Gardening Tips
Useful tips for this time of the year
Gardeners Diary for the week of
- Plant shrubs and trees whilst the soil is still warm but plants are less likely to be dried out by the sun.
- Prune shrubs cutting out dead, diseased, dying or crossing branches
- Airate, scarify and top dress lawns, to remove moss, dead grass and encourage healthy grass next season.
Now is an ideal time to sow or lay a new lawn, while the soil is still warm - Clip hedges, including box, laurel and beech
- Check the readiness of fruit and vegetables. Apples and Pears should be gently lifted with the hand, if the stalk remains on the fruit but parts easily from the tree, it is ready to be picked.
- Tidy and cut back perennials.
- Sweetcorn should be ripe enough to harvest. Pick when they are a pale creamy colour. However corn on the cob deteriorates quickly, so it should be used as soon as possible after picking.
- Take cuttings of tender perennials and shrubs: salvias, penstemon, lavender and rosemary.
- Make sure that ponds are topped up, if you need to top up your pond check the PH and nitrogen levels of the water afterwards.
- Spring flowering bulbs should be available in your local garden centre. Plan where you are going to plant them and buy accordingly, it's great fun filling up those brown bags with bulbs, but can be expensive.
If you have a small garden, or are planting bulbs in pots, think about using smaller varieties of bulbs.
Plant bulbs of one variety together for effect. - If your tomato plants have been affected by blight, clear the plants and burn them, adding them to the compost heap will not kill the spores.
- Lift marrows, pumpkins and squashes off the ground in order to keep them clean and reduce slug damage.
- Grass will need less frequent mowing in prolonged dry weather. If very dry, remove the grass collecting box and let the cuttings stay on the ground to conserve soil moisture.
- Continue to collect and store seeds from plants, for sowing next year. Store any collected seed in paper envelopes or bags, then put them in an air-tight container.
- Collect and dispose of wind-fall fruit. Leaving them on the ground encourages pests and can damage your lawn.
- If you are going on holiday either get a neighbour to water your house plants, hanging baskets and patio planters, alternatively put all of your plants including house plants on the patio or lawn, put the lawn sprinkler between them and connect the hose to an outside tap using a water timer (set the timer to come on twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening - 10 minutes each time should be sufficient). Test the settings before you go away.
- Feed tomato plants fornightly with a liquid fertiliser (this must be diluted in water to prevent burning the plants)
- Pond fish will eat more in the summer, feed them little and often, once or twice a day. If the food has not been eaten within 15 minutes, remove and dispose of the excess.
