In your garden: a seasonal guide from local garden designer Nicola Baily Gibson
What’s happening now . . . . .
Spring is unfurling into summer at great speed. We are enjoying lighter longer days, which is good news for the enthusiastic gardener. The birds herald the start of summer with their deafening dawn chorus. The landscape is becoming green once again on the ground, in the trees and in the hedgerows. Bumblebees, butterflies and insects keep busy flying around the now abundant flowers. Alliums and showy perennials such as iris, peonies and poppies define the changing season raising their heads to the sun. Vegetable and flower seed can be safely sown into warm soil once the risk of frost has passed.
May marks the month in the gardening calendar for the world renowned Chelsea Flower Show. The show runs this year from 25-29 May 2010 and is a remarkable spectacle of horticulture. Whether it be the show gardens to the displays within the pavilions, there is something here to tempt every gardener.
At home in the garden it is time, traditionally, to carry out what is known as the ‘Chelsea Chop’. This involves pruning some perennials that flower later in the season down by a third to prevent them becoming leggy and needing staking. It also delays flowering to provide welcome colour later in the season. Good examples which benefit from the chop are Sedum spectabile (iceplant), asters, heleniums (Helen’s Flower) and eupatorium (Joe Pye Weed). Early flowering geraniums also will look neater and keep producing flowers for longer if given this treatment. So be brave with those shears.
tasks to be getting on with during late spring/early summer . . . . .
May
1. Be aware of late frosts and protect young plants with fleece.
2. Water plants that need it regularly with collected rainwater and grey water.
3. Continue to sow seeds and pot up seedlings.
4. Mowing of lawns can begin in earnest weekly. Feed and weed also.
5. Division of early spring flowering perennials once they have been cut back.
6. Prune spring flowering shrubs once finished flowering at the end of the month.
June
1. Keep on top of weeds and deadhead regularly to maintain flowering.
2. Water wisely in the morning and evening young plants and containers.
3. Look out for pests particularly on roses and fruit.
4. Plant out seedlings and rooted cuttings.
5. Stake any plants in need of support using peas sticks or hazel.
6. Continue to cut lawns and give any tired areas a liquid feed.
Nicola Baily Gibson; designs gardens for today’s living, with nature in mind.
01252 845 880 or 07940 801019
