6 EASY PROJECTS TO DO NOW!
Spend a sunny afternoon planting the FEEL-GOOD FACTOR in your outside space
BOX OF DAISY DELIGHTS
You can always rely on tough bellis daisies (Bellis perennis) for an uplifting splash of colour in late winter and spring. Plant them in any container, drilling drainage holes if needed. An old wine box is perfect, and cheap – TheWineBoxMerchant @etsy.com sells sturdy boxes for £5.
Pack in the plants as they won’t grow any bigger until the weather warms up, adding compost underneath and in-between the rootballs. Water well and again whenever the compost dries out. For lots more blooms, feed once a week from March onwards with a high-potash liquid feed.
SIMPLE SCENT BOWL
Oh snowdrops, how you gladden our hearts with your nodding heads! But did you know that some types boast a divinely sweet honey scent? It’s a delicate fragrance, so dig up a clump from your garden to pot up and bring inside to amplify and appreciate it.
Get down to flower level in your beds and sniff out your snowdrops to see if they’re scented. Some of the best for fragrance are Galanthus elwesii (which we’ve used) varieties ‘Atkinsii’, ‘S Arnott’ and ‘Magnet’.
You can use any container and if it doesn’t have drainage holes, simply pot your plants up using bulb fibre – if it does, use any ordinary potting compost. Give your lawn a quick rake and you’ll likely gather some moss to add a pretty layer over the top as a finishing touch. Keep the compost/ bulb fibre moist and, once the flowers have faded, plant the clump back out in the garden.
Garden joy SPECIAL
TIP Bellis daisies are happy in shade as well as sun so use them to cheer a gloomy corner
TACTILE TOUCH-ME CATKINS
3Want to fondle these fuzzy buds? We can confirm it’s a truly lovely experience! The flowers of pussy willow, Salix gracilistyla ‘Mount Aso’, open on bare stems in late winter and early spring so the soft and silky pink catkins stand up proudly with a silvery sheen, and it’s almost impossible not to give them a gentle stroke every time you pass by. And once flowering is over, the bluish leaves are silvery on the underside, forming a handsome backdrop to summer blooms.
It grows in a bushy shape to around 3m high, but can be kept smaller if you
