Planting tips for March

-Start to Mow your lawns

-Prune bush and shrub roses

-Plant climbers

-Plant early potaotes

-Reseed bare patches that have appeared on your lawn

-Put pumps in your ponds

-Move any evergreen shrubs that you wish

-Time to start planting summer flowering bulbs

-Sow sweet peas outdoors and plant young plants in the garden

-Start to protect your plants from slugs

-Cut down old growth left over from winter

Care of your Oncidium (Golden Shower Orchid)

Oncidiums originate from places in the Americas, right from Florida to Argentina. They are epiphytic, which means they grown on the bark of trees and have pseudobulbs producing lengthy flowering spikes. Their flowers are small and curiously shaped with the dominating lip well defined and decorative. The egg shaped flat pseudobulbs grow closely together and carry one or two star shaped pointed leaves. The slender flower stems stand erect with six to twelve flowers which generally appear in the autumn and can last into early spring!

When the flowers are finished, cut the stem down at its growing point in the leaves. Keep your Oncidium in a good light but protect from direct bright sunlight in the summer. During the winter never let the temperature drop below 12 degrees C. Humidity is essential for these plants, stand the pot on some gravel with water added but not allowing the water to rise above the gravel. This houseplant needs to be watered weekly in the summer and fortnightly in the winter. To maintain the plant, refresh the compost in the spring after flowering has finished. By doing all of these things your Orchid should remain healthy and lively.

Grow Your Own - Onions

Onion Sets -You can raise an onion from a seed or a small bulb called a set. Seeds can be cheaper and have more varieties available and have more flexible sowing times however there is more labour involved in raising onions from seeds and there is more risk of pest and disease attack. Sets are already started and so therefore make it easier to grow, are ready to harvest earlier and are stronger so are less prone to disease and pests. Even if your soil is less than perfect, sets will give you a good crop however they do not have such a wide spectrum of varieties.
Planting
To plant your onions seeds or sets you should never sow them in cold or wet soil, sow thinly about 30cm apart. The ideal time to plant is March, just push the set into the soil so that the tip is just below the surface. Once the crop becomes established you can water them. The end product needs to be dry and hard so little watering is required once they are established unless there are signs of wilting. Make sure you keep the bed weed free to prevent bolting.
Harvesting
When the green stems above the ground collapse your onions are ready to be harvested! Ease the bulbs out of the ground with a garden fork being pushed under the bulb and eased up and then pull it out.

Whitehall`s Plant of the Month- Hebe

Whitehall's Plant of the month this month is the Hebe. We have three varieties of Hebe's in particular that are sure to catch your eye and brighten up your garden.
The first one is Hebe "First Light", this is a spreading evergreen shrub which can grow up to 12in (30cm) high and 36in (90cm) wide. It boasts bronze-green coloured leaves that are shaped in a spear which can grow up to 1in (2.5cm) long. Short racemes of pink flowers are borne over a long time in the summer and remain fairly hardy in the UK winter.
Hebe "Pearl of Paradise" is a small, compact evergreen shrub which may grow upto 30in (75cm high within the space of 4 years. This plant also bears spear shaped leaves in a green colour. Spikes of lilac flowers are produced in May and June and can often flower again in the late summer and autumn if it has been pruned properly. It enjoys full sunlight and moist soil.
The final Hebe is a "Purple Pixie", a pretty, low growing shrub that grows up to about 20in (50cm) in height. It is a sturdy specimen with short, rounded, matt green leaves which are held onto ruddy brown stems. It blooms freely producing lilac blue flowering spikes that are conical and appear for around two months in the summer.

Prune Overgrown Evergreens

Now is the time to start pruning your evergreens, provided that they are hardy. More tender shrubs such as Choisya Ternata ( Mexican orange blossom) should not be pruned until later on in the year when the weather is a little bit warmer. You can prune back any shoots that have become crowded or have grown awkwardly to maintain your plants shape and keep it healthy. If you have a plant such as Prunus Laurocerasus, Aucuba Japonica (Spotted Laurel) or Viburnum tinus, you may need to prune these to ground level as these can require quite drastic pruning. This method of pruning may encourage strong growth from the base of the plant. After you have pruned, feed the plant with an organic fertiliser and then mulch with organic matter to ensure a healthy beautiful plant!

Grow your own Potatoes- Planting Guide

Easy Planting- A good time to plant is the first or second week in March. Potatoes can be planted using a large dibber or by making a trench the width of a spade 6-9" deep. Sprinkle with calcified seaweed or Maxicrop fertilizer. Places earlies about 12" between tubers and place main crop about 15" between tubers. The rows should be approximately 2ft apart and gently fill each trench and wait for the new shoots to appear.

Now is the time to earth them up, using the soil between the rows. If the weather looks like its going to be frosty, keep earthing them up and when they are too large, cover them with fibre fleece which should keep two or three degrees of frost off.

Rotation- Potatoes have a fairly wide range of minor pests and one or two major pests. Reasonable rotation of crops in the garden is important to keep the pest numbers down to manageable levels. Pests which do not have access to potatoes have a limited survival time. Ideally the same part of the garden should only be planted with seed potatoes once every 3-4 years because of these diseases.

Grow Your Own Potatoes in Containers

Tips

Potato barrels and larger pots can be used to plant seed potatoes, however sometimes compost can become very compressed due to watering or wet weather. This can be remedied by mixing some form of perlite or organic matter into the soil. This will stop the compressing and not harm the tubers.

How to plant

Use containers with a diameter of at least 30cm (12in) to allow plants to develop. Make sure that there is adequate drainage in the container and then place around 10cm (4in) of compost mixed with perlite in the pot. Add the seed potato and then cover with around 5cm (2in) of compost, continue this process at intervals until the container will not hold any more compost. When your plant is ready to harvest you should find that your container is full of potatoes!!

This method of growing potatoes is good if you have a small garden, do not have a Vegatable Bed or wish to enter a Vegetable Growing Show as it minimises blemishes on the potatoes.