The Garden Magazine

There's always something new going on in the garden, subcribe to our RSS feed to keep up with the news. Thanks for visiting!

Once you have the vegetable garden under control it’s time to look at the more decorative aspects of your garden – the flowers and trees.  One of the things I love doing is pruning – sometimes I can be a little over enthusiastic, but generally most things will benefit from a good ‘haircut’ as my Dad would have said.

Hedges need regular clipping – especially if they are fast growing varieties and you will need to trim any shaped hedges or elaborate topiary pieces in the garden too so that they look their best.  Wisteria is something that grows well around here and that will need any excess growth taking off if you want it to be at its best next year, as will your deciduous magnolias.  One job that you mustn’t neglect either is to cut out any shoots on your variegated shrubs that have reverted back to single colour.  I used to have a running battle with a fuchsia which had self seeded – but it throws flowers in two distinct colours representing each of it’s parents, in this case the fuchsia won and I just let it do it’s own thing now.

It’s important to apply regular feeds to your containers plant and any summer bedding if you have them.  Dead-heading is also an ongoing task to keep everything looking good.  One job I will be doing this week is dividing up my Irises now that they have finished flowering.  I have some that are almost black and I want to use them as an accent colour in a couple of place in the garden.  Whilst I am planting those I shall probably also plant my crocus – they can wait a little if need be.

The kitchen garden is one of my favourite places at this time of year – there is so much going on that it hardly seems like garden maintenance, more like a journey of discovery.  You never know quite what is going to be ready to harvest and what culinary delights you can come up with!

Soft fruits are at their best so there are lots to harvest, currants, raspberries (my personal favourite) and gooseberries.  You need to think about cutting back side shoots on gooseberries and all varieties of currant, and don’t forget to remove the fruited stems from your summer raspberries either.  Strawberry beds need to be tidied up once they have finished fruiting and it is a good idea to thin out apples if you don’t want the tree to struggle.

July is one of the best times of year for regularly fresh veg from the garden too, and by regular cropping you will keep everything going, particularly courgettes, peas and bean.  Plenty of water is essential too, even a couple of dry days can make a difference, especially if it is as windy as it has been here.   This is probably as late as you can leave it for the last sowing of runner beans.  My tomatoes have not done so well this year but it is finally time to remove the shoots from the cordon grown ones so that the four trusses develop well.

In terms of sowing, it is time to turn your thoughts to the autumn and winter vegetables with sowings of spring cabbage carrots, winter brassicas, leeks, spinach and Chinese leaves in their many forms.  I’m going to try some winter salads this year and see how they go.  You should never rest on your laurels where your kitchen garden is concerned – always think a few months ahead and make sure you have a constant stream of harvestable crops coming through.

April is definitely a month to be doing things with your Fruit and Vegetables.  We have had some very sharp frosts still so you need to protect the blossom of your stoned fruit trees such as Apricots, Peaches and Nectarines.  Whilst on the subject of fruit trees don’t forget to prune your Cherry and Plum trees once the leaf buds have cracked open.

You can start planting your Potatoes - remembering again to protect any early shoots from frost.  If you didn’t plant Asparagus last month that can go in along with root crops like Carrots, Turnips and Kohlrabi.  Salad crops such as  Spring Onions, Swiss Chard, Lettuce as well as Brassicas can be started now too.  I like to get some herbs such as Basil and Chives going to.  You will need to protect early sowings with fleece and/or polythene if you are still getting frosts.

In the greenhouse I am busy with Peppers, Aubergines (one of my favourites!) and Cucumbers - potting on your Tomatoes can be done as well.   I’m just beginning to increase the amount of ventilation in the greenhouse now that the days are warmer but do remember to close up at night or you could lose a lot.  I shall be doing some softwood cuttings from my beloved Fuschias as well as repotting and feeding some of the house plants.  My Orchids are doing particularly well at the moment and I am extremely pleased with the way they are responding to almost total neglect!

Sometimes when using a weed killer  it can unintentionally get on to plants you don’t want to get rid of.  Occasionally when spraying a wind will carry the spray onto other plants and it won’t be until sometime later that the damage appears.  The first thing you should to do is wash it off with plenty of running water - a hosepipe is best.  The faster you do this the better the chance of your plant surviving.  You will know if you have this type of damage as leaves will become smaller, narrowed and probably  twisted.

Once this damage is spotted there is little that can be done other than to remove the damaged parts of the plant and trust that more damage will not become apparent over the next few days.  Sometimes a plant will recuperate if it has only had a scant amount of weed killer sprayed on it.  The amount of damage really does depend on how much weed killer it was exposed to and how strong the plant is.  Some plants are a great deal more susceptible than others and only a small amount will be enough to kill the plant.

You should always take great care if you must use chemical weed killers to make sure that none of it drifts to vulnerable areas.  Try to only use chemicals of this type when there is little or no wind and use a spray that will direct the liquid exactly where it is needed with little risk of overspray.  It is also sensible to have special containers for each spray that you use in the garden as residual weed killer left in a container that you might use for other things could kill your plants.

Chemical weed killers should really only be used in extreme circumstances, hand weeding before they take hold is the best defence.  If you do hand weed, remember not to put them in your compost if they are flowering or seeding as it is unlikely that a domestic compost heap will get hot enough to kill off the seeds and you could end up spreading them all over your garden again.

I have a problem in my garden, and not a very nice one at that - Slugs. It has taken me years to get them under some sort of control. The previous owners of our house were not gardeners at all and pests ran rife which left us quite a legacy of hard work to bring them under control. The worst of the pests without doubt were the slugs. Now I realise it is perfectly possible to grow slug resistant plants but I don’t like being dictated to - and my husband loves Hostas - the result of that combination was all out war on slugs.

Some people like to use chemicals in their garden, and that is their choice, but I don’t if it can be avoided so traditional slug pellets were not an option. They also wreak havoc with birds and hedgehogs so they were out. We did, and still do, occasionally use the organic, bird and hedgehog friendly slug pellets but they are not always easy to get hold of, so we had to use other methods. I have a friend who is even more paranoid about slugs than I am but I haven’t resorted to her method of control yet.  At dead of night she dons Continue Reading »