5 gardening jobs for July

5 gardening jobs for July

Its July!!  The school holidays are approaching and so this month so here are your jobs to do:

1. Hoe weed seedlings so they don’t take over veggie patches or in your borders.

I’m quite relaxed about weeds but they can take water and light from your plants so keep them thinned out.  Use a hoe on a warm day to cut the tops off from the roots and they will shrivel up and die on the soil surface without you needing to remove them.

2. Deadhead summer bedding, perennials and roses to encourage them to keep on flowering.

Sweetpeas can be cut every other day and brought inside or gifted.  You’re trying to trick the plant into producing more flowers by making the flowers disappear.  The plant only wants to flower to produce seed and once seed is ‘set’ it will stop flowering so we want to interrupt that by removing the flowers! Do this with secateurs or with something like Catmint or Geraniums you can take your shears to them and they should produce a 2nd flush of flowers.

3. Water and feed pots and fruit and vegetables consistently to encourage growth and flowering or fruiting

Plants in pots are dependent on you for everything.  They need watering (nearly) every day in dry weather and feeding regularly.  Think of them like new born babies who need a structured routine of feeding!  Fruit and Vegetables are hungry and thirsty.  Raspberries, courgettes and tomatoes need lots of water to swell and produce the fruit you want .. but don’t be haphazard as leaving them to dry out for long periods and then swamping them with water won’t help them grow healthily.

4. Now is the time to sow the seeds of biennials*

You can collect the seed from dried flower-heads such as Forget-me-Nots, Foxgloves and Honesty for flowering next year and start them off in trays now.  Pot on when they are large enough to handle and then plant out into the garden in the Autumn for flowering next Spring.

*Biennials have a two year life cycle.  In year one they put on their main root and foliage growth and in year two they produce their flowers, set seed and then die.

5. Relax

Enjoy your garden this month, all you hard work has paid off and you have a space to spend time in, either alone or with the family.  Picnics on the lawn, playing swing-ball, picking raspberries, lounging with a book, BBQing or camping overnight … relax and enjoy!

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions email me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk

Or book a Garden Hoedown for an hour of one-to-one garden therapy and you’ll come away with a personalised action plan to get the most out of your garden!

Gardening Chat at Radio Woking

Gardening Chat at Radio Woking

I found myself in the radio studio with Jon and Matt from Radio Woking yesterday talking about what to do with your garden in April.  You can listen again here at Mixcloud.  I’m on from 11 – 12!

It was fascinating to see them at work as we’ve only ever done interviews on the phone before now.

Let me know how you get on this month or if you have any questions by emailing me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk

Renée

 

 

 

 

5 gardening jobs for April

5 gardening jobs for April

Its April!  Spring should be springing this month so here are your jobs to do:

  1. Your lawn can have its first cut/s of the year.  Make sure your mower is on a high setting for the first few cuts as the grass is recovering from the winter and just putting growth on.  This video gives you lots of tips and also made me laugh!
  2. Now’s the time to tidy up the edges.  Use something with a straight edge or a hosepipe to mark where you want the edges to be and then use a half moon spade (my favourite tool) or a knife to get a nice clean edge defining lawn and borders … this is the most satisfying job of the year. Alan Titchmarsh shows you how here.
  3. Deadhead your Hydrangeas now if you haven’t already.  Take them down to the next pair of healthy buds unless you have to reduce the size.  If you have any of the frothy white varieties such as Annabelle or Limelight which have huge flowerheads, take them down further as they need strong stem growth to support the weight of the flowers.
  4. Now’s the time to start off annual seeds indoors or in the greenhouse.  Sunflowers, Sweetpeas and any veg like tomatoes, sweetcorn or leeks can be sown now.  A great activity to do with the children during the Easter holidays.  More advice here.
  5. Now is also a good time to feed any shrubs or roses you have in the garden so help them put on growth, flower or fruit this year.  Fertiliser is a concentrated solution or pellet of nutrients.  I tend to use organic fertilisers like Blood, Fish and Bones or Chicken Manure a lot in my garden as I am on free-draining, nutieint low sand.  Feed them now for a good show this year.  Shrubs in containers need feeding all year round.  Shrubs in the ground should fare ok on their own and feeding now is a welcome boost.  More advice from the RHS here.

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions email me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk

Or book a Garden Hoedown for an hour of one to one garden therapy and you’ll come away with a personalised action plan to get the most out of your garden!

 

 

 

 

 

5 gardening jobs for March

Don’t be fooled into thinking Spring is here yet.  Its cold out there still!  Here’s my top 5 jobs to do this month:

  1. Plant hardy shrubs and perennials out in the garden unless its soggy or frozen.  But hold off sowing seeds or plug plants out until its warmed up a bit.
  2. You can finally prune Hydrangeas! Well done for waiting!There are different types of Hydrangea. Traditional Hydrangeas flower on old growth so can be deadheaded back to the next pair of buds and thinned out leaving only the strong stems. Hydrangea Annabelle and the new paniculata flowerheads that generally have huge white flowerheads need to be cut right back to the ground as they flower on new growth.  You can see this done here.

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions email me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk

Or book a Garden Hoedown for an hour of one to one garden therapy and you’ll come away with a personalised action plan to get the most out of your garden!

 

 

 

 

5 gardening jobs for February

5 gardening jobs for February

February seems to be full of pruning jobs.  Its the month to get prepped before lots of green growth so is a good chance if the weather is dry and frost free to prune back to encourage growth this year and also to move plants that are in the wrong place.  Its also the quietest time of the year so is a great opportunity to see the ‘bare bones’ of your garden and reflect on what looks good, what works and what might need changing.  Here’s my top 5 jobs to do this month:

  1. Prune back late flowering woody shrubs such as Buddleia, Elder, Caryopteris and Fucshia to the ground to keep their size in check and to encourage new stems that will flower this year.  Autumn Raspberries also come into this category.  Now is the time to cut all stems down to 10-20cm from the ground.
  2. Cut back deciduous grasses now too.  With shears trim leaves and seedheads  back to 20cm so they resemble mounds.  Now is also the time to split or move them.
  3. Its still quite early to be sowing annual seeds but you can start chitting potatoes for early planting.  This just means encouraging them to start sprouting.  Place them in a light place and when the sprouts are 3cm long they are ready for planting.  More advice HERE.
  4. Its the last chance to cut hedges before the birds start nesting.
  5. If you can look at your garden from an upstairs window.  At this time of year you’ll be able to see the framework or layout of your garden clearly.  If you’re confident you can draw a plan from here, noting where paths, beds, patios and key plants are located.  This will help if you have a hunch that something isn’t working or if you want to make changes to beds and borders.  If you’re stuck book a Hoedown with me so I can help!

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions email me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk

Or book a Garden Hoedown for an hour of one to one garden therapy and you’ll come away with a personalised action plan to get the most out of your garden!

 

 

 

 

5 garden jobs for January

January may be the first month of the year but it doesn’t feel like the first month of the gardening year .. for me that will be in Spring when the green shoots begin to appear.  January feels like a quiet time for me so here are some quiet jobs to do this month:

  1. Roll your sleeves up  … cleaning pots and greenhouses now will get you ready for the Spring sowings so get ahead of the game and spend some time in your shed/greenhouse or just outside washing pots and throwing anything away that is broken.
  2. Cut back dead leaves and flowerstems from perennials when they look scruffy.
  3. Remove leaves from Hellebores to show the flowers off better.
  4. Apple and Pear trees can be pruned now as can Gooseberries and Currant bushes.
  5. For a lovely job on a wet and windy day plan your seed sowing..  Seeds shoudl be kept in a bark, dry place.  The Quality Street tin you got for Christmas is perfect!  Keep it indoors rather than outside.  Feb-March is the time to start sowing seeds so now is the time to choose and order them.  This can all be done from the comfort of your armchair.  I love Chiltern Seeds and Higgledy Garden for good UK seeds with loads of choice.

Enjoy this quiet cosy time!

Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions email me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk

Or book a Garden Hoedown for an hour of one to one garden therapy and you’ll come away with a personalised action plan to get the most out of your garden!