet, and the 70ft larch that I have only felled lies in front of me.

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The charge leaves me utterly emptied and I find myself reflecting on a subject that I and my colleagues are mostly asked: "What do you do in winter, do you work piece time?""

When I think about made at home gardens I can assimilate because people wonder. There is no need to cut grass, pick up leaves or neat borders.

If not an zealous pruner, afterwards shrubs can be ignored, too. But for the veteran gardener, it is one of the busiest periods.

After a prolonged open and summer of maintenance, I find Sep is customarily the majority calm month. It gives me time to plan.

This winter was late coming, with amiable continue in to December, and the proposal plants still performing.

It left us a really parsimonious report in that to cut behind and neat the borders (yes I do it early), lift dahlias, bananas and cannas, plant 6,000 tulips, afterwards mulch prior to Christmas.

We would routinely have proposed this in October, giving us time to move on to winter projects, namely tree surgery.

With the borders tucked in underneath a low mulch, Yuletide was on us, and with it the snow! At 4 in the afternoon in early January, I counterpart by heavily descending sleet to where my co-worker is operative his chainsaw.

I am on the winch, watchful for his signal, and wondering if we will ever get a transparent run at this winter"s work.

Still confronting us is the planting of multiform hundred trees, together with lime, beech, ash, walnut and margin maple, each wanting a stock-proof guard.

The unfeeling grassed area is to have new lifted edges, with 10 tons of the own compost combined to lower and urge the shoal soil.

We have to lift the grown up tree metal cover in the woodland grassed area to revoke foe for shrubs. Those shrubs, together with hydrangeas, need pruning, and in a little areas mulching.

A territory of accolade that was grubbed out last winter and the dirt softened is to be planted with hydrangeas and perennials such as rodgersia and hosta.

The fallen grassed area is to have 4 new herbaceous borders where once there was lawn, and a new planting scheme.

Near the residence a new grassed area is to be created. The endless lawns will need scarifying, aerating and stuff oneself with an organic open feed, as that deteriorate begins.

And if that weren"t enough, the potholes that appeared after the initial layer need filling. The hothouse needs tending, seeds ordering, machine maintaining, and palm collection repairing.

I love winter, a time for creation permanent and really certain changes to a garden. So when I am asked: "What do you do in winter?"" I grin to myself and think of the list already forming.

Matt Jackson is head of gardens and estate, Doddington Place, Kent. (01795 886 101).

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