March garden tour - what to do with daffodils, grasses and cornus
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- čas přidán 13. 03. 2020
- Find out what to do with your daffodils once they finish flowering and clear up with confusion over cutting back Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima). Plus where do you stand on peat-free compost?
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My mother was inspired by a scene from the movie "Doctor Zhivago" to plant daffodils on a slope on their rough, rural property, and the daffodils multiplied and multiplied until the whole hillside was covered in them, and that was a sight to gladden the heart at the end of winter.
That sounds wonderful.
Good for your mom! What a wonderful legacy
My favourite film 😍
I am from Georgia...USA. Zone 7b/8...A tip on ornamental grasses. I have quite a few of them now. We cut them back in Early February. Take a bungie cord and tie it directly around the grass. Then I take my battery operated hedge trimmer and cut the grass below the bungie cord. The grass will come off in one lump...no mess. Then I put this onto a tarp and untie the bungie cord and voila, it's done! This year I did 25 ornamental grasses in my garden this way. I did have someone to hold the grass upright while I cut it with the battery operated hedge trimmer. Works like a charm. It has only taken me 6 years to figure this method out and it is a winner. We do not have Peat in our compost here. We use rotted pine bark in potting soil. I planted my daffodils in between other plants, ie, Daylillies and hydrangeas. Works well. Also love Telstar Dianthus for ground cover because it blooms all summer long until frost. Happy Gardening. My daughter and I were preparing to visit the Gardens of England this May for my eightieth birthday but I think we will have to cancel this trip. We have tickets for Highgrove for a Champagne Tour and Tea and I am so sad that we will not be able to go because of this Coronavirus! So now I just spend more time working in the garden, which is beautiful all the year long. I love your videos and try to watch them all because they are so informative. I wish they were longer.
Thank you so much! How sad that you will miss Highgrove! But a very good tip on the grass cutting. Last year we used a hedge trimmer to cut the lavender and it seems to have worked well. I hope you manage to visit the gardens of England another year.
you all prolly dont give a shit but does someone know of a way to get back into an Instagram account..?
I stupidly lost the account password. I love any tricks you can offer me
@Kenzo Finn instablaster :)
@Edgar Castiel Thanks so much for your reply. I got to the site through google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now.
Takes quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Edgar Castiel it worked and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy:D
Thanks so much, you really help me out :D
Just what I needed, especially with all this coronavirus gloom.
Stay safe everyone & get out in the garden!
What a lovely video! Great info too, thank you.
Thank you for the peat free compost mention. It's very important that we don't destroy any more of the planet
Following from Boston MA, USA. I grow only white daffodils.I just love them and they are multiplying like crazy. I love your videos and your garden. The gardens you show are amazing! Thank you so much.
Am so happy that you talked about daffodils in this March garden tour.
To me the humble daffodils (whatever variety) is one of signature flowers spring leading to summer..
Tqtq for sharing...❤💖💝
Thank you!
Always a wealth of info, Alexandra--thank you!
Thank you!
Excellent tips! I’ll be sure to utilize them once my bulbs have bloomed
Great!
I'm so glad you let me know to not clip the stem of the spent daffodils. And I just cut my same grasses back after watching your video this morning. I wondered why it never looked so good after winter. Didn't know I was supposed to cut back that kind of grass. Thank you for great information 😊
Glad I could help!
Fab video, such a great escape from current events. Daffs are one of my favourite flowers, such a joy to see them year after year. It's a shame the cut ones never seem to last very long.
Thank you - I hadn't even given daffodils a thought until I went to the talk and then I realised what amazing flowers they are.
Thanks for sharing all your springtime perp for your garden. Things are just starting to warm up here in Ontario.👍❤️😊
Thank you!
So nice to see some videos about gardening in these difficult times. Thank you. 😊
My pleasure 😊
So glad, you demonstrated the cutting back of your red twig dogwood. I recently cut one back hard, even though it was sprouting new growth on the limbs like yours. I was worried that I waited too late.
Glad it was helpful!
I bought some blocks of coco coir at a local home improvement big box store, here in the USA last fall. You just add water and it expands. It’s also available on Amazon and in pet stores as reptile bedding. I’m thinking about totally converting to it if I can for seedlings. Thank you for explaining why peat is a bad choice for the environment. 🌱🌱🌱🌱😀
That's interesting!
Love the daffodils I have a lot of different ones
Thank you, Alexandra. Nice video.
As you say, your microclimate is all-important. Here in Buenos Aires, we have no frost because it's such a big city, what with traffic, street lightning, and heating in hundreds of thousands of homes. Whereas they do have frost in more rural zones in the same region. Some years ago I lived in a tiny village right in the bottom of a valley, and we used to have -19ºC at night in midwinter. But just over a km away, a neighbour grew mandarins, because he was on higher ground, and cold goes down.
Peat is not usually added to compost over here. I believe it's too expensive.
I'm going to try daffs in my balcony this year. Autumn is about to start, so April will be a good month to plant some bulbs.
Minus 19 does sound very cold! Happy planting of the bulbs.
Lovely as always. Yes, peat is a concern. Another problem with a mix that has lots of peat is that it becomes water repellent if allowed to dry out, then it makes it difficult to keep your plants hydrated. Love watching your videos and Erin's also. Enjoy your beautiful garden.
Thank you!
Love the daffs. So many different types!
Love your explanations
Karen (earlier comment) makes an excellent point about coir (the hairy husks from coconut shells) as a substitute for peat here in the US. Also, I've found that homemade leaf mold (pile up leaves and let them decay for a year) and very, very rotted wood chips make good substitutes for purchased potting soil. I even use them for seed starting (I usually sieve the wood chip compost first). RE: Zones and hardiness. Here in Pennsylvania, we really are seeing the effects of climate change. I'm seeing plants for sale here that even a decade ago would have never survived our winters. The past few years have been difficult, because you never know what the winter is going to be...or, as this year, if we'll even get one!
Interesting, thank you.
Thank you for the intro... I went outside to the veranda today, only to find so many dead plants, even though I had them for years and most of them had even survived our last winter, with two snowy nights. The temperatures didn't drop as much this winter, but we've had 1-1,5 month with around 1-2°C, which was obviously leathal. I broke into tears and it's been a bad day, but I can now find new plants for those containers. Maybe not just yet, though, it still hurts.
As for the peat, that is interesting, I think our soils also have peat, but I don't where from.
Thank you and have a wonderful week!! 😊
That's so sad. I'm sorry to hear that.
🌹Thank you for your information about peat moss. I've always mixed it in when preparing a new bed as well as soil conditioner to help ammend the soil. I very much enjoy your channel and I appreciate your advice and information. I garden in the Pacific Northwest coast of Washington state zone 9A.💐
Peat farming is alive and well where I live, so peat compost, peat bales are readily available to Gardeners. I understand the carbon issue, and try to use alternative compost to supplement my own.
Interesting, thank you.
I didn't know that about peat. I've seen peat-free compost, but always assumed it was to do with what sort of plants you grew in it! I'm a bit of a gardening amateur! I will try to avoid peat in future now I know about it. My daffodils have been flowering for about a week now, but my tulips are still closed. I planted them both last autumn, I'm looking forward to seeing the tulips for the first time!
Tulips are so beautiful, aren't they? Just some of the showiest plants in the garden.
beautiful 💐
We planted several daffodil varieties last fall - Dutch Master, Golden Ducats and Fortune - hoping that they make a great showing this spring, unless the squirrels got to them already.
Hope they're blooming well now.
Thanks again!
Enjoyed this video very much; thank you!
Thank you.
Thank you! We in the USA definitely have a choice, more so now that MARY JANE is legal in many states - COIR! I started my garden the summer after I bought my home in 2012, and legalizing pot was just on the horizon. I did some research then and learned about COIR as an alternative to soil for pot growers (and many other plants). I buy the bricks, hydrate them, then mix in soil for better aeration. I will never use peat. I'm going to try making compost later this year so I can both save money and throw less in landfills.
Coir is coconut fiber
Interesting, and I think that's also accelerated the use of grow lights in the home, too.
Well done 👍
Daffodils are the first flowers in my garden each year. They are beautiful and smell nice. Happy Gardening!
I never understood in what way peat was bad since no one really said why. Now I know.
You look particularly beautiful in this video. Thank you for all the information.
Thank you!
Dear Alexandra, thank you for your superbly researched and informative videos! May I say your lipstick in this video really suits you. Best wishes.
Oh thank you!
Peat free compost doesn't seem to exist here in Alberta, Canada (at least, I can't find any - if there's someone out there who knows where I can find some, please let me know!) and I was appalled when we first moved here 15 years ago from SW UK. It spurred me on to be very assiduous in making our own compost, but on occasion I still need to buy some. It hurts when I have to open a bag of compost that proudly proclaims it is peat based.
I enjoy your videos, Alexandra, and it's lovely seeing such beautiful English gardens, particularly those in the cottage and English Country Garden style, which is what I aim for here right at the roots of the Rocky Mountains. Not easy, as we are plagued by deer, extremely strong winds for many months of the year, and a climate zone of 3. But I'm getting there!
That's so interesting - in other places, they don't have peat at all. Zone 3 must be a challenge at times.
New subscriber from Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 👍👍👍👍👍❤
Welcome. I lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a few months as a child when I was evacuated from the Dominican Republic during a revolution. I remember beautiful beaches.
Omg that is so nice to knows i in love with ur videos u explain everything so good ur garden is😍😍😍 so beautiful💓💓💓💓
Hi Alexandra, that's so interesting that you talked about the US hardiness zones as I've been wondering which zone I would be in and was guessing 8. I'm in the south of Essex so probably not too far from where you are. I have the pony tail grass too and have been confused as to what to do, so glad you mentioned that. I will cut mine down to the ground and leave any green if there is any, so thanks for that. All great tips, thanks so much.
Thank you - I think that if you are near the coast you might consider it to be 8 or 9, but if in a frost pocket or up a hill (unlikely in Essex but you never know), then 8.
The Middle-Sized Garden I am not near the coast, but up a hill (Langdon Hills) so opting for an 8 then. Love your channel 🌺🌺
I am in Australia and many of our potting mixes do not use proper peat, especially in the more tropical areas. Dome use shredded barks and some use coir peat as it is called here. The best alternative is coir. We can also buy coir in various grades as dried compressed blocks which sometimes have fertiliser added. A coir brick is very fine grade and you place it in a bucket or tub, add water to just cover it and let that soak. The coir swells with the water and at least doubles in volume. This can be used with compost, or alone to start seeds, cuttings or whatever you want. It is light and doesn't get soggy in very wet weather. The other coir product available is more chunky and coarse. Once hydrated, this can be used as a mulch, potting mix for orchids and bromeliads or mixed with compost for other plants. This type comes in a large block which is placed in a full sized wheelbarrow, then add 9 litres of water. Once it takes up the water it makes more than half to 2/3 a barrowful. Great stuff. A small brick costs about Au$6 and the large block about Au$17-20 the last time I bought some.
Thank you, interesting!
Like Amy (earlier comment) the squirrels don't touch my daffodils but the many tulips I planted have never come up. In northern Georgia, so may not be cold enough for them, but I've learned to appreciate what survives.
The squirrels are a nightmare here too, and eat all my tulips unless I plant them 12" deep. There is one which torments my dog every morning by prancing across the garden while Lottie howls from the window. I know how she feels.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden But it's good exercise for our dogs. haha I let my dog chase them but make sure he can never catch them. Good exercise for both the dog and squirrel.
❤❤❤
Thank you for your useful information. I would like more information about which shrubs and perenials are long lived, and which are not.
We live in South West Ireland on half an acre and are in our late seventies, so are trying to avoid plants which need a lot of digging up and dividing, dead heading and pruning.
Good idea, I will think about that.
You looks beautiful, thanks for the tips on daffodils care ,I was wondering when was the best time to feed them, also didn't know they last that long in the garden, that's great, also I would like to know what do you do with all those Cuttings
Thank you. I either compost the cuttings or take them to the local recycling centre which turns them into compost.
🌼🌾🌼HELPFUL‼️🌼🌾🌼
Thank you!
I make my own compost from the kitchen scraps
Excellent. Me too.
Squirrels dont eat daffodils but love tulips and this week I found out liatris corms, so I plant lots of daffodils.
I've had success with planting tulips 12" deep to keep them away from squirrels - I should have mentioned that, perhaps.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden Squirrels where I live in Colorado will eat any part of the tulip once it's above ground which I found out the hard way. I found an organic repellant which only needs to be spread once and they have left the tulips alone ever since.
I would love to know which resources would work in place of or, in addition to peat here in the states. I’ve always seemed to push the few garden centers in my area to carry certain things. Like green sand. I hear it’s not nearly as prevalent as it once was. I have a hard enough time finding a good mix with a simple base of pine bark to pot up Japanese Maples with.
I know leaf mold I gather and make on our property comes in handy for mulching my garden rows. I’ve kept compost piles and never could produce enough to sustain the gardens.
I haven't found any good recipes for making my own potting compost. Here in the UK we have just consistently asked manufacturers to produce peat-free and try to encourage garden writers to talk about it too. In Australia they use a coir-based product.
Peat free - the only way to go for any forward thinking gardener.
Thank you so much, your videos are always usefull. I want to know one thing: does your stipa spread many seeds? And if it does are this seedlin very far from the mother plant? I recently buy one because it’s a gorgeous plant , but here in north italy (zone 8 but hot and dry in summer) i’m afraid it could get very invasive, expecially with all the changing that are occuring in our land. Here it’s very hard to find a peat free compost , all the garden soil you could buy they have always a part of moss, unfurtunely. Thank you again, hope you the best
Thank you. I haven't had any trouble with the Stipa spreading but I know that it is invasive in some countries, so it might be worth asking people who garden near you if they grow it.
Could you cover growing peonies please? And here here to peat free. I don't buy compost that has peat in it at all.
My mom used peat moss to cover her gardens, guessing that's the peat you're referring to. I've used it myself, never really liked mulch, I did find one that's a finer shred that I'll be using from now on, in between times when I don't have enough compost. I'm going to be looking into getting some horse manure this yr. from a farm near me. This was also the first time I've heard to leave the flower stem on Daffodils, I know some people that just turn the leaves down and put a rubber band around them to keep them out of sight.
Turning the leaves down or tying them up stops the nutrients getting to the bulb, so the flowers won't be so good the following year.
Good to know about turning the foliage down, glad that's not what I do, everything in my garden hides all that. Stay safe.!
Nice one! Have you thought about splitting your stipa?
I think I should. A few people have reminded me and as the plant has been in for a few years, it's due to be split.
I live in Pennsylvania and I am able to buy peat-free compost. It's been at least a year since I last bought some so I can't remember if was more expensive. Or if there was a lot more compost with peat available. I'll have to check.
Thank you.
A bit off subject, but I noticed in some of your videos your beautiful black elderberry and wondering how much sun or shade it gets. I just bought one, and not quite sure where to put it in my garden. Thank you Alexandra!
It's against quite a high East facing wall, so it doesn't get lots of sun.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden thanks for the reply!
In Texas, USA, here. No peat in the compost... Not an issue.
Thank you.
Stipa is considered a horribly invasive grass here and I'm only in zone 7 in the US. Yours is so gorgeous though that I would love to have it. Do you not find that it's spreading everywhere?
The stipa tenuissima hasn't spread in my garden, and looking around the internet I can see that it's invasive in some places but not in others. Presumably that will be about weather and soil. I'm not a very good weeder and have alot of self seeded plants so I think it doesn't invade round here or I would definitely have suffered from it. Maybe ask any local garden owners whether they have it before risking it in your garden first?
Beautiful garden! Thank you for sharing! Please enjoy my Plumeria Garden Tour when you have time. Feel free to let me know what you think!
Thank you. And your plumerias were beautiful.
Compost or garden soil as we call it here in the Midwest dose not contain peat. i''m referring to Canadian peat moss. This is completely different from potting mixes which do contain peat. On the other side of this, most seed starting mixes and potting mixes are changing over to coconut coir.. We used to be able to buy a product called peat that was similar to top soil but you never see this for sale anymore>
Thank you, interesting.
Hi Andrea, great video. Could you tell me what the white plant is behind the dogwood you are cutting. It’s not the daffodil on the right. I am curious about the one with the tiny flowers. Can paper whites planted outdoors in fall? I didn’t know that. Those bulbs show up here in the us around December to be forced inside
Snow Drops
Steve Charters so tall? I have never seen those! I know only the ones that are maybe 6 cm over the ground
They are Leucojum aestivum, much taller than snowdrops. I think they are fairly uncommon, my neighbour has them and they look beautiful. I must remember to plant some!
They are leucojum aestivum, known oddly as 'Summer snowdrops' though they are not around in summer. They are lovely, go on flowering for weeks and seem to need no attention. And yes, you can plant Paper whites outside in fall, but check that you have ordinary garden bulbs not ones that have been sold for forcing. In the past I've also planted my forced indoor bulbs outside after they've flowered. Some have come back over the next few years.
What time should I plant daffodils and snowdrops, zone 6?
I only have tulips from previous owner.
2 questions here.
1. Snowdrops should be planted 'in the green' as you are more likely to plant them at the depth that they perform best at. February/March before the soil gets too warm works best I think. Remember that they require retentive soil in partial shade to do their very best but obviously this depends on which part of the country one is in and the average rainfall.
2. Daffodils start to put out their roots a lot earlier than the top growth would lead one to imagine. Therefore think about planting your daffodils/narcissi as soon as you can get hold of them l With the large bulb companies this is likely to be at the end of August or early September, prior to any autumn rains and cooler temperatures starting them into growth. Pease plant them deep enough! it enables the daffodils to cope with summer temperatures and stay cocooned in moisture.
Patrick Gallagher is quite right on both. Planting tulips deeply also helps keep squirrels away.
I am here in India for a lil bit and here they use coco peat. It’s actually coco fiber and it’s in abundance. Is there a difference?
I'm not sure - they may just call it coco peat so that people know it is a growing medium, Or it may be coco fibre mixed with peat. Thank you for letting me know.
I love daffodils, the deer and elk in our area don't eat them.
Re peat free compost, i garden in 5 b in Illinois in USA and we have no such choice here. I found a product called manure which also had peat in it! So I am confused as to what to do about it. Both seed- starting mixes and potting soil here all contain peat. I will let you know if I come up with a solution.
Here in the UK it was all peat until a few years ago. While in Australia, they have never used peat because they don't have any (just shows we don't need it). The RHS says you could make your own potting compost by mixing 2/3rds garden soil with 1.3rd your own garden compost (sieve the big bits out). You would probably have to add a liquid seaweed feed after a few weeks.
@@TheMiddlesizedGarden Thanks. I will check that out.
Was just looking around for peat free and there is nothing! I'll be contacting suppliers this year
I keep hearing different versions on peat sustainability. I will listen to you, thank you!
Are paper whites just white daffodils?
Paperwhites are Narcissus tazetta 'Paperwhite' but although all daffodils are narcissus, I don't think people would generally call the Narcissus tazetta a daffodil. They tend to just call them narcissus.
Is what you call "compost" the same thing as what we call "potting soil"?
Yes, it is. We use potting compost for potting up plants and garden compost for improving our borders, but they're all quite similar.
One more thing. After you cut back your ornamental grasses....that is the time to separate them to make new plants. You should do this about every three years because if you let them get too large in their clump they will begin to develop dead spots in the middle of the clump. Happy Gardening!
Good reminder! Thank you.
I think that the word "compost" may have a somewhat different meaning here in the U.S., and that your use of the word covers what is here called "potting soil," as well as what we call compost, which is what comes from a compost heap. To this, or to rotted manure, is added either peat moss or coir, and then perlite or vermiculite or both, to make potting soil. While peat-free potting soil may be hard to come by, compost is also sold, as well as manure.
With respect to the peat debate, or the peat vs. coir debate, our situation in the U.S. differs in that the vast peat resources of Canada are available to us. I have heard it argued against coir that there is a lot of processing involved, and also that it is transported half way around the world. I was moving away from peat before I heard that argument; now, I am undecided; I will have to learn more.
You're right that there's a problem - the issue with peat is not the scarcity, but that mining peat is very environmentally destructive and releases a lot of greenhouse gases. But you're right that coir, too, uses alot of water and is a coconut by product so has to be transported round the world. Some companies use sheeps wool and sheep wool by products, and some people make their own potting compost with their own leaf mould.