We’re almost ready to begin the next phase of the playground and we are hoping to get planning permission for it early this month.

Once we get the go-ahead, work will begin to improve the area and our exciting plans include the building of a large tower, which represents a conifer, which will help to fill the gap made by the removal of a Metasequioa that had started rotting at the base.

The work will also make the duck pen more visible, making better use of the area. Hopefully, we’ll have some ducklings, too, so that visitors can enjoy watching them.

It is a wonderful time to visit the Gardens because there is so much fresh new growth to admire.

We are removing winter protection this month, so the old leaves and straw are being taken away from the Bog Garden to enable the newly emerging gunneras to thrive.

The winter duvets will also be removed from the tree ferns, with the straw being emptied out so that the hessian can be stored easily. We won’t be wasting the leaves and straw, of course: these will be composted.

The wisteria will have its remaining shoots cut back to three buds to encourage larger panicles of flowers.

April is the time for flowering cherries and we are looking forward to them being in full bloom – it’s such a fleeting occurrence – and the magnolias will once again be magnificent. Visit the Rock Garden and you’ll see them all in their splendour.

The culmination of our hard work in September is also coming to fruition on the terrace, where the beautiful hyacinths are scenting the air. These will be followed in May by the tulips.

Grass cutting has started in earnest and we’ve fertilised the grass to replace the nutrients lost over the winter and through cutting last summer. We will also be starting to tidy up the lawn edges, especially on the Terrace.

The Scarecrow Garden is being prepared for its new crop of seeds and plants, ready for another productive year, while the Rose Garden is sending out new growth. Last year’s replacements have really put down their roots and are plumping up, and the new roses are settling in well.

In the nursery, we’ll be potting 6,800 plugs into cells, ready for our summer bedding displays. We won’t plant them out until late May, however, until the risk of frost has passed. Now that the plants are actively growing we will start feeding the indoor plants, according to the instructions on the packet.

We will also be damping down the floors more often to increase the humidity. The evaporation cools the atmosphere and slows transpiration (water loss) through the plants leaves. It also keeps pests, such as red spider mite, at bay because they hate high humidity.

If you’re visiting during April, make a special detour to see the white flowers on the Citrus in the Mediterranean House. These have a wonderful jasmine-like perfume and develop into the oranges and lemons we all love. You’ll also find sweet and spicy-scented stocks, vibrant lily-flowered tulips and red Amaryllis in our Mediterranean House this month.

Wayne’s favourite this month is the Medinilla magnifica in the Tropical House. This is an evergreen shrub from the Philippines that doesn’t grow in the ground like most plants, but grows as an epiphyte, which means it grows on another plant. It has large, pink, chandelier-like flowers and we believe ours is the biggest plant in the UK.

Chris’s favourite plant at the moment is Prunus spinosa – a true harbinger of spring if ever there was one.

It’s the beginning of meteorological spring – a time when we can really look forward to seeing the fruits of our labours and also prepare for the coming growing seasons.

Chris and her team of gardeners are gearing up for an incredibly busy month – they’ve already planted 2,500 snowdrops beneath the cedar tree by the bandstand, which has provided a welcome splash of colour. They will only get better over the next few years, too. (If you have a chance, buy some snowdrops ‘in the green’ to enhance your spring garden next year.)

Chris is hoping to get the lawn mowers out in force this month after a very wet – and now frosty – winter, which has left the grass long and the ground very soggy.

One job that should be completed soon is the new overflow from the Rock Garden Pool. Contractors have been on site constructing it, which will hopefully stop the problem of water flowing beneath the new Memory Pool liner. It should mean an end to the team manually emptying the pool every fourth day down the path. The plan is to conserve the water and use it to water the Nursery.

The team is also busy getting the vegetable garden ready for the new season. Compost has been spread and dug in, seeds are being sown in the glasshouses and the first batch of salad crops has been sown under plastic sheeting in the vegetable patch. The polythene helps to retain heat, warming the soil, which puts the seeds ahead of the game.

We’ve got potatoes chitting in the glasshouses, ready to be planted in large pots where they will be earthed up. A volunteer kindly donated Charlotte and Pink Fir Apple varieties, which are delicious salad potatoes.

We rely a lot on our fantastic volunteers. This month they will be joining the gardening team to undertake weeding and edging. They’ll also be tasked with pruning the Buddleias and Salix, as well as cutting off last year’s foliage from the epimediums so that the new flowers will be seen at their best.

March is a great time to make new cloches and these will be covered with mesh to deter attacks by birds and butterflies. This is particularly important where we’ll be growing cabbages.

If you are visiting the Gardens this month, don’t forget to have a look at our bamboo maze, which is looking very smart. We’ve been tidying it up, filling gaps and redoing the paths.

If roses are your passion, you’ll love what we’ve done with two beds in the Rose Garden. We’ve replanted them with new varieties including Jude the Obscure, a rose with a wonderful fragrance; Tranquillity; The Lark Ascending and The Lady of Shalott. These will complement the roses that were planted last year.

This month, the flowering cherries will be coming into flower, while a burst of yellow daffodils will brighten up the borders. Camellias will also be in their prime – all good reasons for visiting the Gardens.

The glasshouse team will continue with its final stock taking on the indoor plant collection. So far, Wayne has completed 28 out of 33 plant beds, which has resulted in 232 accessions in the Tropical House, 525 in the Subtropical, 110 in the Mediterranean and 136 in the Arid – just over 1,000 accessions.

March will see the team staking the daffodils, tulips, stocks and Schizanthus in the 21-metre Mediterranean House floral display, which will come into its own in April.

The Mediterranean House will also take delivery of a number of brightly coloured Bougainvillea, which will be planted in large pots and their stems trained up into the roof.

A top-dressing of gravel in the centre beds in the Mediterranean House will give it a new lease of life, while a top-dressing of compost to the beds in the Tropical and Subtropical House borders will not only look tidy, but will also help to supress weeds and lock in moisture in the ground.

We’re slowly getting more hours of daylight, which means the tasks that Chris and her team have on their to-do lists are beginning to get progressively longer as February unfolds.

The first task the team will get under way this month is rose pruning. It’s important to remove any branches that are dead, diseased and dying, as well as any crossing branches, to open up the framework.  Once that is done, the next task will be to cut back to three good buds on a stem.

They will also start to tidy up bamboos, especially ones with coloured culms (stems).  The unwanted thinnest or oldest stems will be cut away to ground level, then all the side shoots will be cut off the remaining stems. If you are doing the same, take the side shoots off the stems you are retaining to about two metres, if you can manage to get that high, so that you can see through the plant.

The team hopes that the weather will be a little drier this month when it begins to mulch the shrub and rose beds and tree circles with our rich, home-made compost. The soil needs to be damp but not sodden, so fingers crossed for optimal conditions!

If the weather allows, Chris and her team will also attempt to mow the grass because it has not stopped growing all winter.  They’ve had to resist up to now because the lawns have been too wet and the mowers would have churned them up to a muddy mess.

If you’re visiting the Gardens this month, there are lots of plants to look out for that will stimulate the senses.

You’ll enjoy the heady fragrances of Viburnums, Hamamelis, Sarcococca, honeysuckles and the most delicious of all the Daphne. Also look out for the Cornus and Salix with their gorgeous stem colour, Cyclamen coum Hellebores and their multi-coloured flowers, summer snowflakes (Leucojeums), and the vibrant winter aconites. There’s even a Rhododendron in flower in the Cottage Garden.

If you’re lucky, you may also spot some crocuses that have escaped the squirrels’ attention.

In the Tropical and Subtropical Houses, the last of the cutting back will take place, allowing as much light in as possible. Who needs a winter sun holiday when you have the Birmingham Botanical Gardens!

The team will be doing a stock take on the database to ensure that the plants are in the correct plant bed, according to the records. It will also highlight from a curatorial point of view if there are any gaps in the plant collection, giving us the opportunity to buy or propagate any that are needed.

Most importantly, this plant audit enables the team to label the plants, so that all visitors know the name of the plant they are looking at. There are about 6,000 plant accessions on the database, so that’s a lot of labels!

If you’re heading to the glasshouses, look out for the fabulous Dombeya x cayeuxii – a large shrub opposite the orchid case, whose big, pink, Hydrangea- like flowers fill the Subtropical House with their sweet sugary scent. Beaumontia grandiflora is also looking great in February. It’s located in the Subtropical House and is easy to spot: this large evergreen climber has huge white, trumpet-like flowers that look as if they are reaching for the sun.

If you are out and about in the Gardens this month, remember to take photographs of all of your discoveries and tweet them to @bhambotanicalgd.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Now January is here, Chris, Wayne and their team of gardeners are gearing up for another very busy year at the Gardens.

They’ve had a very stormy time of late after three trees blew down in the Woodland Walk and landed in the Fern Garden. The trees haven’t gone to waste, though, because the team cut up the trunks and shredded the branches to form mulch, which has been spread on the paths.

Because the trees were pulled out, the roots damaged the banks, so the trunks are being used to shore up the exposed soil.

Chris has decided not to plant trees too closely any more, echoing the sentiments of JC Loudon (the Gardens’ designer), who favoured planting trees so that their individual beauty and value to the landscape could be appreciated.

The Rock Garden pool has been causing the gardening team problems over the last few months because the overflow is blocked and will not clear, despite the pool being emptied every fourth day or so. This month, a new overflow is being installed to see if it eases the problem. Fingers’ crossed.

Funding has been secured for a further phase of the Children’s Discovery Garden and Chris is drawing up plans for the new areas, which will also include new drainage as some parts have become waterlogged.

The amount of actual gardening that the team does in January is fairly low key because there is too much water and the soil is too cold. It’s important not to walk on soggy soil because it loses its valuable air spaces.

If there are more than three days of freezing weather and the root balls of the bonsai freeze, these delicate trees have to be moved to the nursery to thaw out.

Frozen soil means the trees cannot take in water, so conifers will still lose water through transpiration, which means they become dry – this puts the plants under severe stress.

So it’s likely the team will be doing plenty of heavy lifting, which helps to take off the pounds put on over Christmas!

The grapevine in the Roman Historic Garden will be pruned this month before the sap rises, otherwise the vine can bleed to death. The same goes for birch trees – any work on them should be done in January because they also bleed; sap can pour out like from a tap (although the sap can be used to make birch beer, which is good).

Other main tasks for this month are tidying up areas that are usually unseen by visitors, such as the nursery yard and the tool sheds.

Wayne will be working hard in the Tropical House this month, doing the annual pruning of the canopy in the Tropical House. Removing the growth produced during last summer gives the plants as much light as possible to thrive; it encourages new flowering growth; gives visitors more space to walk around; and also helps with heating bills because the sun warms the glasshouse by solar gain.

Wayne will also be finalising the interpretation for the plant evolution trail in The Subtropical House. This will enable visitors to learn about all aspects of plant evolution over the past 1.6 billion years. It will include information on topics such as how plants have helped to change the Earth’s atmosphere, enabling all life to flourish, as well as explain the differences between plants from primitive to highly evolved.

Chris says that the beautiful snowdrops will be thriving in January, although they were already popping up in December. There have also been some early flowers on the our Prunus ‘Accolade’ on the Main Lawn, which is very unusual for January – let’s hope it does not get too cold to kill them off.

January is the perfect time to visit the glasshouses – it really helps to banish the January blues! The Beaumontia grandiflora – a large evergreen climber with huge white, trumpet-like flowers about 15cm in diameter – is in flower in the Subtropical House and looks amazing. Be sure to look up, though, because the flowers are quite high up where the plant gets the most of the winter sun. Another wonderful plant to look at now in the Subtropical House is the Bird of Paradise, with its bright orange and blue, bird-like flowers brighten up the dullest of winter days.

 

Christmas might be round the corner, but for Chris, Wayne and their team of gardeners, keeping the gardens and glasshouses in tip-top condition continues to be the priority.

First task will be to plant shrubs and deciduous trees until the ground freezes, but they will avoid planting evergreens or conifers. This is because the cold drying winds desiccate these plants and if the soil is frozen they cannot replace vital water.

Revamping the herbaceous borders will be a focus this month because they have become clogged up by bindweed and other rampant plants, despite being weeded four times this year alone. The smaller bed will be emptied completely and left fallow for a year. The team will use a selective weed killer, when necessary, to provide a blank canvas to work on.

To prepare the new herbaceous borders, Chris will ensure that any plants worth saving from the larger border will be dug up, split and potted up in the nursery to get them established.

She has been thinking carefully about the design for the whole area and believes that a rainbow of colours, running from cool whites and blues to fiery reds, oranges and yellows, with a river of silver plants running through the whole scheme, will look stunning.

A scale drawing has been produced by one of the Gardens’ volunteers and the next step is to go through the seed and plant catalogues to choose the plants – always a great job!

Our gardeners and volunteers will continue to collect fallen leaves during December – it’s a job that takes three people at least three hours, three times a week – sometimes more. We estimate that in the past month or so, about 36 trailer loads of leaves have been collected and with each trailer containing three cubic metres, that’s a lot of leaves!

If anyone could donate a leaf collector that we can tow behind our small tractor, it would be most appreciated.

The Japanese Garden Society, a wonderful group of enthusiasts, has been to the Japanese Garden to prune the cloud tree, cut back the Acers, thin out the bamboos, and get the box plants back into shape, so this area is looking in premium shape again.

When the magnificent magnolia has finally shed all its leaves, Chris plans to lay down new gravel chippings and in the Bonsai Yard. If you plan to visit the bonsai area, all the trees now have new labels courtesy of the Friends of the National Bonsai Society, which loans its collection to the Gardens and undertakes all the maintenance.

The Growing Schools Garden is also being carefully weeded and tidied up now so that it matches the new path, while the old area of poorly growing grass has been lovingly redone and is now quite lush.

Also, you will be pleased to see that the Scarecrow Garden is getting some tender loving care; the old pool is being removed and revamped as a small bog garden. All the old overgrown areas have been cut back and tidied up, and vegetable seeds have been purchased in readiness for next year.

An important task for the gardeners at this time of year is to check tree ties to ensure they do not cut into the bark. In the worst cases, bark can grow over and cause a restriction in the movement of water and fluids around the plant. This will eventually become a weak spot in the stem and the top of the tree could fall off.

Over the next month or so, the Gardens’ trees will be surveyed by an independent tree consultant and any work that needs to be done will be arranged by the team of qualified arborists, once we get permission from Birmingham City Council Tree Officer and the Calthorpe Estate.

Gardeners working in the Tropical House will be busy this month pruning the plants that have already flowered. This will encourage flowering wood for next year and the extra sunlight will help heat the glasshouse during the winter.

If you are planning to visit the Gardens this month, it’s a good time to appreciate the unique tree fern (Dicksonia x lathamii) in the Subtropical House. This hybrid was created by Charles Latham, a curator at the Gardens in the 1870s, and this unique specimen cannot be found anywhere else in the world. There will, of course, be a festive display of poinsettia and Christmas flowering hyacinths and lily of the valley to enjoy in the Mediterranean House.

One of Chris’s favourite plants, the Parrotia persica, located by the Study Centre comes into its own this month, with its explosion of reds and oranges. The Hamamelis – witch hazel – will also soon be in flower, providing a burst of bright yellow flowers, while Christmas Box, Sarcococca, will also be in peak form. Its sweet scent is loved and loathed equally by people. Why not let us know your thoughts when you next visit us?

There’s never a quiet time in the gardens for Chris and her fellow gardeners and with the threat of the first frosts this month, you’ll find the team is never far away from mountains of horticultural fleece to protect any tender species outside.

Chris will also start to bring in any tender plants that can be transferred from the outside into the nursery to protect from the worst that winter brings.

If we are lucky to enjoy some milder weather during November, the team will also continue to plant shrubs and perennials to keep the borders refreshed and to ensure continuous displays of colour and texture throughout the year.

The gardening team will also continue to do lots of sweeping – great exercise! – to keep the lawns, paths and borders as free from leaves as possible. None of it will go to waste; as always, it will be stored and turned into leaf mould, ready to replenish the nutrients in the soil in about 12 months’ time.

If you’re visiting the gardens this month, make sure you don’t miss the Loudon Terrace, which look down over the garden, or around the rock garden pool. These are Chris’s favourite parts of the gardens at the moment because of the stunning autumn colours.

She says the alternate weeks of warm then cold weather have created an incredible display – the best in recent years.

In the nursery, Wayne will be planting Christmas flowering lily of the valley in pots, ready to go into the Mediterranean House. By keeping them inside, we’re ‘tricking’ them into thinking it’s late spring, so they will flower for the festive period, rather than in May. Did you know that before poinsettias were imported from Mexico and became all the rage as the festive plant to have in your home, lily of the valley were the flowers to have at Christmas?

Wayne will also bring in forced Christmas flowering hyacinths and daffodils from a shaded cold frame into one of the glasshouses to trick them into an early spring.

If you visit the glasshouses this month, you’ll find refreshed floral displays in the Mediterranean House, ready for Christmas. Wayne will be removing the chrysanthemums when they finish flowering and will be replacing them with poinsettia. There will be space, however, to add the Christmas flowering lily of the valley, hyacinths and daffodils in December.

Remember to take photographs of all of your November discoveries on your next trip to the gardens and tweet them to @bhambotanicalgd.

 

As the nights draw darker and the climate becomes cooler, Birmingham Botanical Gardens is aglow with rich autumn colours as the leaves begin to fall from the trees. After a busy September, our gardeners are now focusing on autumn and spring displays.

This month Chris and her team will be planting out the rest of the bulbs, particularly vibrant tulips. It’s also important for our team to remove leaves from borders and lawns to prevent the spread of overwintering pests.

Nothing goes to waste though as they will be put into compost bays to create a soil conditioner for next year. Last year’s composted leaves will be spread on our bulbs in the Winter Border to create the ideal growing conditions.

Compost is also made from our grass cuttings, the old bedding plants and general green waste. This will be distributed around the garden in October to add vital nutrients back into the soil.

The lawns will be edged and tidied and the gardeners will also be reseeding bare areas, so please be aware of the fenced-off areas to allow for our lawns to recover.

Highlights for October include the Liquidamber and Liriodendron trees as they start to change colour; vivid Asters in the Herbaceous Border and the Fothergilla major as it turns bright yellow.

As for our glasshouses, it’s an exciting time of year as we have now reopened our Mediterranean Glasshouse. Thanks to the kind donations from our members, associates and visitors who have supported our Glasshouse Appeal, we’ve been able to restore it to its former glory. The refurbished glasshouse will be filled with citrus plants, Pelargoniums and Chrysanthemums to name just three.

Chris will move the lupins and delphiniums from the terrace to various areas in the gardens to help them recover from the glasshouse refurbishment work. They will show their full potential in the trail areas.

As for our head gardeners Chris and Wayne’s personal favourites, Chris suggests you see Nerine bowdenii in Cameron Walk. The spider-like flowers produce a strong scent, which reminds her of her old Sindy doll from childhood. The pink lily-like blooms have curved petals in autumn and create a swathe of pink.

As for Wayne, his favourite plant of the month is the Dwarf Cavendish banana in the Tropical House. It is now in fruit and can produce up to 90 bananas! They’re often referred to as banana trees even though they aren’t trees. They are in fact the largest herbaceous plant in the world!

Remember to take photographs of all of your October discovers on your next trip to the gardens and tweet them to @bhambotanicalgd.