Gardening Tips
Your fortnightly gardening tips for indoors and outdoors |
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CHECKLIST
Remove spring bedding.
Review your containers, planting up and replanting as necessary.
Prune spring-flowering shubs.
Continue with your weed –control programme.
Spray roses against mildew, blackspot and rust.
Continue to wage war against aphids and slugs.
Apply and top up mulches as necessary.
SPRING BEDDING. Easy gardening does not cater for a lot of bedding,
but room can be found for a few wallflowers, forget-me-nots and even such as overblown
daisies, it would certainly be a depleted spring without the scent and velvety colours of
wallflowers.
REVIEWING CONTAINERS. Containers that held spring bulbs and winters
pansies will need emptying and renewing. Any that have been out of commission over winter
can now be brought back into use. Those holding permanent plants, say conifers or shrubs
should at least have their topsoil scraped off and replaced with fresh compost. Half-hardy
perennials like geraniums can now be hardened off. There is no disputing the value of
these plants; in containers they will thrive and bloom for months with little attention
apart from making sure that they do not dry out completely, more than repaying the small
effort of keeping them frost-free over winter. If you shun the brilliant carnival colours,
the reds and oranges, there are plenty of cooler colours in the white to pale pink range.
There are also the scented-leafed kinds that are very decorative even if you do not press
theirs leaves to release the perfume.
FERNS. These wonderful plants dominated the earth before flowering
plants evolved. There are still huge numbers in most parts of the world and many are hardy
in temperate areas. There are evergreen and deciduous sorts, plus some that are deciduous
in hard winters but can otherwise be evergreen. They can range in size from little wall
species like maidenhair spleenwort to huge Royal fern. Ferns can be propagated from spores
collected from the backs of fertile fronds or by division. However, young nursery plants
are so reasonably priced that this is often the most practical way of acquiring one or two
more. A fern border may or may not be filled only with ferns, usually there will be some
companion plants, but it is the ferns that will dominate and with the right selection, and
very little work, there will be something of interest at all times of the year. There are
gardens with fern borders some years old where the only work undertaken is to remove the
odd weed and sometimes clear away dead fronds. A single fern is a thing of beauty, a
collection soon begins to create an atmosphere quite distinct from any other gardening
feature. |
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| Embarrassing
Stories |
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| I was serving a gentleman in a shoe shop, I was fitting
him with a new pair of shoes. As I was doing this he informed me he has got a fake leg. I
was struggling to get the shoe on and he told me to give it a bit of wellie, I did, but it
came off in my hands! |
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REMEMBER D-DAY
6 JUNE |
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The Easter Fayre on 10 April at
Sheringham Community Centre in aid of Laser for Life a cancer charity raised an amazing
£1000+.
This was handed to Tricia Wood, who has since run the 26.2 mile London Marathon.
Thanks go to all for their help and encouragement |
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