Gardeners’ World host Monty Don has shared an essential gardening tip that Brits should act on ‘immediately’ to save their plants from damage. Speaking to viewers, the much-loved presenter revealed that he was planting a hawthorn hedge in his garden and stressed the importance of protecting the plants’ roots from drying.
He advised using damp hessian sacks placed over the roots straight after getting the plants. Monty explained: “Bare roots mean they’ve been grown in soil. So you make the order, they’re dug up and sent out the same day.
“When they come, you need to do something about them immediately. You either need to heel them in, which means just simply covering the roots with soil.
“Or you need to give them a drink for half an hour or so, then cover them up,” reports the Express.
“Then as you plant them you must never let the roots be exposed for more than a few minutes, because these very fine roots are the feeding roots, they dry out and then die.
“So what I’ve got here is some hessian, and this is a really good trick. If you’ve got bare root plants, get yourself some hessian and just damp it down.
“That gives you a wet cloth to put over the roots as they’re ready to be planted. So I’ve got a damp cloth that I can lay over them.”
It comes after Monty issued a ‘warning’ about the best plants to grow in November.The professional gardener says winter is a time in which he strips back his own garden at Longmeadow in Herefordshire.
Monty Don shares insights on his approach during winter. At Longmeadow in Herefordshire, he tends to pare down his garden, which often transforms into a “sodden” and “brown” landscape due to the cold.
Taking advantage of drier spells, Monty focuses on planting bulbs during this season. One specific bulb garners special attention this time of year, according to Devon Live.
As mentioned in the Gardeners’ World podcast, Monty says: “Whenever the weather is dry enough we try and do as much planting as we can that needs doing, so certainly bulbs. We don’t think about planting tulips until November.”
He adds the practical note: “So we try and get everything else done before November, we try, but it doesn’t always work. Again, you can’t plant bulbs in pouring rain.”