Summer Garden Party Day

Planting Water Lillies!

Water lilies can be planted through the whole of July, leaving plenty of time for them to establish before the onset of winter weather. New plants should be placed no lower than six in (15cm) below the surface. Site them on piles of bricks, removing one at a time as the plant grows until the container can sit on the bottom of the pond. Older plants can be divided, old foliage removed, potted into aquatic compost and treated the same as new.

Climbing or trained rose

Garden tip

Cut back delphiniums and hardy geraniums with a pair of secateurs, after they have finished flowering, to encourage a second flush of blooms in late summer.

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Fuchsias

These summer flowering shrubs can be relied upon to produce graceful arching branches and pendent bell-like flowers, year after year. Use as freestanding, or on its own in mixed shrub borders. If planted 80cm (2½ ft) apart all varieties will make an informal hedge. Can be grown successfully in pots and containers or any well drained soil, in full sun or light shade. Responses well to regular feeding. Popular varieties include: Mrs Popple, Alice Hoffman, Tom & Lady Thumb, magellanica Gracilis as well as the gold leaf variety Genii or the grey/green/pink leaved Versicolour with scarlet-violet flowers.

Taking cuttings from Pinks!

After two or three years garden pinks lose their vigour and will probably need replacing. It is cheaper and more satisfying to replenish stock by taking cuttings from your current plants. You can grow from seed but this is time consuming and you won’t get a true plant from its parent. Cuttings will be ready to flower the year after being struck.  Read more...
 

Barbecue Summer?

 
Here we go again: gardeners told to prepare for a barbecue summer!  Britain really is on track for a barbecue summer, according to a forecaster who got it right the last two years running!  Read on...

Poppies

Deadhead oriental poppies to help encourage more blooms. Try to remove the dead flowers as soon as they start to die back, otherwise the plant will put lots of energy into producing seed heads, leaving it too exhausted to produce more flowers.

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