Gina Parkinson puts her nose to the grindstone as she gets her garden ready for a special guest.

You know how the outstanding cleaning suddenly gets done when visitors are imminent? Well it is no different in the garden when someone is due to have a look around.

The past two weekends have been spent outside tidying and trimming, digging and sweeping after a phone call from BBC Radio York’s Julia Lewis.

Julia hosts the gardening programme on Sunday morning and she asked if our garden could be included.

So there we were, getting all those early spring jobs done so the place could be presentable.   Thank goodness for the clear weather we have mostly enjoyed in the north compared with other parts of the country.

To be honest, it has been good to have a deadline. The jobs done would all have to have been carried out at some point and as I write on Sunday evening there is still a long list to finish. It is definitely the start of the busiest time of the gardening year.

PS: Listen to Radio York tomorrow morning to hear about Julia Lewis’s trip round our garden. She is on from 9am and says my spot will be broadcast from about 11am.

 

February jobs

For many gardeners it has been difficult to do much outside because it is so wet under foot, but failing all else it is worth getting out there with a brush and sweeping the paths or patio.

Check plants in pots and trim off dead leaves and stems plus any that have been damaged over the past few months. Many things will be starting to sprout either through the compost or along their stems so watch out for tender new buds.

We have a few pots on the step outside the conservatory which can be glanced at from the house and I notice that the French tarragon, not usually hardy in this country, is sending up numerous shoots up through the surface of the soil. It will be brought in for protection should the weather turn cold but for the moment it is doing fine.

If it possible to walk on the lawn, then the tidying can continue with neatening the edges of the beds. Lawns will try to grow into the nice soil in the flower beds and the edge between the two soon becomes blurred. Go around the whole bed or border with a sharp garden spade to redefine the edge. It’s amazing how much better it will look.

It’s a good time to clear up alpine beds as new growth is only just beginning and is easy to spot. The well-drained soil that is a feature of these beds is attractive to any number of unwanted plants and seedlings which will happily take over if allowed.

Ours has to cleared regularly of ivy and the variegated form of Lamium galeobdolon. This latter plant goes by the attractive common name of yellow archangel and it is certainly excellent at spreading its word.

The silvery leaves are lovely and yellow spring flowers attractive to insects but do not plant this unless there is plenty of room. An hour or so saw the bed cleared and spread with a new layer of gravel and it looks ready to welcome the emerging plants.

 

In the veg garden

If you are itching to get planting then broad beans may fit the bill.

These hardy plants can be sown outside in autumn so a cold frame or unheated greenhouse in February will also be suitable.

Sow the seeds into individual containers, cardboard tubes from wrapping paper or kitchen rolls are ideal. Cut the tubes into six inch lengths, wedge them together in a plant pot, fill with compost and push a seed into each. Water, label and put into the greenhouse or cold frame to germinate. This may take a while especially if the weather is cold but it will eventually happen and there will be some early plants ready to put out in spring.

 

Open gardensTomorrow

• Devonshire Mill, Canal Lane, Pocklington, YO42 1NN, one mile south of Pocklington. The early season opening of this garden is to show the drifts of snowdrops in old orchards and amongst hellebores and ferns in woodland. This is an organic garden which includes vegetable gardens with raised beds, a polytunnel, herbaceous borders and mill stream. Open 11am-4pm, admission £3, money raised for the National Gardens Scheme.

 

Gardening TV and radio

Tomorrow

• 8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

• 9am, BBC Radio York, Julia Lewis. News and features from around Yorkshire including a trip around Gina Parkinson’s garden in York.

• 9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

• 2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Panellists Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood, Anne Swithinbank and chairman Eric Robson are in Suffolk where they advise gardeners from Lowestoft. (Repeated from Friday).

Friday

• 3pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ Question Time. Chairman Peter Gibbs and his team of gardening experts answer questions from the audience in Wyke Regis in Weymouth. With Chris Beardshaw, Bunny Guinness and Anne Swithinbank.