Gardeners Tips

This selection of perennials are easy to grow and produce summer colours in a range of patriotic blues, reds and whites.

Centaurea shown above has many varieties in different shades and is a good cottage garden plant. It grows2-3 feet tall and needs some support. It’s red colour is much more pink but the blue is strong and long lasting.

Hardy Geraniums are attractive and easy to grow. The colour range includes the purple to blue or pink and Splish-Splash below which is a white with occassional blue patch. My black geranium has very poor flowers and rampant foliage.

Lupins flowering above are another easy perennial. In addition to red, white and blue there are bi-coloured Lupins with a white eye that can be very attractive. This pink looks a bit wishy washy in the photo but in real life it was a stunner.

Oriental Poppies are strongly coloured perennials but I have yet to see a blue one which is not a Meconopsis. There are many other poppy varieties to consider growing

Roses.

Beauty, dignity, fragrance and style. The rose is perhaps the Queen of flowers. A very rewarding plant to grow. Some of the modern cultivars have lost the beautiful old fragrance, but, the good news is that they are more disease tolerant. See: Tips on Growing roses

Sunflower

Simple, pure and fun. The sunflowers is a great flower for anyone to grow. It is hard to look at a sunflower and not be cheered a little. It is as if the sunflower is smiling at you. Tips on growing sunflowers here

Lupins. See: Growing Lupins

Sweet Peas:

Sweet peas come in many colours and offer a long flowering season, making a lovely cut flower. The fragrance helps the sweet pea to be one our most popular garden flowers.

See: Growing sweet peas

Pansy

Low growing, colourful pansies are one of the most common garden flowers because they can give such a long flowering season. One of the few annuals to flower even in the depths of winter. Great value, no wonder they are so popular!

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Fresh lettuce from the garden is well worth cultivating. It can be a quick crop, ideal for a small garden. Planted in neat rows, it can also be an attractive veg, especially if you try growing different leaf coloured varieties.

Sowing Lettuce Seed.

Lettuce can be sown from late Feb to June. Though obviously, in Feb will need careful protection. Germination takes 7-12 days. It needs a moist warm environment. However, beware that if the temperature is too hot (over 21 degrees) germination may be patchy.

Sow relatively thinly, lettuce seedlings dislike being transplanted so when thinning out, just discard the excess plants.

For growing full lettuce, sow 30cm apart. However, for salad ‘cut and come’ varieties, you can sow closer and keep cutting leaves to get a second crop.

Important Tips for Growing Lettuce

• Lettuce need to be kept well watered.
• They dislike hot dry sunny weather. In these conditions, like many vegetables they will bolt and run to seed.
• For best crops, ensure the soil is fertile with plenty of organic matter. Lettuce is better when it can grow quickly.
• For longest cropping season, sow at two week intervals. This ensures a steady supply of lettuce.
• During hot season, try growing in the shadier part of your vegetable garden.
• If you have a small garden, lettuce will do well in growing bags, as long as they are sufficiently watered.
• For early plants, sow under glass and harden off before planting outside.
• When sowing indoors and planting outside, take care to give as little disturbance to roots as possible. This can act as a check on growth. Try using disposable pots which can be planted straight outside.
• Using a horticultural fleece can keep away aphids and reduce the direct rays of the sun.
• Keep weeds at bay, but avoid damaging plant with hoe.

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Beautiful, but a hundred potential weeds.

Weeds

There are two types of weeds. – The weed which can easily be controlled through hoeing (e.g. annuals like plantains and the persistent perennial weeds – horsetail, bindweed and japanese knotweed. These latter group of weeds need a persistent and determined strategy to rid your garden of them. It takes a combination of deep digging their roots, and then spraying or hoeing off new growth until they are finally defeated.

In the case of weeds like horsetail, it can really test your patience as it can be years of weeding before you clear the garden of it.

Other weeds still require regular maintenance to keep down. If possible follow the good old advice of hoeing before they set seeding or as the saying goes – one years weeding = seven years weeding

• See: Most common garden weeds.
• Tips for weeding a garden

Neglect

Here is a common garden problem – not enough time to do what we need to do. – Weeds allowed to grow, grass too long and weedy, plants not deadheaded and a general feeling of neglect. Don’t feel too bad, nature doesn’t have a gardener, and nature doesn’t do too bad. Try to enjoy the natural aspect of the garden, even the weeds can be quite nice, if we don’t worry too much. But, if you can find a bit more time for regular maintenance you will get much more joy from the garden.

Though another less well addressed common garden problem is that of the stressed gardener. Don’t try to do everything and be perfect. There is more to the garden than immaculate edges and 100% weed free soil…

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