Happy New Year – here’s to an exciting year ahead and watching the gardens change as 2020 unfolds. It’s a great time to plan how to make the most of your garden this year. Landscaping jobs and new planting areas can be identified for the coming months. Now is a good time for garden tidy-ups before the growing season. For structure and definition in your garden, bare-root hedging can be planted up now. Skimmia and cyclamen give winter splashes of colour against the winter landscape of bare stems and leafless trees, which are in themselves quite spectacular in their intricate structure.
Plantwatch
Look out for…
Viburnum tinus ‘Eve Price’ – delicate evergreen shrub with pretty white and pink flowers
Cornus – stunning red, orange, yellow winter stems such as Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ and Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ red-barked dogwood
Trees – everywhere you look! Admire the dramatic beautiful branch structures of trees without leaves before the first green shoots appear
Good time to…
Cut back and prune shrubs
Dig over beds
Put out water and food for birds
Gardens in the news
The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch is back, running from Saturday 25 to Monday 27 January. See their website for tips on attracting birds and how to be part of the nationwide survey of our feathered friends.
An interesting solution to reducing pollution in London: City Trees – moss-covered artifical trees – have been installed in east London to help soak up pollution, a small but beneficial way to start improving air quality.
And in a new year when we are resolving to make new habits and live healthier lifestyles, here are some interesting ways to make greener and more sustainable choices in the city.
Plant Fact – Foxglove
• Digitalis is the name given to a variety of perennials and shrubs known as foxgloves
• Foxglove purpurea is one of the most common ranging from purple to pink to white
• Digitalis is mainly toxic although the medicincal properties can be used for cardiac issues
Company news
We have been awarded a new garden maintenance contract for a private residential estate in Wimbledon
New front garden landscaping, with paving, path and beds in Wimbledon
Do please feel free to contact us to discuss any of your gardening needs
Best wishes
Toby and The Urban Gardeners team