The Garden In... March And April

Kari-Astri Davies is settling in plants and sowing seeds to enjoy her garden in the months ahead.

- Kari-Astri Davies

FOR A FEW weeks each spring I have to keep my cold frame firmly closed. The frame is on legs, higher up than normal. If I keep it open, the minute my back is turned, blackbirds try to build nests in one corner. It’s amazing how fast they can set to weaving twigs and grasses into a tidy cup and lining it with wet mud from the stream.

William Wordsworth, ‘Written in March’

I wonder if each blackbird has a signature nest building style, neat vs scruffy, oval vs round, utilitarian vs creative? Last year, one nest sported an artfully arranged swirl of dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ which the bird had salvaged from the compost heap.

As March gives way to April, returning swallows and, we hope, the migrant hobby pair will join our local nesting throng.

Low-maintenance planting

This time last year, I wrote that we had one final part of the garden to plant, and in late March digging commenced. This roughly rectangular bed is close to the house, bounded by pine railway sleepers. It is slightly raised, as it took spoil, mainly yellow clay and broken bricks from the foundation excavations for the new extension. Until March, it served as a storage place for the many pallets that arrived with deliveries for building work. It was also home to a builder’s demolition bonfire. On top of that it received dousings of grouting-tainted water from the numerous bucketfuls it took to lay the new kitchen floor. This was not a promising start.

The bed is primarily south facing, in full sun most of the day in summer, but not in winter. Firstly, it was roughly rotavated, a heavy task on wet clay. A cement mixer was used to mix together multi-purpose compost, 20mm gravel to give better drainage, and some slow-release fertiliser. Pockets were then dug in the clay, filled with this mixture and plants popped in.