Must Do Gardening Tips for April
THE VILLAGE GARDENER
Must Do Gardening Tips for April
Tips from two of the nurseries that will be attending The Tuckers Plant Sale on Saturday the 30th April at 29 Vennwood Close.
Firstly Joyce Alpine Hoy
- Give the plants in the greenhouse a bit of space so air can circulate and prevent disease taking hold.
- Make sure the drainage is adequate in your pots and containers especially for Alpines.
- Keep potted plants near the house as this helps with shelter and when watering.
- Always remove the top layer of soil from pots in Spring and replace with fresh compost. Doing this removes weed seeds and pests.
- If you order plants by post, unwrap water and repot as soon as possible, or they will take a long time to recover.
Gordon & Elizabeth Jones of Belgrave Horticulture.
- Composting is essential to bring balance to the work of gardeners.
- If you have room plant a native tree. Crab apple are great for wildlife. If you have a larger area then an oak tree would be great as they support the most life.
- Put freshly mown grass under your trays of seed. The heat generated will bring them on in no time.
- Remove some of the leaves from hellebores to expose the flowers.
- Foxgloves are easy to look after and great for bees and other insects.
It is quite the thing at present to plant a wildflower patch. If you follow the instructions on the packet to the letter then a good display will follow. The main thing to do is to make sure the area is weed and grass free as the wild flowers cannot compete with perennial weeds. The wild flowers prefer poor soil, so no need for fertiliser. What they don’t say on the packet is that, if you don’t want your garden completely smothered in wild flowers the following year, you will need to cut them down before they set seed.
A greenhouse or cold frame will enable you to buy smaller, and inevitably cheaper, plants to bring on in April. Repot these young plants as soon as you can and be careful not to overwater, especially at this stage, or the plants may rot. There is still time to sow sweet peas and they will be ready a little later and prolong the season. As the weather warms stand the plants outside during the day. This may seem a bit of a fuss but will give you a lot stronger plant.
Compost. We endeavour to make our own but usually buy a few bags every year. As long as the compost used in pots growing annual flowers or veg has not caused plants to suffer from disease then it can be reused. Folks mostly put the spent compost on the garden as a mulch but it can be rejuvenated by simply sieving and adding a slow release fertiliser. The one thing it shouldn’t be used for is seed planting as it may contain pathogens that will harm new seedlings. There are loads of tutorials online which will save you quite a bit of cash
April is a good time to give roses a preventative spray against the main diseases they are about to face. To get bigger blooms on roses you need to reduce the amount of buds, this is done by growers who enter shows.
On the allotments the tenants are planting early potatoes. Runner and French beans are sown under glass ready for planting out in May when all risk of frost has passed. Peas and beans have long roots so toilet roll holders are great for giving them a good start. Planting carrots early will beat the carrot root fly but if too cold the seed will not germinate so cloches are used to warm the soil. You will always see onions grown on allotments. They are easy to grow and store well. If your intention is to grow oregano, make sure you keep it in check or it will take over your patch.
With everything costing more, it is worth shopping round. The cost of wooden fencing has rocketed and the price of plants is ridiculous. Blue Diamond garden centre at St Mellons always have a table where prices have been reduced. British Soil in Wenvoe sell their products well below D I Y stores and garden centres. If you need timber then Bruno fencing in Barry are good value. If you know of other places that give good value please share. Pam & Phyllis always make a list before venturing into garden centres, otherwise it’s like shopping in the middle of Lidl where you come out with things that make you wonder how you ever managed without them.
Take care and happy gardening
THE VILLAGE GARDENER