Check out our latest gardening reminders for June 2020 put together by chairman and horticulturist John Richardson.
1) The very dry weather in May has made us realise just how important it is to organise an efficient watering system. Garden centres will have excellent drip-feed watering systems on sale, which are ideal for plants in containers, grow bags, window boxes and hanging baskets, and are relatively easy and quick to install. Money well spent!
2) Anything planted during the last 2 months is almost certain to be suffering from the effect of the drought. When watering, ensure that plants are given a really good soak and not just having the soil surface dampened down.
3) Hoe weeds wherever possible in the dry weather, they collapse quickly, and leaving a tilth on the soil surface helps conserve moisture and prevents the growth of new weed seedlings.
4) Make sure that supports are now in place for herbaceous plants which are growing quickly, the support is also needed if they become short of water and lose rigidity.
5) Forsythia and other early flowering shrubs will benefit from having some of the old flowering shoots removed in order to stimulate new young shoots which will carry flower buds next year.
6) Don’t forget to prune topiary plants such as Buxus and Taxus, if you leave it too long it is very easy to lose the original shape, and extremely difficult to recover.
7) If you have never had the opportunity to read a copy of ‘Gardening Which’, either borrow a copy or take out a subscription, it is worth every penny!
8) Complete the planting of hardy annuals, and ensure they are well watered-in and kept watered for the first full month.
9) Ensure that slugs and snails cannot do too much damage by picking them off plants in the late evening by hand or treating them with appropriate slug and snail killers.
10) Plant out young dahlias now there is no chance of frost. Keep well-watered and control greenfly. Apply a mulch of spent compost to retain moisture and reduce weeds and slugs.
11) Sow winter pansies, primulas, violas and Brompton stocks under glass. Foxgloves and wallflowers can be sown outside in a weed-free area of the border to flower next year.
12) Bulb foliage will have died down by now, remove it once it has gone dry and yellow. Daffodil bulbs will be fine left in situ, but tulip bulbs are better lifted carefully, cleaned, and dried off in shallow boxes. Keep cool and well ventilated until replanted in the autumn.
13) Watch out for those bright red lily beetles, they are on the march! Make sure to keep a hand underneath when trying to catch them, as they drop into the soil beneath when touched.
14) Keep removing the side shoots of tomatoes by breaking them out of the leaf axils, to ensure the energy of the plant goes into the fruit.
15) Now that wholesale nurseries and garden centres are open once again, a walk around any of them will be useful as no doubt they will have a number of unsold lines at attractive prices.
16) Trim back the flowering growth of Erica carnea varieties and top-dress with peat.
17) Watch out for woolly aphids on apple trees, scrub off with soap and water.
18) Dead-head roses after they have flowered,. Cut down to the axil of a bud with secateurs.
"If you have two pennies, spend one for a loaf and one for a flower.
The bread will give you life, the flower a reason for living’. (Chinese Proverb, & Maurice Baren)"
Posted 1st Jun 9:33am
