LOOKING AFTER A LARGE BORDER ETC
THE VILLAGE GARDENER
LOOKING AFTER A LARGE BORDER
Angela Flynn, on LOOKING AFTER A LARGE BORDER.
- Dead head daily during the flowering season.
2. Fill any gaps, so that most of the soil is covered, this helps keep weeds at bay.
3. Don’t put up with plants you dislike.
4. Keep any shrubs under control or they will merge into one mass.
5. Take cuttings of your favourite tender perennials and propagate for next year.
Beryl Richards gets to the point.
- Don’t bother with no mow May, your lawn will provide for wildlife even when very short.
2. Make your own compost, if at all possible, as most of what’s on offer wouldn’t grow weeds.
3. If someone offers you a plant you don’t want, kindly decline, or they will keep checking that you still have it.
4. Don’t be kidded into thinking those small tunnels just below the surface of your lawn are made by moles. They are rat runs which are mainly built over the winter.
5. Probably best not to save those ice cream containers and yogurt pots, you’ll never use them.
If you don’t do much else this month, please make sure you water camellias and rhododendrons thoroughly to make sure next year’s buds develop. Time to trim the lavender after flowering (not the French plants they just need deadheading) but be careful not to cut into the old wood. Dahlias are coming into their own now and will need strong stakes and a feed. Roses will become more prone to black spot as the season goes on. Spraying is not what we want to be doing but for this disease I use rose clear. There must be some other remedies, but I have found this spray works well. Cut the seed heads off lilies before they set, this will give you bigger blooms on the parent plant next year. This month and next are the best times to spray perennial weeds especially ground elder and bindweed before they start to die back.
Using a high nitrogen feed on your lawn will have a detrimental effect, as it will encourage rapid green growth which has been proved to weaken the grass over the Autumn and Winter. Use a preparatory Autumn fertiliser. If you have leatherjackets in the lawn, then now is the time to start a nematode treatment.
Allotment old-timer Herbie will, on a good year, get a second crop from his broad beans by cutting them off to a leaf joint about 6 inches from the ground. They will then shoot and give a lighter crop. Harvesting beans, courgettes and salad will go on for quite a while as long as you keep picking. Tomato plants seem to need a lot of care to get the best out of them. We need to keep taking the top growth off and remove any leaf below the first truss as well as taking some of the leaves off the rest of the stem. We don’t want the plant putting any energy into growing greenery.
The Village Show on September 9th will hopefully encourage you to show off your produce and encourage others to take up gardening.
Take care and happy gardening