Top 5 tips for June

 

5 top tips June

1. Hoeing if it is one of your passions, is best done at this time as the young plants can be hoed out and left to wilt and die.

2. Edging up the lawn needs to be a regular thing. Borders and lawns always look better with a good edge to highlight both.

3. Mowing be careful not to be too ruthless cutting low, because as the weather gets hotter it can lead to bald patches and we know baldness is never good.

4. As everything is starting to flower remember to cut back the dying spring plants and deadhead on a regular basis.

5. This is your garden and it is there for you to enjoy.  Make time to sit out and relax will a cool glass of your favourite drink.

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5 top tips May

1.Keep fleece on standby to cover some of the less hardy plants that may get caught by the late spring frosts.

2.Time to start planting up those large containers with a mixture of herbaceous perennials and annuals to give a season long display.

3.Any spring flowering shrubs need a good prune now to encourage bushy growth, especially Coronilla val. subsp. glauca Citrina.

Coronilla valentina subsp.glauca "Citrina"

4.Sow another batch of your favourite annuals such as cosmos to have some later blooming plants into the autumn.

5.As soon as Chelsea flower show is on the TV, it is time to Chelsea chop your tall late flowering perennials to keep them under control. Sedum, Aster, Helianthus, Phlox are a few examples and it is a chop to about 2 inches from ground level not a little trim. 

Phlox paniculata "Loggons Black"

Phlox paniculata "Gray Lady"

Sedum "Matrona"

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5 top tips April

 

We are well into the gardening year now with all the last daffodils finishing and the herbaceous borders starting to come into their own.

1.Spliting of autumn flowering perennials such as Aster, Helianthus, Hosta.

Hosta fortunei

Helianthus "Lemon Queen"

2.This is the time to start the pricking out of seedlings and hardening them off , best in a cold frame. Remember slugs and voles love young seedlings.

3.All the wooden garden furniture needs to be checked to make sure it is safe.  Then it needs to be properly treated to stay out all summer.

4.Annual climbers want to be hardened off and planted in large pots on tripods ready to go out in mid to late June (Lathyrus matucana, Dolichos Ruby Moon, Ipomaeae to name a few)

Lathyrus matucana

5.Get the staking equipment ready for around the tall herbaceous perennials try to be creative using Hazel or Willow they blend in really well.

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Getting ready for exhibiting at Flower Shows

Showtime

There is an awful lot of behind the scenes activity goes on pre-doing any of the flower show exhibits. Hilary who is in charge of show plants and their welfare is continually moving plants into or out of a tunnel depending on the vagaries of the British weather.....

For smaller exhibits we are moving in our 3litre plants to use in groups. these will be laid out in the show tunnel in batches weekly or fortnightly, batch sizes vary from 10-15. It is not quite an exact science but does follow some rules after many years of experience.

 However they do not stay in one place for very long depending on the growing year. Some batches remain outside, others are in either a tunnel or shade area. We have to keep an eye on their watering and feeding requirements to ensure good steady growth not excessive bursts. Within this we also move some plants in and out of various conditions to try to slow or progress the plants towards their peak.

Grow lights are required for some of the more reluctant to flower plants...

Hilary is not somebody who swears but as Chelsea flower show approaches each year and some plant is not performing as it should encouraging words change to #***##**. (make up your own thoughts)

Carefully tied up for transport in the lorry to the show, already cleaned.

When we get the plants to the shows even though they have been cleaned up prior to travelling it is inevitable that they still require further attention. This has to be done by those who have patience.

Large show plants are placed in position tipped up on blocks if necessary to show off their best side. If the plants are too heavy in a pot for me to be able to lift next year they are split and put into smaller extra large pots!
and finally they should look like this for Judging...

Once the labels have all been put into place we have to walk around the stand numerous times to multicheck there is nothing missing...
I do all the labels by hand as apparently my hand writing is the neatest!!
Once it is judged that is it and the display is there for people to admire.

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5 top tips March

 

1.Plant snowdrops in the green. Lift large clumps as the blooms fade and split in to small clumps to replant.

2.Cut off old leaves from Epimediums to allow you to see the beauty of the new young leaves and flowers.

 

Epimedium grandiflorum "Lilafee"

3.Cut all dead untidy leaves off Heucheras to ground level. If plants are large enough lift and split now.

Heuchera "Obsidian"

4.Start sowing drills of vegetable seeds batch sow, or you will have too many ready all together.

5. The yellow book of National Garden Scheme open gardens is printed either as a local county version or the whole country so get a hold of a copy and go visiting.

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Seeing Red?

What is red?

        All of these are described as red.

Colour and tone are something 

that are difficult to explain. 

Looking at a flower open in the 

morning it colour will change 

throughout the day depending 

upon the intensity or lack of 

sunlight thus changing the hue.

So what you perceive to be one 

colour may be completely 

different to another persons.

Remember just a scent and taste are personal so is colour, your colour perception and preferences should not be foisted onto others but take into consideration other points of view.

All the following are red of similar hue but vary in appearance due to many factors. The stamen colour where visible is red to orange to yellow, creating a different feel to the red colour. this difference means that it can be placed with many other plant colours. the black spots on the Papaver commutatum or Ladybird poppy draw the eye in.

 The more double the petal formation the more change in the colour due to the amount of surface area for reflection of light. So the soft frilly effect of ruffled petals in the Paeony (P.'Henry Bockstoce') soften the colour. The Monarda 'Jacob Cline' with its fine multi petals again give another feel to the colour.

So from bright reds to those with more of a burgundy tint, but again shape of petals, rainwater and different centres changes how they appear. From the tall elegant Angelica gigas to the black centred Potentilla 'Monarchs Velvet' these will draw the eye forward.

Then when you add in a bit of white or green to the mix they change again and the planting combinations that are possible are again different. How about those reds that border on the pink side as in Trifolium 'Red Feathers'.

I advocate playing an trying out colour combinations to enhance your borders as in the saying "anything goes"

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Pulmonaria

Pulmonaria - Lungwort

Pulmonaria 'Opal'

Pulmonaria 'Diana clare'

Lungwort used as a remedy for lung infections
before modern medicine came along. They have
many common names which can be misleading.

Pulmonaria 'Rosy's Mum'

Pulmonaria 'Blue Ensign'

                                                           

Pulmonaria rubra 'Redstart'

Not all forms have the silver spotting on the leaves, however most are clump forming. One of the exceptions are the rubra group which are thugs and should come with a garden health warning. They are useful though for the areas in the garden where most other plants wont grow.

Plain green foliage enhances the colour of the flowers as in
"Blue Ensign"

Pulmonaria 'Trevi Fountain'

Most of the large silver spotted leaved varieties if given a haircut after they have finished flowering will produce good clean foliage that is resistant to slug damage.
This will mean that you can have good shade foliage ground cover without holes or the need for slug control.
Remember that these plants do require a good amount of moisture so planting in a dry sunny position is the quickest way to get a sick looking plant.


Division in august is the best solution and this will give you some good looking autumn foliage, as well as head start for the next season flowering. You will find they have an extensive root system which is why they don't like to be in too small a container for any length of time. It is possible to container grow them but do give them a large container with plenty of moisture and organic matter.

                                                 

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