News
Short of space in the garden? Then this is the technique for you. All you need is a single raised bed to enjoy a wide variety of fruit and veg all year round. Here's how:
Build your raised bed: a raised bed: 1.2m x 1.2m gives you 16 squares – and with one type of veg in each, that's quite a range of home-grown produce to pick. Ready-made raised beds, available from your favourite garden centre, click together in moments for…
Read more...
Look out for lily beetles as they can be a real menace at this time of year. They attack not only oriental and asiatic lilies, but also members of the same family including fritillaries and the spectacular Cardiocrinum, which grows to a massive 2m in height and is a real head-turner in the late summer garden.
The adult beetles are very pretty, in brilliant scarlet with a jet-black head and legs. But their grubs are among the ugliest in the garden: found in the axils between leaf and…
Read more...
'Osteos' are such good value for money. They are perennials, meaning they go from one year to next (in normal circumstances), and get bigger each time!
The flowers open and close with the sun, creating a stunning display - and the plants come in several different colours, with white, oranges, yellows and purples being among the most popular. Come and have a look at our beautiful selection!
Lift and divide daffodil clumps just after they've finished flowering, to prevent them getting too overcrowded. Left to themselves, bulbs multiply to the point where they've no longer got the room or resources to flower, resulting in 'blind' clumps which fail to flower, so keep an eye on your daffs and if any are showing signs of feeble or non-existent flowering it's time to sort them out.
Using a garden fork to avoid damaging the bulbs, lift the whole clump up out of the ground and…
Read more...
A container vegetable garden
You may be short of outdoor space, but that doesn't mean you have to do without home-grown vegetables. There are lots of veg which do brilliantly in containers, whether windowboxes, grow bags, pretty terracotta pots or just tin cans nailed to a fence.
Growing in containers has many advantages: perfect soil, easy planting and your crops are kept well out of reach of slugs. These days, there are lots of innovative new ideas around to help you get st…
Read more...
May's plant of the month is the petunia, a much-loved regular in bedding displays, containers and hanging baskets across the country.
There can be few flowers with such a dazzling range of colours to choose from: everything from deepest purple to brilliant yellow, white, pink, striped and bicoloured. As well as single petunias you can find blowsy double-flowered types, and varieties with prettily ruffled petals.
Large-flowered grandiflora types and the robust, weather-resilie…
Read more...
The Petunia is one of the most beautiful - and most versatile - of all the summer bedding plants.
They come in many different colours, and can be used just about anywhere in the garden. For a flowery border, to on the patio in pots and containers, or perhaps a lovely welcoming display at the front door, and as there are also trailing varieties they are outstanding in hanging baskets!
If you pick off the flowers as they finish, this will encourage more, and you will have beaut…
Read more...
What to do in the garden in May:
This is such a wonderful time of year, when there's warmth in the air and in the soil and the garden is just hinting at summer finery. Keep it looking its best with these jobs to be getting on with this month:
General tasks:
- Start mowing the lawn setting your blade to a higher setting to begin with, then lowering it as the season goes on.
- Stay alert for pests, especially aphids and lily beetles which start to build up now…
Growing your own food is one of life's great pleasures, and like most good things, it's worth doing well. A great way of measuring your progress is to pit yourself against the old-timers - producers of football-sized onions and metre-long carrots.
It takes courage to exhibit your produce, but it's a lot of fun. Once you take the plunge and enter your first show, you'll be warmly welcomed in, with lots of advice and if you're lucky, hints on how to grow bigger and better next year.<…
Read more...
Sow hardy annual flowers in generous drifts straight onto the ground this month, as the soil is now nicely warmed up and they'll germinate and get growing in no time.
Annuals include some of the loveliest of all garden flowers, often self-seeding at the end of the year so you'll have new plants popping up next season too. You'll find lots of seed to choose from in your favourite garden centre: try feathery-petalled love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), sky-blue cornflowers (Centaurea…
Read more...