News - Page 106
Keep crops going through autumn with some clever planning now. The veg garden may be at full throttle, with new potatoes, asparagus broad beans and peas on your plate and gooseberries and rhubarb for dessert – but if you don't look ahead your harvest will come crashing to a halt in a couple of months' time.
A late sowing of veg now means you can replace your earliest crops the moment you've harvested them, giving your veg garden a second wind which will last...
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Dahlias feel like such an indulgence, from their glamorous, showy foliage to their brilliantly-coloured flowers. Treat yourself from our huge range of varieties for instant colour you can plant right now.
Simple, single flowers mix well among other plants: the 'Bishops' series include the justifiably popular bright scarlet 'Bishop of Llandaff', while 'Twyning's After Eight' is pure white. The decorative dahlias make a fabulous statement, too: try the spiky se...
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Sow next year's spring display of wallflowers, forget-me-nots, hollyhocks and foxgloves – all of which are biennials, meaning they flower in their second year. Start them now and by autumn they'll be fat clumps of leaves, ready to throw up flower spikes to brighten up your garden next April and May.
You'll find dozens of varieties on sale in your favourite garden centre right now as seed. Hollyhocks come in single or exotic-looking double blo...
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Prune pyracanthas to keep them looking beautiful and show off their spectacularly colourful berries. These easy-to-grow evergreen shrubs look good all year round, with frothy white flowers in spring followed by masses of berries in traffic-light colours: look out for different varieties in our garden centre, from buttery yellow 'Soleil d'Or' to tangerine-coloured 'Orange Glow' and the best of the reds, 'Saphyr Rouge'.
They look particularly gorgeous trai...
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Lavender is everyone's favourite garden shrub, with its silvery foliage and soft blue perfumed flowers. They're looking at their very best this month, so visit us and load up with scent and colour for summer.
They're super-easy to grow, asking only a sunny spot and an annual tidy-up after flowering. Choose English lavender for the herb garden, and elegant French types (Lavandula stoechas) among ornamentals. Bees love t...
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It's Father's Day this weekend so treat the gardening Dad in your life to a feast of green-fingered fun.
A trip to your favourite garden centre makes a great day out: enjoy a slap-up lunch at the café, then take him to choose that plant or garden gadget he's always wanted. You'll find some great offers on everything from power tools to secateurs and knee pads. Many garden centres are celebrating Father's Day with local food tastings, beer samples and competit...
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Stake taller plants before they get too big and flop over sideways, ruining your display and possibly flattening nearby flowers too. Delphiniums, peonies, dahlias and oriental poppies are all prone to toppling over sideways, especially after heavy wind and rain and sometimes under the weight of their own flowers.
Earlier is always better, as with supports in place before they get too tall plants happily grow out and around to cover unsightly...
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Hypericum Hidcote is a very useful and attractive shrub in the garden. It is tolerant of most position, and is particularly useful as a ground cover shrub, forming ultimately quite a large bush.
It is semi-evergreen, with a lovely yellow flower throughout the summer which attracts bees. It has quite a tradtional feel, and will cope well in most soil types.
Come and have a look at our selection!
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Two of the biggest names in gardening join forces this week as BBC Gardeners' World and the Royal Horticultural Society host one of the most popular gardening shows of the year.
BBC Gardeners' World Live, held at the NEC Birmingham from Wednesday till Sunday, is celebrating its 21st birthday this year, and you can look forward to some cracking new features. There's a whole new category of show garden, with Outdoor Living Gardens showing you what you can do ev...
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What to do in the garden in June:
There's no better place to be in June than in your garden. The veg garden is packed to overflowing: your flowers are a riot of colour and perfume. Keep the show dazzling with this month's key jobs.
General tasks:
Top up mulches to keep weeds under control: a 5cm layer of well-rotted stable manure feeds your plants as it rots....
Clematis are one of the most spectacular climbing plants available. They come in a wide variety of colours, and look absolutely stunning at this time of year.
There are quite a few gardening tips we can give you to make sure you get the very best from them, and we have a fantastic selection to choose from. Some will flower ealry, others much later, and with many you can encourage further flushes of flowering to extend the season.
Clem...
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June's plant of the month is the rose, and this elegant and much-loved beauty needs little introduction: it's well known for being Britain's favourite flower, and 49% of our gardens have at least one.
What's less widely known is how versatile they can be. There's a rose for every situation and every type of garden. If you like gardening for wildlife, there are simple, natural-looking roses like Rosa spinosissima or the sweetbriars like Eglanteria.
Rose...
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