June Gardener's Calendar

June is a month to be enjoying the garden but with a little bit of care and some snipping and deadheading you can keep those flowers going often into late summer

Colour Ideas For Summer Pots, Containers and Hanging Baskets.

Take A Look At Some Of The Summer Bedding Colour Combinations 

Pinks, blues and silver tones are one of the most popular colour choices

How To Make A Summer Hanging Basket

Here are some step by step photos of us making up a basket

 

There are different ways of potting up baskets and we don't always follow the same pattern but here is one Peter made up.

 You will need:

May Gardener’s Calendar

Here are a few suggestions of what you can be getting on with in the garden this month.

Top Spring Shrubs Trees And Perennials for Colour Now

These are just some of my favourite flowers that provide spring interest.
So much is bursting into flower after the cold spell and some thing are a little late

Malus blossom (Crab Apple Tree)

A lot of the cherry trees and Amalanchia 's blossom are just opening and the Malus are not yet out, this time last year they were.

Feeding the #Garden in April

Fritillaria meleagris 

• Plant hanging baskets under cover to get established for the end of May.
• Prick out seeds and continue to pot on plugs and rooted cuttings.
• Prune the shrubs that flowered late last year and your hedges.
• Sew main crop vegetables such as carrots ,parsnips etc.
• Plant the main crop potatoes.
• Container grown plants can be planted all year round. So plant now and enjoy this year
• Lime before its too late. It will not be leached out of the soil before the plants start growing. Liming with help heavy cloddy clay soils to form a more crumbly structure
• If you didn’t dig your garden and top with manure ,soil conditioners or some form of organic mater in the Autumn its not too late to get on with it now, it will just be more manual. If you dug it over and exposed the clods to break down over the winter well done.

How to Prune your Garden and when to Pruning

 If It Flowers Before June Don't Prune

*Things that flower before June are flowering on wood or stems produced last year so don't cut them off before its had chance to flower, if you have time to prune it properly. Plants that flower later can have a trim in the early spring because they will flower on new growth later in the year.

What To Plant Now

The perfect time to plant is now. Moist soil and warmer condions help plants root. Get your plants established so you can enjoy many of them this year, particularly the perennials.

Exochordia Is A beautiful Spring Flowering Shrub

Exochordia  xmacrantha, one of my all-time spring favourites it is soon to be absolutely flush with flowers. Otherwise known as the pearl bush.

A Gorgeous Fragrant Spring Flowering Evergreen Shrub Viburnum Burkwoodii

Another gorgeous viburnum with evergreen foliage, fragrant spring blossom and great autumn colour. This is Burkwoodii

Top Perennial Plants for Early Colour This Spring

Lamprocapnos Spectablis, Dicentra Spectablis or good old Bleeding Heart. What ever you now call this perennial it is just lovely.

Vinca, Primula elata, pulsatila, pulminaria, geraniums, bergena, bruneria, polemoniumn, (Solmon's Seal) Polygonatum and tiarella are just some of the gorgeous perennials performing at the moment.

April Gardener's Calendar

Here is what you could be getting on with in the garden this month

Late Winter Almost Spring Gardens

Spring Is On Its Way Despite the cold we have felt the it's first breath and a lot of us are back in the Garden preparing for the forthcoming year. 

Spring Flowers For Mother's Day

 I T 'S  N E A R L EY  M O T H E R 'S   D A Y

Spring is Blooming, the Bees are Buzzing

March Gardener’s Calendar

March is the month the garden really wakes up. The spring primroses are gorgeous, lots of bulbs are coming through there is some early blossom on the tree. Daphne odora will bless us with its fragrance, magnolias will look their best, camellias are out now. Many alpines are out in flower and they look so pretty. It's a great month. Everything is fresh.

Catkins in Winter and Early Spring

There are so many beautiful catkins that carry us through the winter and last well into spring.

Winter Flowers, Christmas Rose and Christmas Box, Hellebores and Sarcococca

Perfect Flowers For Christmas

Christmas Rose and Christmas Box respectively flower at Christmas or more realistically just after. Helleborus niger and sarcococca are two worthy plants for your winter garden.

Creating A Good Winter Garden

W I N T E R   G A R D E N S   A R E  B E A U T I F U L

Grumbles about winter gardens are not justified. The fault lies firstly with us and our fair weathered nature. We shop when its warm and buy what we see in flower in May and June and miss the winter flowers. I am generalising. Go shopping on a mid winters day and you will then appreciate we have colour all winter.

Top Winter Bloomers

 T O P  W I N T E R   P E R F O R M E R S

January Gardener's Calendar

As real winter hardy gardeners we know there are some very beneficial outdoor hands on winter jobs from which your garden will truly benefit this month. Many suggested gardening task lists may seem limited to preparatory jobs and whilst these are important, I urge you to get your wellies on grab a spade and show that wheelbarrow some action. A gardeners work is never done. 

We have had the shortest day so herald spring is on its way and lets be ready.