19 hours Ago By David Domoney
Raspberries are the taste of summer, bringing back memories of those grown by my dad when I was young. Their jewel-like, ruby colour and delicious flavour are well worth your time. And you can grow some varieties in limited space, even on balconies in pots.
They also boast a load of health benefits – they’re packed with vitamin C, are high in fibre and rich in antioxidants that may protect against cancer. If you’re going to grow your own, do so now, with some of my advice to give you the highest chance of success. Garden centres should have plenty of young fruit bushes available to buy already.
Consider growing early, mid and late-season varieties for fruit from late-spring to autumn. You can either buy them pre-grown in pots or as bare-root (which is typically more affordable). These easy-to-grow fruit bushes are ideal for planting in the dormant season, from November to March.
Just ensure the soil isn’t frozen or waterlogged before starting. Raspberries prefer slightly acidic, fertile and moist but well-drained soil, which doesn’t waterlog. Choose a position with as much sun as possible but sheltered from the wind.
Prepare the soil for planting by removing all perennial weeds, which could disrupt your raspberries from rooting. If planting in the garden, do so in rows, where they can be trained along wire spread between posts. Position them north to south, to alleviate the chance of each plant shading another.
A minimum of two feet between plants is perfect, with a three-inch mulch after planting to keep weeds at bay. Once the shoots grow through, tie them to the wire to train them up. If you’re growing in containers in limited space, a 15in-wide pot and a bamboo cane will be sufficient.
Once March comes around, use a slow-release fertiliser, and add another mulch. Keep them well-watered while fruiting and flowering. Take particular care if growing in containers, as these will dry out quicker.
Feeding with a liquid multi-purpose fertiliser every four weeks will help to maintain a generous crop. Prune your raspberries annually after the first year, for healthier plants, and high-quality fruit. Summer-fruiting raspberries (floricanes) produce fruit on year-old stems.
So, when pruning, cut the fruited stems from that year down to the ground, and select the strongest green stems from the current season to remain. Alternatively, autumn-fruiting raspberries (primocanes) produce their crop on the current season’s stems. Cut back fruited stems to the ground in February – new ones will emerge that spring.
Raspberries are a joy to grow and delicious to eat. So, plant them now to enjoy your homegrown harvest later this year. 1.
Now is the ideal time to plant currants while they are dormant. Choose a sunny spot with well-drained yet moist soil. Water them well during their first summer.
Once established, they need minimal maintenance — just annual pruning and mulching. To find out more, head to my YouTube @daviddomoney 2. Before the growing season gets under way, make sure your greenhouse is ready.
Ensure the glass is clean and clear to maximise light, so plants don’t come through “leggy”. Use a scraper to remove debris from between glass panes and clear the guttering too. Then go over with some warm water and a soft cloth or sponge.
3. Our lawns will start growing in the spring, so tidy lawn edges now. My tool of choice is Ames Tools’ Stainless Steel Lawn Edger.
It has a half-moon blade which slices through the turf. Follow with some edging shears for a fully manicured look. 4.
Ornamental and herbaceous grasses benefit from being cut back to ensure your garden looks smart. For evergreen grasses, remove dead leaves, flower stems, and other debris. Large evergreen grasses should be hard pruned in early spring.
For deciduous varieties, remove all old stems and foliage to give new growth more space to come through. Cut everything down as low as possible. 5.
While it’s tempting to remove dandelions as soon as they appear, there’s a good reason to leave them alone for now. They can be a very valuable source of food for early pollinators like bumblebees, solitary bees, and butterflies. Bees generally emerge in late March or April, depending on the weather, but some UK butterflies could start to appear in February.
They would certainly benefit from a valuable food source now. Cotoneaster is a versatile, hardy shrub known for its arching branches, small glossy leaves and ornamental berries. It belongs to the Rosaceae family, native to most parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
Thriving in full sun to partial shade, cotoneaster is adaptable to various soil types. This makes it a popular choice for ground cover, hedges, or wall training. The berries, often red or orange, provide a valuable food source for birds in winter.
In February, cotoneaster benefits from light pruning to maintain shape and remove dead or diseased wood. If the soil is dry, a deep watering can help, though the plant is drought-tolerant once established. Mulching around the base will suppress weeds and retain moisture as temperatures fluctuate.
Avoid heavy feeding now – wait until early spring for balanced fertiliser application. One of my favourite cotoneaster varieties is Cotoneaster lacteus, or “late cotoneaster”. It grows to about 4m tall and has arching branches with impactful leathery leaves.
Their slightly pink blooms grow in large clusters, followed by bountiful bunches of red berries, popular among birds in winter. Known as one of the smelliest plants grown on earth, Titan arum is native to Sumatran rainforests and is endangered, thanks to deforestation. Luckily, it doesn’t smell awful constantly, only when it flowers, which is rare and unpredictable.
The scent resembles rotten flesh, which attracts flies as well as other flesh-loving pollinators. Cranberries can float on water, which makes them particularly striking when added to cocktails and fruity drinks. Each cranberry has hollow chambers within, which makes them much better suited to floating over sinking.
This is because cranberries are often grown in low-lying bogs, found growing wild in marshland in Europe. The air chambers mean the fruit can float up to the surface. Botanically peanuts are not technically nuts, but legumes.
This is because they grow in the ground in a pod more similar to how peas and lentils grow. Nuts, on the other hand, are seeds in hard shells. There are at least 350,000 plant species known to science, but there are some 100,000 which have been found and are still unnamed, as of a 2023 report.
This doesn’t include any plant species that haven’t been identified yet..
