It’s a lovely time of the year, and gardening in spring feels so rewarding. Getting out into the fresh air again after the bad weather. Seeing all of the plants coming back to life, and birds nesting. Makes you glad to be alive!
There are various definitions of Spring. The first official day of Spring is 20th March, and spring months here are March, April and May. There’s astronomical Spring, meteorological spring, the Spring equinox, when the clocks go forward, and probably some others. But for us, Spring is when the sun gets higher in the sky and everything springs into life!
Seaside Gardening in Spring
Here at Visit Fylde Coast we’ve had lots of successes and failures out in the garden. And let’s face it, gardening is a hobby best shared! Have you got any questions, tips, success and failures? Why don’t you pop them in comments below and we’ll do our best to answer them.
After cold weather and harsh salty winds of winter, it’s amazing how gardens here on the Fylde Coast come to life. Miniature daffodils are usually in full bloom by now.
Tip: Only try to grow full sized daffodils where you know they won’t get battered by the wind.
If your Fylde Coast garden is near to the seafront, or exposed to the winds, it’s going to get a battering in the winter. So the best thing to do is to resist the temptation to cut everything back in autumn and leave it all immaculately tidy.
Dead growth protects new growth
Yes, leave it superficially tidy by all means. But leave the old, dead growth on plants and it will protect the growing points and new shoots that form underneath. Like this –
I also like to leave some fallen leaves along the back half of the borders so that the birds have something to rummage in for food. And I feed them through winter.
Now that we’ve got a ‘proper’ garden (ie not a concrete jungle) we enjoy watching resident blackbirds, robins, wrens, sparrows, starlings, goldfinches and blue tits. The benefit of these little feathered helpers is that they eat the pests and bugs which would otherwise eat your plants!
When we came here there were no plants at all in our garden and few birds. In a relatively short space of time we transformed it into an established patch. The mixture of plants creates foliage, flowers and something to look at for most of the year. More importantly it’s a habitat, food and nesting space for the birds that we really enjoy making a home for.
It’s also a great way of improving the drainage and water absorption in your own plot of land. If you have trouble with standing water, or even flooding, lawns, trees and plants are one of the best ways to soak up all of that water.
Growing things in a seaside Garden
Take a look at this post that’s dedicated to the subject of Seaside Gardening.
Early Spring Tidy Up
Throughout March you can start tidying up. Clear the fallen leaves and twigs from the fronts of the borders, cut dead stems off from perennials and pull up the remnants of completely dead bedding plants from last year. Believe it or not, because the salty air helps with the frost, you’ll keep the hardier bedding plants like geraniums alive over winter. You’d never get away with that inland!
Perennials should be starting to show new growth again. Valerian plants (back of shot) grow well here with their pink or white flowers. Aquilegia grow well and seed freely (new growth showing in the middle) and are ever so pretty. We’ve got years-old primulas (front of shot) which flower each year.
I start my gardening in spring by working my way around the borders one at a time. With each year that passes you can tell that you’re getting older as you find muscles that you’d forgotten you had!
Weaving a Garden Hedge
Spring is also a good time of year to tie bushes and climbing plants in, to thicken a hedge around your fence. We planted a mixture of hedging bushes, climbers, trees and shrubs around our fence. They cover the hard boundary and create a green border inside it.
We’ve used hawthorne which is reasonably good at withstanding the coastal weather. It’s interplanted with honeysuckle, different clematis and climbing roses. We’ve trained and tied in normal shrubs to grow tall against the boundary and provide evergreen cover. Over the years we’ve bought fruit trees in plastic bags from Woolworths and Wilkinson’s to add to our mixed hedge. Bit by bit, the fence disappeared and now as soon as the plants leaf in spring we have a thick green hedge that’s peppered all through the year with flowers and fruit.
Making More Flowers
When you’re gardening in spring it’s also a good time to cut the dead growth off roses. Cut shrub roses down to encourage new, strong growth. Have you got got climbing roses in your garden? Or any other kind of climbing plant for that matter.
Tip: A good tip is to pull long branches out and tie them in horizontally. This stimulates new growth along the length of each stem, and each of these new shoots will bear far more flowers than you’d ever get if the plant grew to its natural tall form. Try it, it really works.
By the time the clocks go forward, everything is starting to show signs of growth.
Spring Bulbs
An irritation in your spring garden is the leaves of the spring bulbs. I must admit they get on my nerves. I usually gather them up into a tuft and loosely tie a bit of string around the bundle to keep them upright in one place. Make sure that you’ve also dead headed daffodils and tulips as the flowers go over, so that the strength of the leaves dies back into the bulb. Otherwise the plant puts its energy into the seed pod, which weakens it for next year.
Applying a general all purpose feed to the leaves will also strengthen them for a better display next year. The bulb/corm is the underground store and what happens this year affects how good a display you’ll get next year. That’s why you should leave those irritating leaves for a good six weeks. In a perfect world you should let them wither and fall off, which is fine if they are in a remote spot or at the back of a border. Don’t fold them in half and fasten them with elastic bands, it just stops the goodness from going back into the bulb.
Lift and Divide
Spring is a great time of year to make more plants by dividing the ones that you’ve already got.
Snowdrops will self-set freely from seed. Our snowdrops are descendants of the my grandads. We’ve got them all over the garden. If you want to share them with friends and neighbours, now’s the time to do it, when they are ‘in the green’. Wait until they’ve finished flowering. While they still have green leaves, lift a clump, divide and replant. The dry bulbs that you can buy almost always give poor results. So don’t bother! Leave the seed heads on your own snowdrops, and over time you’ll find them growing all over your garden.
Splitting Perennials
Perennials are the plants that die back to the soil in winter and regrow in the spring. The clumps will increase in size each year. Now is a good time to lift and divide them to make more plants, before they start to grow again.
Supporting Floppy Plants
As your perennials and other border plants start to grow, you need to be giving them some support. Canes, twigs and string will stop you from ending up with a flopped, flat heap later in the year when it rains!
Perennials are usually the worst culprit, as they generally grow quite tall and need some support. You can use old twigs for a more natural look, the tennis racket type supports that the plants grow through, the bendy bits of wire, or simply a mish-mash of canes and string.
Chelsea Chop
The ‘Chelsea Chop’ looks brutal but it does work. It’s called that because it’s generally carried out at about the time of the flower show. It’s a way of getting a better display and growth from your perennials.
When your perennials are about a foot high, you cut a selected number of stems by about half. They will grow again more slowly and flower later than the uncut ones. It prolongs the flowering season and creates a denser clump of plant.
I always do it to the large heavy sedum plants. Sedum spectabile (above) is the thick glaucous one that grows so easily at the coast – you’ll see them everywhere. Left alone, the stems are heavy and flop to leave a bare crown.
But if you chop them all off to the bottom to within about 4-6”, each stem will send off multiple new ones. They then all flower to create a dense plant without a bare patch. Try it, it really does work!
Cut the Grass
Your lawn will also be starting to grow, especially when the sun begins to shine and it gets a bit warmer.
Tip: A longer sward will give your lawn some protection from burning by the salty wind. It will look a bit shaggy, but never mind. When you start mowing it, try to resist the temptation to cut it close – until the spring winds and frosty nights have passed.
It’s also the time of year to feed your lawn too. A dose of weed, feed and moss killer will work wonders to perk your lawn up after winter and set it off into spring looking green and lush. The effect lasts for a few months too, well into summer. One thing about living so close to the coast is that you get a free windblown top dressing of sand. It does help with the clay soil that many of us have here on the Fylde Coast.
DON’T FORGET: Keep lawn fertilisers and chemicals etc well out of the way of pets. PLEASE don’t use slug pellets! They are as toxic to wildlife as they are to slugs. Birds, and animals like hedgehogs, can also die when they eat the poisoned slugs.
Mulch and Plant Feed
Early Spring is the time of year to give your garden some food after a cold and wet winter. A sprinkling of fish, blood and bone is an organic fertiliser which will make all the new growth strong and healthy. As you’re tidying up your spring garden, it’s also a good time to start making compost and mulch.
I’ve tried making compost in all kinds of ways over the years, and have finally struck on a reasonably easy way. I’ve got a garden shredder, so when I do a big prune I put everything through the shredder into old compost sacks and then leave them to cook in a warm spot. After about 6-8 weeks, depending on the weather, you’ve got lovely crumbly mulch. Just like the stuff you pay a few pounds for at a garden centre.
As spring gets underway you might have the urge to start chopping. Make sure that you give your shrubs a chance to flower before you trim them into shape though. An easy rule of thumb is to trim after flowering and then leave until next year. Many shrubs flower on the previous years wood so if you keep cutting the growth off you’ll never see a bud!
The March of the Weeds and Pests
As the weather warms up, plants aren’t the only thing that will start to grow. Greenfly and aphids will quickly start to multiply and all the weeds and pests will grow too!
Mares Tail
When we came here, our concrete jungle was frilled round the edge with mares tail. I’d never even seen mares tail, except for the little plant I’d once had growing in a pot in my pond. If you’re lucky enough not to have it in your garden, be grateful.
It’s a weed with prehistoric origin, and grows as pointed tufts from the most invasive root system you could imagine. The tiniest little bit of root regenerates to create new plants and it’s almost impossible to get rid of. You’ll see it coming up through tarmac all over the Fylde Coast, and it also enjoys clay soil.
- It’s such a pain that we’ve dedicated this full page to mares tail and how to get rid of it.
Beetles and Bugs
Another thing I’d never seen before I came to the Fylde Coast is the lily beetle. I’d heard about them, but wasn’t prepared for the destruction they cause. I love lilies, but I’ve admitted defeat (for now). This oval, bright shiny red, beautiful small beetle has a voracious appetite for lilies and anything similar – for example fritillaries and day lilies.
They tram up and down the plant, munching away and will literally strip the plant if you let them. Before you know where you are, they’ll have eaten your plant to extinction. They lay their eggs in black, snotty clumps, then the larva start on your plants too. Much as I don’t like to kill anything, the best solution is to catch them and squash them. And even I can manage to do that when I’m out gardening in spring.
Vine Weevils are another horrible one which you should dispense the same treatment to. They’re a beetle which lays it eggs in the soil. The small white larvae eat the roots of your plants, which then die. They’re particularly partial to auriculas.
Greenfly and Aphids
Greenfly can easily be dealt with by gently rubbing them off new shoots between your fingers. Spray on a solution of soapy water (fairy liquid is fine). A gentle blast with the hosepipe can also work wonders too. You might get a surge of aphids before the ladybirds get them under control. But give them a chance because they usually do. There always seem to be huge numbers of ladybirds here on the Fylde Coast!
Tip: By far and away the best way to keep on top of aphids is to encourage the birds into your garden with feeders. They’ll just eat all the bugs while they’re at it!
Clear out the Corners
This time of year is also a perfect time to be clearing anything else away that you’ve shoved outside while the weather was bad. If you’re anything like us you’ll have a ‘corner’ or maybe two! When the weather is bad we all pop ‘stuff’ in a corner where we can’t see it from the back door. Now is the time to clear all those bits and bobs away and have a tidy up. Throw away everything that is broken or useless and store everything else properly where it should actually go!
Steady Wins the Race!
In a previous life and another county we had a large garden that was our hobby, where we spent lots of happy hours. Then your life changes, you get less and less spare time. You find aches and pains that you didn’t have in your youth. In our case we moved to Cleveleys to a house with (thankfully) a much smaller garden. If you like gardening, it’s very tempting to go outside and stay there for hours. You feel OK at the time – it’s a day or two later when you pay the price!
Tip: Set a timer or ask someone to shout you when you’ve been outside for long enough. That way you’ll manage a little gardening often!
Every year I start to feel twitchy in early Spring. I want to get outside into my garden as soon as the sky brightens and the sun shines. For me, spending time with secateurs and a trowel, pottering about, seeing the green shoots and being sidetracked by my little feathery friends is such a pleasure. It makes me feel glad to be alive, and it’s something I don’t think I’ll ever tire of.
In our previous home I found it frustrating that I couldn’t look after the garden as well as I would have liked. So it’s a treat to be able to keep this one to more or less my exacting standards. If I say so myself, for a small plot it’s a picture in the height of summer.
Time for Sniffles…
Gardening in Spring might also come with a mild to moderate dose of the sniffles if you’re allergic to tree pollen. Spring heralds the start of the hayfever season for millions of people. Here’s some ideas about living with hayfever.
A Garden Full of Memories
We’ve always bought plants and things for the garden for special occasions. When we moved to the Fylde Coast we brought as much as we could with us. Back then my long-suffering hubby was still working shifts in his old job so each time he came here from our old home he would bring a car full of plants with him!
There’s the rose ‘Remember Me’ that marked our dog Toby’s grave. Just Joey’ (below) is a vigorous shrub rose and one of the first plants that we put in our new Cleveleys garden.
In the corner of our garden grows a miniature weeping cherry. My grandma bought it with the money given to her for flowers at my grandads funeral. When my grandma later died, the people who bought their house let us have it back, when they later made the front garden into a drive.
We’ve got a cluster of roses, planted in a corner, bought by friends and family in recent years. Three yellow roses were bought by Pam, Val and Brenda and Keith, for Chrissie’s Golden Wedding Anniversary. Not long afterwards Val sadly died. Another pink rose is a memory of my own silver wedding anniversary, a present from hubby.
I look around my little, different, seafront garden, and I see years of memories. There’s my granddad’s little school chair that he used to sit on, chopping sticks for the fire. We keep it in our shed and my mum now sits on it to chatter to me while I’m gardening. And of course at this time of year, I also see a summer to come, in the promise of fresh green shoots and birds looking about for nesting sites. All in my lovely garden at Cleveleys.
Work in Progress
Much like our gardens, this page is a work in progress! I’m sure there are lots of things that I’ve forgotten, which I’ll add as I remember. Some useful pages are included below but there are more in the main gardening section. If there’s anything you want to add, just leave a comment. Happy spring gardening!
- Plants that grow at the coast
- Gardening in Spring
- Gardening in Summer
- Autumn Gardening
- Gardening in Winter
- Seaside Gardening
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