News - Page 139
The plants of the month for March are pansies and violas, a lovely, cheery group of plants that never fails to put a smile on a gardener's face.
The two flowers are closely related, and we're often asked what the difference is. Well: it's mainly in flower size.
Pansies tend to be larger and come in brighter colours, including bicoloured and strikingly blotched varieties. They're a wonderful way to brighten your garden throu...
You won't know where to start this month what with seeds to sow, plants to plant and the glory of spring's first flush to distract you. It's a great month to be outside!
General tasks:
Tackle slugs before they do serious damage, surrounding vulnerable new shoots and plants like delphiniums and hostas with rings of sharp grit.
Tackle troublesome lawn weeds by winkling them out with one of our specialist weeding tools. Leave t...
Plant lilies en masse in the garden for an explosion of colour and scent – not to mention a magnificent display of huge, showy flowers that takes your breath away.
Bulbs are just appearing on our shelves right now, so the sooner you visit the better your chances of picking up the variety you want. Queen of them all is the pure white trumpet lily, Lilium regale, scented so richly it fills your whole garden. Martagon lilies, with their dainty turk's-cap f...
Make a nursery bed to get your veg seedlings off to a flying start this spring. Putting aside a corner of your plot just for raising seeds is a great investment and helps you get the most from your veg patch.
It might seem a long way ahead, but it's actually just the right time to buy in seed for all your winter crops, which need a long growing season so they're at full throttle just when you want them at the end of the year. In our garden centre you'll...
Get asparagus beds ready for the arrival of new asparagus crowns in the garden centre any minute now. Planting asparagus is a real investment in your veg garden, as they're perennial plants, coming back year after year for up to 20 years.
Choose from traditional heritage types like the prolific 'Connover's Colossal', or more modern varieties like 'Guelph Millennium', a later-maturing variety, or 'Gijnli...
Show the gardener in your life how much you love them with a green-fingered present to set the heart beating faster. All romantics love a bunch of red roses on February 14th – but for something longer lasting and just that little bit different, you'll find plenty of more unusual ideas in our garden centre too.
Heart-shaped climbing plants: twine fragrant jasmine or stephanotis around a...
Prune clematis which flower in mid to late summer – both the pretty, small-flowered C. texensis and C. viticella varieties and the larger-flowered, more showy types like violet-blue 'William Kennett' and the lovely pure white 'Marie Boisselot'.
All these train beautifully through climbing roses, as both can be pruned at the same time. Start by removing all thin and weak stems, or any which have become damaged through the year. Then cut...
Give your beds a good mulch of well-rotted farmyard manure at this time of year and you'll set them up perfectly for the year ahead.
Mulching is the gardener's magic wand: at a stroke you can deal with feeding, watering, weeding and soil care, plus a bit of frost protection to boot, with just a few bags of good-quality organic matter from the garden centre. It's one of those trade secrets which transforms your veg-growing life.
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February's plant of the month is the heather, a plant that's had something of a bad press in recent years. We can't understand why, as there are few plants more versatile and easy-to-please in the garden: have a look at our great selection and try them out for yourself!
They have a deservedly good reputation as reliable, evergreen winter-flowering beauties, but in fact there are dozens of different types of heather, inc...
With the garden waking up, we're revving up for the season this month: time to get outside and revel in the beauty of emerging spring bulbs and bright, frosty mornings. Here's what to be getting on with right now:
General tasks:
Have a last weed through before easily damaged new shoots emerge on shrubs and perennials...