Hanging Baskets and more...

June has the longest day on the 21st and everything in our gardens is responding to the extra light and warmth, putting on growth, looking fuller and gorgeous, unfortunately this includes the weeds too, so they will keep you busy this month! Your lawn can be mown regularly now, leave the cuttings and don’t cut too short if the weather is dry. A lawn feed can be applied during the growing season which encourages a closely knit green turf, making it more resistant to weeds, moss and drought.
Cut back early flowering hardy geraniums once they have flowered for a further flush of flowers later in the year and fresh new foliage.
Now is the time to plant your hanging baskets with annuals, adding a handful of controlled release fertiliser granules and water retaining gel into multi-purpose compost will give the plants a good start. I usually allow 2 layers of plants at the sides, making slits in the liner and wrapping the roots of the plug plants with newspaper for protection before carefully inserting them through the liner. Don’t fill the basket with compost right to the top, leave about a 3cm gap before adding the final plants. Summer planting favourites with complimentary colours include lobelias, fuchsias and petunias, which will give a long lasting and full look. Helichrysum petiolare ‘Variegatum’ makes excellent trailing foliage and is readily available.
In the vegetable beds carry on successional sowing for a long season of home grown vegetables, the rows can be thinned out if getting too crowded. If you are growing tomatoes in the greenhouse snap off any shoots growing in leaf joints and when your plant has produced 4 sets of flowering trusses pinch out the growing tip. This will encourage the plants to be single stemmed and put their energies into growing fruit.
An interesting fact about horse chestnut trees…did you know that the flowers change from yellow to red when the nectar has been collected as a signal to the bees? Clever trees -take a closer look!
Sally Bishton Garden Design
www.sallybishton.com
01202 889153 / 07752 641189

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