The Plot Garden Diary February Posted in Diary, Inspiration, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks 06 Feb '12
Now is the time to tidy up and generally take stock of your garden. During the winter months the bare bones of your garden are obvious, it is the easiest time of year to evaluate the layout and general structure of your garden, and plan projects for the coming year.
Planning your borders and crop production for the coming months can be a bit of light relief from all the winter doom and gloom around at the moment. The Plot garden diary is for you to read, it contains reminders, hints and tips about what you can be doing in your garden and a few design notes and ideas along the way.
Your Borders
Rake over your borders and trim back any remaining perennials from last year. Remove any dead leaves and weeds. Give your borders a good mulch of either leaf mould or well rotted compost. The advantages of doing this now are that a good covering of mulch will help to suppress annual weeds this spring and help to retain moisture in the soil over the summer. Mulching improves the soil by adding organic matter which improves any kind of soil be it heavy clay or light sandy soil. Mulching borders now saves you having to work around those little spring bulbs peeping through the soil in a few weeks time.
Most things in the garden are still pretty dormant, so now is the ideal time to divide perennials. I try to leave as many perennials with seed heads intact for as long as possible in the winter, not just to enjoy their forms and shapes, but to provide seed for birds e.g. Echinacea and of course the teasel, loved by goldfinches. Many herbaceous plants, in particular, grasses such as Miscanthus provide a winter habitat for ladybirds, lacewings and butterflies.
Your Veg Patch
February feels like the start of a new gardening year. Potatoes to chit, greenhouses and polytunnels to clean and prepare for the new growing season. Get your pots seed trays, modules and rootrainers clean and at the ready. If you haven’t already done so think about what you want to grow this year, how much time and space you have available and what fruit and veg you really want to eat from your garden. Rootrainers are ideal for starting off many veg seeds as they promote excellent root development and make easy handling for your young plants. Brassicas, beans and sweetcorn do particularly well in rootrainers. Our rootrainers are on offer this month, and remember they can be reused many times.
Start chitting your seed potatoes in egg trays in a cool place with plenty of light.
In milder areas particularly if you use cloches to warm the soil and protect young plants, chard, spinach and early carrots can be sown. Broad beans and garlic can be sown now into deep root trainers to plant out next month. Mixed salad leaves can be started off on modules in the greenhouse or polytunnel now ready to go out when the soil outside warms up. Lettuce and salad leaves do well started in modules as they can be planted out at the correct spacings and root disturbance is kept to a minimum. If the weather is kind onion and shallot sets can be planted out later this month.
In the fruit garden now is the time to plant fruit bushes and raspberry canes. Cut down last year’s autumn fruiting raspberries to the ground and either mulch or add a little bone meal.
Wildlife is an important part of biodiversity in the garden. Birds, mammals and insects play a vital role in fruit and vegetable production and pest control in the garden. Make sure you have suitable nest boxes sited in your garden or allotment, to provide a home for blue tits who love to eat aphid eggs and thrushes and blackbirds who feast on slugs and snails.
February Planting Inspiration Posted in Diary, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks Tagged Tips & Tricks 03 Feb '12
The February garden is about structure, subtle colours and new life. Structure, not only in the shapes and layout of hard landscaping, but structural elements including skeletal shapes of trees and shrubs. Subtle colours from the earliest bulbs, bark and stem colours. Contrast from evergreens is also an important part of the winter garden.
February is the time some of our shrubs start to flower, often with strong scents to encourage the meagre numbers of insects around at the moment. Blossom held on bare twigs is one of the most captivating things in the garden just now.
Here are some of the best February plants around and some planting partnerships to brighten the darkest days.
Coppiced stems of Cornus (dogwood) and Salix (willow) can make an effective backbone to a winter planting scheme. Coppicing these plants that means cutting right back every couple of years to throw up new growth with the best coloured stems. This keeps what can become large ungainly shrubs in check, and produces a more useful form visually. Other shrubs such as hazels coppiced can make a lovely natural boundary and only need cutting back every four or five years.
The dogwoods, often used for supermarket car parks and road side planting, come in reds, yellows, oranges and greens. My favourite although not the strongest growing is the bright orange stemmed Cornus sanguinea “Midwinter Fire”. Cornus and Salix all prefer damp ground and an effective combination for such a site is C. Midwinter Fire planted with the zingy lime coloured grass Acorus gramineus “Hakuro-nishiki”or Carex elata aurea (Bowles Golden Sedge) en masse. For a more voluptuous combination, C Midwinter Fire with sedges Carex Buchananii or Carex testacea and orange/yellow crocus followed by tulips in the same colours or flame reds. A particularly good tulip to mix with grasses is Tulip acuminata.
The ghostly white bramble, unfortunately named Rubus cockburnianus, has a wild and sprawling form, but looks fabulous under planted with the black leaved lilly, Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens, Snowdrops and Heleborus niger. This combination is very smart in a large black pot as well as the border or woodland garden.
The Witch Hazels come into their own this month. Highly scented tassel blooms on bare twigs under planted with winter aconites and snowdrops are a sight to behold on a miserable February morning.
Along a similar vein the flowering Cornus mas, with its clusters of yellow flowers if under planted with the bright variegated grass Carex oshimensis evergold en masse is unfussy, bright and effective.
For a large pot to look great with subtle colours and interesting texture, for a few weeks now and into spring plant together the twisted hazel( Corylus avellana contorta) with fluffy Carex “frosted curls” and our native Primula vulgaris. Plant these out into the garden when they outgrow the pot.
Clipped evergreens and hedges make a lovely backdrop to winter flowering shrubs as well as providing some shelter to delicate blooms. Some of the most beautiful in February include Lonicera purpusii and Viburnum bodnantense “Dawn”. Their twiggy forms lend themselves to under planting with early bulbs for an eye catching start to the gardening year.
The Plot Garden Diary January Posted in Diary, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks 09 Jan '12
A Happy New Year to all our friends and customers!
It’s too wet here in Lancashire at the moment to contemplate even walking on the soil let alone digging. It will do more harm than good. On that cheery note we can help out the birds in the garden, the poor things are being blown all over the place so to do our bit we have put offers on the home page for bird roosting pockets for a bit of protection for our smaller birds and a reduced price on our tubs of energy balls. Only £3.99 for 18. Don’t forget our maximum postage for any order is £7.50. Postage on most of our vegetable seeds is free, so whilst you may not be able to dig you can spend a bit of time deciding what to grow this year and ordering a few seeds.
January Jobs in the Garden
If it dries up a bit and stays frost free why not burn off a few Christmas calories? Now is the best season for planting bare root hedges, trees and shrubs. Not only are bare root plants cheaper, they establish quickly in the spring provided they have enough moisture during the next growing season. Now is the best time to look at the bare bones of your garden and plan any new changes to the structure.
Mulch bare soil on vegetable beds and borders. This will help conserve moisture for the following year, help soil structure and feed organisms in the soil, and help build fertility. Bulky materials such as mushroom compost, composted bark or leaf mould are ideal.
Now is a good time to plan your vegetable garden, have a look at our article on crop rotation if you need a reminder about what to plant in what order for the best chances against diseases and building fertility into your vegetable beds. Our seed potatoes will be available from The Plot at the end of January/beginning of Feb. This year they will be available in smaller packs of 10 tubers which many customers prefer as a few more varieties can be grown in the same space.
A few ideas to brighten up your winter pots
I thought I would pass on a few ideas for your winter tubs. Some of the larger items can be planted out in the garden after a couple of seasons.
For a black or silver pot to last throughout the winter and into spring
A small Contorted Hazel, Helleborus niger (White Lenten Rose), Fine leaved evergreen grass Carex Frosted Curls, White variegated Ivy and white Bellis or snowdrops. Try to plant in odd numbers. The colour scheme is pale and contemporary but the shapes and textures of the plants look great right through the winter.
Warm Welcome
Red stemmed dogwood (Cornus alba Sibirica) surround with either Skimmia japonica Rubella or pink hellebores, red/pink Bellis, the bronze red sedge Uncinia rubra and green ivy.
Witch hazel planter
Lovely scent. Plant the witch hazel out when the display is finished. Hamamelis x intermedia Pallida or Jelena, bronze sedge Uncinia rubra, winter cowslips or Primula vulgaris, yellow variegated ivy.
Happy gardening!
The Plot Garden Diary September Posted in Diary, Inspiration, Seasonal Tagged Crop Rotation, Tips & Tricks, Veg Patch 13 Sep '11
It feels like autumn is here with the strong winds and driving rain we have got this week here in Lancashire. On the days when it is fit to enjoy the garden the colours and general abundance in the garden now are fantastic.
On our small nursery it is obvious which plants bees and butterflies are attracted to. The Agastache Black Adder is covered with Red Admiral and Peacock butterflies from dawn till dusk. The Origanum herrenhausen has the same effect on the local bee population as well as being a very attractive plant and useful in the border, having an abundance of dark purple flower heads opening to a paler mauve. It also makes a good cut flower.
Things to do in the garden now – Borders
Dead head finished blooms and collect any ripe seeds of plants you would like more of. Now is a good time to divide perennials and sow hardy annual seeds. Division and propagation of ornamental grasses is better done in the spring. Remember to leave some seed heads on for the birds.
Spring bulbs can go in from now up until the end of November depending what they are.
Veg Patch
September is great – more harvesting than sowing and weeding! Any areas where you have finished cropping such as after peas or onions, consider sowing green manures so that soil is not left bare for the weeds and to give a boost to soil fertility. Green manures to sow now are Grazing rye, which benefits soil structure, there is still time this month to sow phacelia which suppresses weeds, help soil structure and if left to flower encourages bees and hoverflies. Mustards can be sown now for digging in next year.
Now is the best time to sow elephant garlic, which will be ready to harvest green in June. Our seed garlic has just arrived and very fine it looks too, I have already put elephant garlic and Iberian Wight into my veg patch after removing the old pea plants.
It is also a good time to sow spinach for harvesting next spring. Winter lettuce and salad leaves such as Mizuna can be sown now. Have a look at our article on crop rotation for a quick reminder of what to grow in what order for maximum crop benefits.
Harvest squashes and pumpkins and put somewhere sunny to ripen. Plant out any new strawberry plants.
Elsewhere in the garden
Collect fallen leaves to make leaf mold – the best top dressing for borders and for adding to heavy soil to improve soil structure.
Repair lawns and rake out moss and thatch, topdress with seed and autumn lawn treatment to help winter hardiness.
Give any hedges and topiary a last trim before the cold weather causes damage to freshly trimmed shoots.
New stuff
We are developing two new ranges at The Plot “Vintage Garden” and “The Potting Shed”. There will be more products added to these in the next month or so, both useful, and handsome! There will also be some hand-made Christmas decorations and fabulous gardening gifts.
I am also putting together some planting combinations, for specific areas in the garden and easy to maintain collections to pick and choose from.
Happy gardening!
Jo
The Plot Garden Diary August Posted in Diary, Inspiration, Seasonal 23 Aug '11
In the veg patch
Plant up winter brassica plants if not already done so. Harvest maincrop potatoes and keep an eye out for blight. Dig up potatoes and store before infection sets in. Sow parsley and green manure crops. Prune fruited canes of summer raspberries down to ground level.
Hedges and topiary
Give these a last tidy up before winter. Trim back lavenders to stop them becoming leggy, trim just below flowering stems to keep them neat for next year.
Borders
Now that we have had some rain it is a good time to plant new perennials, grasses and shrubs. The soil is warm enough for these to get rooted in before winter, ready for a head start next spring. We have a selection of 9cm plants which are an economical way of filling your borders. If you would like any help or advice on replanting or designing your borders please get in touch.
Looking particularly good at the moment are the Miscanthus and late flowering perennials such as Persicaria a. Firetail. We have this planted in a damp part of the garden with purple filbert – the purple Hazel, carex comans and Betula Jacquemontii. The purple hazel and the persicaria provide a brilliant colour contrast. The same area has pink ragged robbins ( Lychnis flos cu-culi) which provide a similar effect in the spring.
The Plot Garden Diary July Posted in Diary, Inspiration, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks 06 Jul '11
It feels like summer has come back today (3rd July) We have had so much rain here in Lancashire. I know many people are still short of rain and having to conserve water for their gardens, but certainly not here. Here are some things to do in the garden now..
Borders
Dead head summer flowering shrubs such as repeat flowering roses where keeping the hips on is not important. Keep a watch out for weeds and slugs which are both enjoying the damp humid conditions we have now.
Watch out for our new range of 9cm (small pot) perennials and grasses which I will be posting on the website shortly. They are an economical way to fill gaps or plant up new areas in the garden. However many plants you order from The Plot, the maximum postage is £7.50 with overnight delivery to most areas.
Plants looking particularly good at the moment are our range of Astrantias. These hardy colourful and easy to grow plants deserve a place in any garden as well as making lovely cut flowers. Many of the grasses such as miscanthus are bulking up nicely ready for their show of seed heads in a few weeks time.
Now is a good time to take cuttings from evergreens such as camellias and sub-shrubs such as lavender.
The Veg Patch
Keep hoeing and watch out for cabbage white butterflies. Try our organic insect killer based on pyrethrum, a naturally occurring plant based product to help see off the caterpillars.
Sow salads, chard and spinach for autumn and harvest onions ,shallots and garlic. If you are suffering from the annual courgette mountain, try grating any “spare” courgettes and freeze. Use to bulk up curries, soups, stews and chilli dishes throughout the year. Here are a couple of tried and tested recipes you may find useful:
Courgette and Bacon Bake
- 12oz courgettes grated
- 1 large onion chopped
- 3 rashers of bacon diced
- 1 cup of grated cheese, Cheddar or Lancashire
- 1 cup of self raising flour
- ½ cup of cooking oil
- 5 eggs
- Salt and pepper
Mix all the ingredients together and spread out in an ovenproof dish, the sort that would do for a lasagne, and bake in a medium oven for 30 minutes. Eat hot or cold.
Courgette and Cumin Soup
- 1oz butter
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 garlic clove crushed
- 2tsp ground cumin
- 5 oz potato cubed
- 12oz courgettes thickly sliced
- ¾ pint chicken stock
- ½ pt fresh milk
- Black pepper and sea salt
My children’s favourite ever soup!
Melt butter and fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes and stir in the cumin. Add the courgettes and potato. Add the stock, milk and seasoning and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 15 -20 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Puree and serve.
The Plot Garden Diary May Posted in Diary, Inspiration, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks Tagged Borders, Tips & Tricks, Veg Patch 04 May '11
What happened to April showers? Not complaining, but this is the third year in a row we have had a dry April, the last two have been followed by a wet summer so let’s see what happens now. I was thinking about the old rhyme: The oak before the ash and we’re in for a splash, the ash before the oak and we’re in for a soak. I think the oak was just out before the ash this time.
Weeds
Anyway, the days are longer and warmer so weed growth along with everything else is taking off. Keep plots hoed now especially on hot dry days so that weed seedlings dry out and die very quickly after hoeing. See this month’s offer on Burgon and Ball Dutch garden hoes on our featured products on the home page.
Veg Patch
If you haven’t already planted onions and shallots now is a good time. The allium family prefer a sunny well drained site and do best if kept weed free. Onions never seem to grow if they have to compete with weeds. Give them a boost with dried poultry manure forked through the soil before planting.
Keep up successional sowings of salads and beets. Thin out carrots in the evenings to minimise interest from the carrot root fly. Use Vitax dried blood to encourage leaf production on salad crops and leafy vegetables.
Sow in pots or root trainers sweetcorn, courgettes, marrows, pumpkins and cucumbers.
Sow outdoors kale, broccoli, summer cabbage, beetroot, dwarf french beans. Consider using cloches to protect crops from strong winds and pigeons.
Earth up early potatoes and finish planting maincrop potatoes and salad varieties.
Box Hedging
Mid May is the traditional time to clip box hedging. Make the job easier with Burgon and Ball traditional topiary shears.
Borders
If you have noticed empty spaces in your borders after the last two hard winters, you are not alone. Many plants that we had begun to think were hardy here have not survived, In particular, phormiums, verbenas, penstemons and many more. Work is in progress on the perennial and grasses section of the website and will be completed soon! If you would like any advice or tips about replanting borders or planting ideas in general have a look at the design tips with each of our plants or feel free to email us.
The Plot Garden Diary April Posted in Diary, Inspiration, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks Tagged Borders, Crop Rotation, Tips & Tricks, Veg Patch 06 Apr '11
The Veg Patch
The soil is warming up now which means seeds will germinate and growth rates increase dramatically. If the soil feels warm to the touch it’s a good idea to get first early potatoes planted at the beginning of the month and maincrops towards the end. Plant around 8 inches deep and earth up as shoots appear.
Plant onions, shallots, and garlic. Sow directly into the ground carrots, spinach, lettuce. Sow into modules in the greenhouse broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. Sweetcorn, and beans can be sown in deep root trainers to be planted out next month.
Sow in a heated propagator or indoors courgettes, cucumbers and pumpkins. Also if you have not already sown tomatoes do so now. We have a fab selection of tomatoes including some old Italian varieties from Franchi seeds.
Now is a good time to grow herbs from seed. Check out our range from Suffolk Herbs.
If you have any fallow areas in your veg patch or soil which needs improvement consider sowing green manures, which are easy to grow, improve soil condition and nutrition. They are especially suited to an organic system. Clovers and Phacelia also encourage bees into the garden as well as increasing nitrogen in the soil and smother weeds. Use under fruit trees to build fertility and encourage bees for pollination.
Pests and Disease
Use horticultural fleece to cover brassicas to prevent attacks from flea beetle.
Slugs and snails start feeding now the soil is warming up. Treat organically with Vitax Slug Death XL or Earth Matters Slug Blocker Granules. Both are safe natural products which can be used as part of an organic system.
Watch out for sign of aphids. Treat with Earth Matters Natural Insect Killer which uses natural ingredients to control greenfly and caterpillars. It can be used on edible and ornamental plants.
Around the Garden
Feed roses and soft fruit with farm yard manure or chicken manure pellets which are a convenient way to add natural fertiliser. Any evergreens such as box or less hardy shrubs and palm can be given a boost with a liquid seaweed spray.
Add multi-purpose fertiliser to beds and borders. Top dress trees and shrubs with bone meal.
Borders
Take stock of your flower borders and replace any plants lost in the very cold weather we have had this winter. Have a look at our Perennial and Grasses selection which features design notes for every plant to help you combine plants which will look great together in your borders.
Wildlife and Birds
The birds are very busy at the moment with nesting. It is still vital to keep lots of food in front of them. Variety of food is also important. Try to give them nuts, seeds, fat balls and fruits. We have been very pleased to see the return of a couple of greenfinches this year after two years absence. Also pleasing was the sight of a greater spotted woodpecker on one of our Peckish Insect and Mealworm Cakes – it was devouring it with gusto! We have tried several seed mixes over the winter and the most popular has been Peckish Everyday Seed Blend.
Nest boxes and insect houses can play an important part in the encouragement of birds into your garden. We have a lovely range of British made nest boxes and insect houses. We also have well made and reasonably priced bird feeders, suitable for feeding a variety of bird feeds.
The hedgehogs have woken up now and are a great asset to have in the garden as they love to eat slugs and snails. Unfortunately the first sign of them foraging in spring is dead ones on the road. Why can’t evolution work a bit faster and enable them to run a bit quicker?
The Plot Garden Diary March Posted in Diary, Seasonal, Tips & Tricks Tagged Borders, Tips & Tricks, Veg Patch 04 Mar '11
At last the first flowers are appearing in the garden. Snowdrops are at their best now and primroses are putting on a brave show despite the wet weather and subsequent frosts. From now on things can only get better! It’s time to get started on just about everything. March must be one of the busiest months of the gardening year. The Plot Garden Diary gives you a few pointers and reminders of what you can be doing now in the garden.
Your Borders
Perennial plants that have outgrown their space can be safely lifted and divided into new clumps now. The same goes for ornamental grasses which don’t like being disturbed in the autumn. If the centre of a clump has died back discard it and make new plants from new growth around the outsides. Root cuttings from thick rooted perennials such as Acanthus, Crambe and Oriental poppies and Macleaya can be taken now. Chop pencil thickness lengths of fleshy root a little finger length long and push into modules filled with gritty compost, making sure the root end is downwards. New shoots will appear in a few weeks if kept moist.
Seeds from biennials such as digitalis (foxglove) can be sown now.
If you are considering planting or regenerating a new border take a look at our planting design service and look out for our border design articles over the next few months. Our new perennial and grass plant list will be online very shortly, offering you the best in plants for your borders and plenty of design and cultural tips to help you.
Now is a good time to coppice Cornus (dogwoods) and Salix (willows) for a good show of colourful winter stems next winter. Many deciduous shrubs that have become too large can be pruned now. Prune Hydrangea paniculata cultivars this month, prune off the old flowerheads down to a pair of strong buds. There is still time to get in bare root shrubs, roses and hedging before the end of the month. Shrub roses and buddleja do well to be pruned in March.
Your Veg Patch
It’s all systems go now. If you havn’t bought your seed potatoes yet ready to start chitting do so. We have a great selection of the best early, maincrop and salad potatoes. If it is mild at the end of the month early varieties can be planted out. Onion and shallot sets can be planted out this month as can garlic.
Broad beans and early peas can be sown now as can carrots, parsnips, beetroot and chard. Using cloches will help warm the soil quicker and protect your seedlings. Have a look in our crop protection section.
Sow cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes in the greenhouse if yours is frost free or on the windowsill.
Keep sowing lettuce and salad leaves at regular intervals for a constant supply.
Fruit
There is still time this month to get bare root fruit trees in. We have a good selection in stock now.
Wildlife
Don’t forget to keep feeding garden birds at this time…. Its all too easy to think that food is available for them now but it is not. It is a critical time for most birds as spring approaches and mating and nesting starts to get underway. We have lots of feeds, feeders and nest boxes to tempt birds to your garden.
February Planting Inspiration Posted in Inspiration, Seasonal 09 Feb '11
The February garden is about structure, subtle colours and new life. Structure, not only in the shapes and layout of hard landscaping, but structural elements including skeletal shapes of trees and shrubs. Subtle colours from the earliest bulbs, bark and stem colours. Contrast from evergreens is also an important part of the winter garden.
February is the time some of our shrubs start to flower, often with strong scents to encourage the meagre numbers of insects around at the moment. Blossom held on bare twigs is one of the most captivating things in the garden just now.
Here are some of the best February plants around and some planting partnerships to brighten the darkest days.
Coppiced stems of Cornus (dogwood) and Salix (willow) can make an effective backbone to a winter planting scheme. Coppicing these plants that means cutting right back every couple of years to throw up new growth with the best coloured stems. This keeps what can become large ungainly shrubs in check, and produces a more useful form visually. Other shrubs such as hazels coppiced can make a lovely natural boundary and only need cutting back every four or five years.
The dogwoods, often used for supermarket car parks and road side planting, come in reds, yellows, oranges and greens. My favourite although not the strongest growing is the bright orange stemmed Cornus sanguinea “Midwinter Fire”. Cornus and Salix all prefer damp ground and an effective combination for such a site is C. Midwinter Fire planted with the zingy lime coloured grass Acorus gramineus “Hakuro-nishiki”or Carex elata aurea (Bowles Golden Sedge) en masse. For a more voluptuous combination, C Midwinter Fire with sedges Carex Buchananii or Carex testacea and orange/yellow crocus followed by tulips in the same colours or flame reds. A particularly good tulip to mix with grasses is Tulip acuminata.
The ghostly white bramble, unfortunately named Rubus cockburnianus, has a wild and sprawling form, but looks fabulous under planted with the black leaved lilly, Ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens, Snowdrops and Heleborus niger. This combination is very smart in a large black pot as well as the border or woodland garden.
The Witch Hazels come into their own this month. Highly scented tassel blooms on bare twigs under planted with winter aconites and snowdrops are a sight to behold on a miserable February morning.
Along a similar vein the flowering Cornus mas, with its clusters of yellow flowers if under planted with the bright variegated grass Carex oshimensis evergold en masse is unfussy, bright and effective.
For a large pot to look great with subtle colours and interesting texture, for a few weeks now and into spring plant together the twisted hazel( Corylus avellana contorta) with fluffy Carex “frosted curls” and our native Primula vulgaris. Plant these out into the garden when they outgrow the pot.
Clipped evergreens and hedges make a lovely backdrop to winter flowering shrubs as well as providing some shelter to delicate blooms. Some of the most beautiful in February include Lonicera purpusii and Viburnum bodnantense “Dawn”. Their twiggy forms lend themselves to under planting with early bulbs for an eye catching start to the gardening year.