Get your garden ready for summer: Alan Titchmarsh guide on getting your borders in order
IN THE first of a four-part guide, Alan Titchmarsh helps get your borders in order
Once spring weather sets in, it seems as if everything in the garden needs doing at once. Oh, it’s a busy time but it’s worth getting all the routine jobs up to date and pushing ahead with any planting or small projects now. That way, everything has time to settle down, fill out and mature so the garden looks its very best for summer – then you can sit back and enjoy the results of your labours.
BORDERS
A good start-of-the-season session now will make borders and island beds far less work for the rest of the season.
Work methodically through them, removing any weeds. Sprinkle a couple of handfuls of general fertiliser over each square yard or metre, then fork the surface over lightly, leaving it loose, aerated and open-textured so worms and plant roots can work more efficiently. (Work carefully round your plants, particularly shallow-rooted kinds, crowns of perennial plants and clumps of bulbs, to avoid spiking underground roots, bulbs or tubers).
Then you can mulch – spread a layer of well-rotted garden compost, manure or spent mushroom compost at least an inch thick, or use bark chippings, which are more expensive but last longer.
Most people think mulching is done to prevent weeds germinating, which it is, but it also helps plants grow better by keeping their roots cool and shady and by reducing the rate at which water evaporates from the soil. It also encourages the worms that tunnel and drag organic matter into the ground, meaning soil is improved, aerated and drained – all without digging.
SOW HARDY ANNUALS
When you want lots of colourful summer flowers with little effort or expense, choose hardy annuals. You can sow them outside now and they’ll grow and flower without needing to be pricked out or transplanted.
They are great for filling gaps in a border or making a cottage-style flower bed. Because you sow them in beds or borders it’s vital to choose a place that’s been well tended, so the ground isn’t full of weed seeds that will spring up and swamp your flowers.
To prepare the area, fork it over, work in some compost and general fertiliser, then rake finely. Scatter the seeds thinly over the surface or (when you want flowers for cutting) in a row in the veggie patch, then sift a little soil or compost over them. If they are buried too deeply they won’t come up. Water well and wait. When things start coming up, hand weed carefully. It pays to be able to recognise common weed seedlings.
If you don’t have a suitable spot, sow seeds into tubs. Simply fill tubs, troughs or window boxes with seed compost, sow and cover shallowly with a little more compost. Water them, and you’ll have the easiest potted floral display you’ve ever grown. Dwarf sunflowers, nasturtiums and knee-high sweet peas make good shows in containers.
COMPOSTING
Gardens generate grass cuttings, hedge clippings, weeds and other green waste at the start of the growing season, so make good use of it by turning it into garden compost.
It pays to buy a compost bin or make a container out of timber.
Fill your composter carefully, adding new material in six-inch layers, sandwiching soft green materials (weeds, old bedding plants, veg trimmings and parings) with a layer of lawn clippings or soft hedge clippings.
If you find it easier, mix the lot together before adding it to your composter – but don’t overdo any one ingredient, especially lawn clippings, or the heap just turns slimy and smelly.There’s no need to buy a compost starter. Just leave a little soil on the roots of weeds and plants or add fresh manure to introduce beneficial microorganisms that help the heap work faster.
Each time you add new material, damp it down if it’s dry, and cover to help the heat build up. When you’ve filled the container don’t be tempted to add more as the compost rots down and sinks. Start a new heap so you have one cooking while the other is being filled. Four to six months later, you’ll have compost ready to use, for free.
Don’t miss Part 2, only in tomorrow’s S magazine, free with the Sunday Express.
GARDEN SHOPPING LIST
Vinyl gloves
Seed/cuttings compost
Lawn feed
General fertiliser (blood, fish and bone is a good organic standby)
Organic slug remedy
Clip-together cage-style frames for perennials