De Jager Tulip Festivals

De Jager is once again running its glorious Tulip Festivals at six of the best and most prestigious gardens in England and Eire.

During these highly popular Festivals, visitors to the gardens will experience a sea of glorious tulip colour and a visual treat not to be missed.

Thousands of tulip bulbs in varieties selected specifically by the gardens to complement their other displays, produce a colourful spectacle during the Festivals, which visitors keep coming back to see.

Visitors to the gardens will not only be delighted by the displays, but they can appreciate the versatility and glory of this magnificent bulb.

All the tulips on display are carefully labelled and there are facilities at the gardens for visitors to pre-order bulbs for their own gardens.

Where to go

The six gardens hosting the de Jager Tulip Festivals are:

The Alnwick Garden, Northumberland: Saturday, 30 April to Tuesday, 8 May.

Chatsworth, Derbyshire: Friday, 4 May to Tuesday, 8 May.

Dyrham Park, G...

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Whether your garden is under snow or blossoms are starting to pop up, there are things you can do to prepare for spring:

1. Check your yard -- Has the weather done any damage to your property or trees? If your fences or paths need fixing this is a good time to get the materials together.
2. See what you need to plant -- Do you want to try something new? Are there holes in your garden that need filling? Did you discover a particularly bad plant infection last year that will affect what you plant next? If you rotate your annuals, what will you put into the place of what you had there before?
3. Start your seeds -- Spring seeds that need starting indoors should be started this month at the very latest.
4. Sharpen your tools -- They will need to be re-sharpened a bit, even if you did it before you put them away for the winter. At least check them -- it will make digging, clipping and all that much easier. (If you don't know how to sharpen your tools and need a lesson on it just let me know.)
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Snow turned my garden into a winter wonderland last week. Yours too I bet.
Isn’t it lovely when unsightly plastic pots and broken wheelbarrows
disappear under the invisibility blanket which we know as snow! This surely
is a useful note to self: make the garden look gorgeous all-year-round, not
just in the summer, or when its uglier corners are disguised by soft
white stuff. My tips: Allocate a kind of glory hole to hide the messy bits,
behind a shed or shady corner. Arrange all your container plants together or
in groups (- keeps them neat, but also cosier for the plants.) Protect tender
plants from freezing weather. Looking at its blackened form struggling to
recover for the next 6 months is one of my least favourite garden eye-sores.
Especially if its in my garden...

Helen Riches is a garden designer who also writes and develops features for gardening magazines. She also runs light-hearted but informative garden courses from her home in North Essex.
http://www.helenriches.co.uk

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