In the gardening world Easter is a great time for us, it seems to be that this is when our new gardening year really begins properly.
The days are getting longer, meaning we can now get outside in the evening.
Beechgrove Garden comes back on our television screens and there’s a more relaxing holiday atmosphere as most of us manage to get at least a few days off over the next couple of weeks.
Time for gardening
Combine all this with that bit of heat you can feel from the sun, at least when it comes out anyway, it all gets us in the mood for going outdoors and more importantly, doing some gardening!
Our garden centres and nurseries, well they are just packed full of gardening goodies now.
Seasonal bedding packs of pansies and primula, the young shoots emerging in the pots of early herbaceous plants including brunnera, peony and iris.
The roots of freshly potted trees and shrubs are bursting full of energy, like a coiled spring just waiting to discover and feed on the nutrients in the soil of the new homes we give them.
There are rows and rows, then if that’s not enough there are more rows of shelves containing seed packets of every vegetable and herb there is, for us to have a go at growing our own.
The hardy annuals
Don’t forgot those hardy annuals too perfect for filling gaps in the border such as the garden favourite, scented sweet pea.
And now is the best time to start growing under the protection of the indoors.
Packs of dahlia and canna lily tubers with warmed coloured flowers that will give our borders a touch of the exotic later on in the summer, are perfectly placed in the heart of the stores just tempting us to pick a few up.
Oh, don’t forget tools and equipment, all that you need and more for taking cuttings, dead-heading roses, edging beds, making new borders, sowing new lawns, harvesting rain water, setting up watering systems, propagating plants, making your own compost, BAGS of peat free compost.
Jings, if I’m not careful here I’m going to explode with excitement!
It may be Easter but for me and many other gardeners it feels more Santa’s grotto at Christmas time!
I may be getting over excited and a wee bit carried away but why not?
At the start of another growing season there is so much to look forward to in the months ahead.
It’s a profession for me and a pastime for many of you, we are united in sharing a passion for gardening, and the nurseries and garden centres that keep us supplied.
In my wee brain it feels a distant memory now, but really it has only been three years since we were all staying at home to avoid the Covid pandemic that swept through the world.
The result of this is also having consequences on our horticultural industry.
On one hand there were positives. With nowhere to go, many people remembered just what a garden could be to them; not just a place to park the car or a regular tidying chore, but an extra outdoor room to our homes.
Sadly, though we weren’t able to plant up our veg plots and new borders, we had the time to make or create colourful, seasonal containers as we couldn’t get out and visit the garden centres.
Effect on local growers
This had a terrible effect on our local growers who had just spent months growing on all these plants for selling to us for that specific time of year. So much income lost to them.
I must admit up until then I didn’t really get excited by spring bedding, preferring to be patient for a few more weeks until the big guns of my herbaceous and shrub plants started doing their thing.
Now I do look differently at these bright and cheerful primroses and make sure I buy a few packs each spring for a few reasons.
It helps support our plant growers who are growing good, quality plants locally. They are used to our climate and have more chance of surviving than those brought in from further afield.
I now concede I’ve been wrong for many years (only on this though Mrs C, I still think I’m right the rest of the time) and should have been buying them a lot sooner as they are actually a welcome addition to my early spring garden.
Finally, like we do the poppy in November, I now look on the primrose as a plant of remembrance of the Covid times.
As the 20m ‘rainbow of hope’ created on the historic Mound in Edinburgh’s Old Town by Scottish growers one year on from those hard times symbolised, brighter days will be always around the corner with gardening always there for us to rely on.
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