Pruning - Spiraea

Thurs 7th March
Weather: 8 - 9°C. Light drizzle most of the day. An atmospheric mist enshrouded the whole site late afternoon.

Spiraea japonica 'Goldflame' before

Spiraea japonica 'Goldflame'

I have been pruning the spiraeas in the Long Border. They are of the Rosaceae family, Spiraea arguta is one that has a light green leaves at this time of the year and will have wreaths of white flowers and a red one I think called S. japonica Goldflame' that will turn green later in the year and have pink flowers. These ones flower on current years wood. Spiraeas are very resilient. I took off dead flowered and really weedy parts but most of the time didn't cut a stem right down to the base but to a good strong bud. I did a much lighter touch on the red one than the green one. Apparently spiraeas are great for attracting butterflies.

Section of what lawn that we do have (e.g. strips alongside the main orchard meadow) were fed today with a lawn dressing & chicken manure. Some of these overly worn parts will be re-turfed. I also cut down a Clematis 'Perle d' Azur' right down to the ground, as we wanted to control the height of its growth & potted up some Pleioblastus that had been split and divided into smaller pieces of one or two growing points.