Your Garden In May

By Colin Dale, Notcutts Garden Centres

This is the month to plant up containers with bedding plants that will provide colour from now until well into the autumn. Visit your local garden centre and choose from the wide range available. Look out for the newer varieties of half hardy perennials such as Verbena and Diascia which are more weather proof than many of the older varieties. Why not plant some containers and group them together in an area that can be seen from the house?

Fuchsias are available in a wide range of varieties and should be pinched out now to make bushy plants.

They will reward you all summer and well into the autumn with their abundant flowers, especially useful in a cool shady area.

Do you have gaps in your borders that could benefit from some easy summer colour? Visit your local garden centre now and choose from the packets of hardy annual seeds. Varieties such as Larkspur, Candy Tuft and Night Scented Stock can be sown where they are to flower and thinned out if necessary as they grow away.

Spring flowering varieties of Clematis will have finished flowering by the end of this month and can be pruned if need be to remove some of the old wood and tidy up the plants. Tie in the new shoots as they grow away and the plants will flower on these in future years. Finish the job with a good mulch round the base of the plant and a general fertiliser, watered in well if it does not rain.

In the vegetable garden, main crop potatoes can be planted out and earthed up as they shoot. Remember to keep an eye on the forecast in case of late frost and cover growths of early varieties with fleece. Early potatoes will be ready to lift when they begin to flower and need nothing more than a quick wash to remove the soil before cooking.

Runner Beans are one of the stalwarts of the vegetable garden and can be grown on a wig wam of bamboo canes in even the smallest of spaces. The seed for these can be sown in the green house now and planted out towards the end of the month. Protect them with slug and snail control, as the young plants are a particular favourite until they are established!

Hoe annual weeds from borders and the vegetable patch, on dry days as they emerge. Regular hoeing will cut down on a lot of weeding work later in the year! Continue to empty compost heaps as available and apply as mulch around established plants. Use a general fertilizer such as pelleted8/. chicken manure if you have not yet fed your borders and apply when rain is forecast.

Look forward to the coming summer and making the most of your outdoor living spaces. Purchase a patio cleaning solution from your local garden centre to clean up these areas and ensure you are ready for the warm weather ahead!

Top Ten Tips for May

1.      Visit your local garden centre and choose from the wide range of basket and container plants available to give colour through the summer and until the frosts. Many of the newer half hardy varieties such as Diascia and Verbenas are packed with flower power!

2.      Do you have gaps in your borders that could benefit from summer colour? Visit your local garden centre and purchase some hardy annuals to sow direct where they are to flower.

3.      Sow Runner Bean seeds in your green house and plant them out towards the end of the month. Remember to use slug and snail control, as the young plants are a particular favourite until they establish.

4.      Pot on Fuchsia plants raised from cuttings as required. Pinch the growing tips to make the plants bush out. Bushy plants will reward with more flowers through the summer.

5.      Prune spring flowering Clematis such as C. montana, alpina and macropetala types as soon as they have finished flowering. Only prune if necessary to remove some of the old wood that has flowered and tidy the plant up.

6.      Choose a dry day and hoe borders to control annual weeds as they emerge. Regular hoeing, both in the flower and vegetable gardens will cut down on a lot of work later in the season!

7.      Main crop potatoes can be planted out now. Remember to keep an eye on the weather forecast and cover growths of early varieties with fleece or earth them up if a frost is predicted. Early varieties will be ready to lift once they begin to flower.

8.      Rock plants are very versatile and can be grown in the front of a sunny, well drained border next to a path, in containers or on the top of a sunny bank. Visit your local garden centre and choose from the wide range available.

9.      Continue to empty compost heaps as available and apply as mulch around established plants. If you have not already fed your borders use a general fertiliser such as pelleted chicken manure and apply when rain is forecast.

10.  Purchase a patio cleaner from your local garden centre and clean up your outdoor areas ready for the summer ahead.