As the primary month of 2022 attracts to a detailed, I sit at my desk reflecting on how unseasonably calm and dry the climate has been. It has hardly rained in any respect in Broadstairs, and solely the gentlest of breezes has ruffled the floor of the ocean. This final weekend has been significantly magnificent – heat on Saturday and chilly on Sunday, however as uplifting as any high quality days you’d expertise in March and even early April. Day after day we’ve loved a sequence of dazzling sunrises and moody sunsets that Turner would have relished. We’ve additionally had mist and thick fog, which is extremely uncommon. For all of the years I’ve lived right here, I may depend the variety of instances it’s been foggy on one hand.

At this time, I’ve needed to water each gardens with a hose. I felt completely ridiculous, however the floor was bone dry and crops had been drooping left, proper and centre. It needed to be carried out, albeit sparingly. A couple of hours later, the whole lot seemed a lot happier and more healthy. In case you backyard in pots, it’s particularly price checking on evergreens and bulbs as these will endure if allowed to dry out for a protracted interval. And, maybe opposite to your instincts (mine definitely), a well-watered pot is much less more likely to freeze strong in chilly climate. Waterlogging needs to be prevented in any respect prices, so a reasonably gentle sprinkle will usually do the job. Watering nicely is a ability that takes a few years to grasp.

It’s a silly gardener who could be fooled into considering spring had arrived early. The primary ‘Beast from the East’ struck in late February 2018 and stored us in its icy grasp via a lot of March. The second, in 2021, began in early February and lingered till Could, catching many optimistic souls off guard. (The rising yr didn’t actually start till June after we nonetheless had daffodils in bloom.) Nonetheless, what’s marvellous a few dry January is that it helps you to get on with work that may in any other case have to be delayed till March. If the bottom is dry sufficient to be walked on, it may be dug and weeded. Crops might be pruned and tidied and we don’t have to wash clods of earth from our wellies afterwards. These are excellent situations for planting bare-rooted timber and shrubs, or, heaven forbid, any tulip bulbs which have but to discover a residence.

Visiting our native nursery to buy gravel and take a look at the vary of seed potatoes on supply, I chanced upon a brand new supply of bare-rooted timber. I instantly pounced on Acer pseudoplatanus ‘Simon-Louis Frères’, a variegated sycamore which we noticed rising within the woodland at Bonython Gardens in Cornwall final September. I’m fairly conscious that the splishy-splashy, strawberries-and-cream foliage impact gained’t be everybody’s glass of milkshake, however it’ll add a distinct dimension to the Gin & Tonic Backyard. We’ll coppice it yearly to maintain the tree small and the leaves large. A second specimen was bought for our expensive pal who provides us with horse manure every spring. Being a sycamore it’ll do nicely on her heavy Kentish clay, however have to be refrained from the livestock because the keys and leaves, if ingested, may cause a deadly sickness.

 

An excessive amount of heat isn’t the perfect factor for decimating pest populations, but it surely does supply bees the chance to get out and forage. Solely at this time I noticed a number of bees looking for flowers on the allotment. There are only a few to be discovered, though I did spot a solitary white plum blossom on a neighbouring plot.

It’s now extremely noticeable that birds of all species are claiming their territories. There’s frantic noise and chatter as every defends its invisible boundaries. At this time, the Beau identified a wren making a sound like a really shrill machine gun. The day earlier than it was Jackdaws noisily organising themselves in a close-by tree. I am keen on blackbirds with their yellow beaks and piercing, dusk-time trill. And but, so few birds go to our allotment plot. Maybe it’s just too open, or Mr Findus, the allotment cat, is simply too terrifying. It’s a pity, as I discover robins the easiest of gardening companions and now we have none.

Again at The Watch Home, Narcissus ‘Spring Daybreak’ is flowering fantastically. Bulbs had been planted in pots again in September and so they’ve not held again, blooming forward of the narcissus named ‘January’, and in any other case generally known as ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’. As soon as established, each cultivars are able to flowering earlier than or at Christmas and are subsequently very nicely price in search of out. In the meantime, Anemone blanda is beginning to emerge from the patch of gravel within the Gin & Tonic Backyard and Crocus ‘Orange Monarch’ is beginning to present color.

Will February be as dry and balmy? Unlikely. February might be one of many cruellest and coldest of months. The distinction is that now, with a lot completed, we are able to afford to spend the occasional day having fun with that the majority snug of pursuits – armchair gardening. TFG.