Digging The Plot with Paul Steed - January 2012
The Winter Garden
This time of year is never great in the garden but now is the time to do all of those jobs that you never have time to during the growing season such as winter pruning of overgrown shrubs and thinning out old beds & borders. It is also a time to start planning your spring & summer garden. The garden Centres will start to have small ‘plug’ plants in stock for summer plants such as Fuchsias & Geraniums. This is a good & easy way to start off you bedding but remember that this need absolute protection from cold weather, so keep delicate plants either inside on a windowsill or in a heated greenhouse or you’ll lose the lot!
Remember planning and preparation now will pay major dividends when the growing season really gets going!
Burton In Bloom – update
As you probably know, East Staffordshire Borough Council is involved each year in entering the Heart of England in bloom competition. This is the regional competition for the national Britain in Bloom campaign.
Britain in Bloom is all about making our villages, towns & cities across Britain much nicer places to live, work and visit. ESBC supports entries for Burton and Uttoxeter and this year will be supporting smaller entries from Tutbury and Winshill. You can’t help but have noticed the glorious summer flowering displays on our traffic islands, the many hanging baskets around town and the fantastic floral displays in Stapenhill gardens.
Burton has performed exceptionally well in recent year’s winning four consecutive gold medals. The highest standard achievable!
Flowers and summer displays are only a part of the competition. A huge amount of the success of an ‘In Bloom’ depends upon people from the local community getting involved and making their local area and environment a cleaner, safer and nicer place to live.
As Horticultural Officer I am lucky enough to spend a lot of my working life involved in helping to develop community projects and community gardens to improve people’s lives around the borough. In particular this year we are going to put even more effort in to encouraging more people to grow and eat their own healthy vegetables.
This year is also a big year with the Olympics coming to Britain as well as celebrating the Queen’s diamond jubilee.
So this year, each month I will update you with progress in our Burton In Bloom projects so that you can see exactly what is happening to improve our local environment.
We are always looking for new volunteers and people to help out with gardening projects, so if you are interested then please contact me or call in to the Greenhouse centre to find out more!
Keep gardening
Paul