garden
May in the Garden
By Ronnie Ogier
Ronnie is a passionate gardener and now loves sharing her years of experience of success and failures in her own garden and sharing it with you. Also a keen runner, having been bitten by the ‘Couch to 5K’ bug!
MAY IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE MONTHS OF THE YEAR, IT STARTS TO FULFIL SOME OF THE PROMISES MADE EARLIER! THIS IS THE TIME TO PUT THE PLANS YOU MAY HAVE MADE LAST YEAR, OR EVEN JUST LAST NIGHT, INTO ACTION
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ow is the time to start planting are so vibrant, and they add a real touch of summer plants, late perennials and ‘pzazz’ to my summer garden. I regularly even in some areas bedding plants. I have start off the tubers I’ve lifted the previous previously warned of the Saintes de Glace autumn in the greenhouse and barn in - the final times when frost is possible or February, but now I can plant them out even probable. These occur between 11th when the danger of frost has passed. Tubs and 13th May and tradition rules that you with summer bedding can also be safely should not put tender plants put into your garden, in open ground until after introducing a whole The Saintes de Glace is a ‘rule’ new palette of these dates. But I am which covers the whole of colour. But gardens beginning to think that climate change may be France, a very big country never sit still and having an impact on this wait, and now is a advice, so perhaps we good time to start should be cautious and listen to the méteo sowing spring bedding for next year. Many for advice on the weather in our own area. common choices -including wallflowers, The Saintes de Glace is a ‘rule’ which pansies, and Bellis perennis - are biennials covers the whole of France, a very big and need to be sown between now and country, and it does seem possible, even July in order to flower next spring. Winter likely, that there will be a vast difference bedding plants can also be sown from now between Var on the Mediterranean and until July. Puy-de-Dôme in the Massif Central. Even May is the time for tidying up and looking closer to home I suspect that Charente carefully at the plants returning from Maritime has very different weather and previous summers. Many perennials frost dates to La Creuse. So be guided by spread over time, lose some of their your own experience in previous years and brightness, and generally look a bit by weather forecasts for your area. unkempt, so take a look at them carefully I have come to love dahlias and cannas and divide them. Lift clumps of since we moved to France - their colours herbaceous perennials, put in two forks
back-to-back and pull apart to separate the parts you want to remove. Put the newer fresher parts from the edges back into the garden and find a ‘new home’ for the pieces you no longer want. Hostas in particular will benefit from this treatment perhaps every three or four years. Primulas also respond well to this treatment after they finish flowering, and the newer plants can be put into a nursery bed to replant in the autumn. Spreading and trailing plants such as the annual Lobularia (sweet alyssum), and perennials like Alyssum and Aubrieta, can become tatty and patchy. Trimming these back after flowering encourages new growth and a second flush of flowers. It is also worth dividing large clumps of overcrowded daffodils after they have flowered. We all want a beautiful garden, and in the current financial climate we’d like one that won't cost the earth. Maybe you’ve never tried propagation from cuttings or layering - why not give it a go, it’s very satisfying! I find it quite exciting, and this is the right time of year to try it. Your spare plants can be swapped with friends and neighbours. Softwood cuttings can be
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