December is a month when the garden often takes a back seat, and when Pat deserves a break from helping you all with your garden jobs, so the CABAHS Committee have come up with a list of 10 Things that they are doing this month in, from, or for their gardens.
1. Prune Wisteria this month and next by taking all side shoots back to 2 or 3 buds. Very old plants may need severe pruning to show off the flowers.
2. Start pruning roses in earnest although some are still unbelievably flowering. Remove any foliage with blackspot and don’t compost. Old roses respond well to hard pruning so don’t be afraid, removing all dead and dying wood and cutting stems back to above a bud.
3. I had to remove dead Clematis shoots from a Daphne Jacqueline Postill and in doing so pulled off some of the flowers so take care and do it soon if you can. But leave the main prune until next month.
Continue reading Pat’s Jobs for January 20251. Prune Group 3 clematis (late flowering viticella types) now by cutting all stems back just above a leaf node starting from the ground up. Don’t be timid as they respond well. Then feed around the plant base with an organic feed making sure to avoid emerging shoots and mulch with compost.
2. If you have some, mulch your beds with homemade compost or leafmould. If you don’t have enough just mulch around your favourite plants.
Continue reading Pat’s 10 Jobs for February…
Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society 