Now as the days become shorter, this is a great opportunity to get into your garages and sheds, and have a cleanup. Tidy up your shelves and clean all old pots, stakes and canes with a weak disinfectant, thereby stopping … Continue reading →

Carrying on from last month, we will continue with lawn maintenance: The next job is aeration, which aids drainage and enables air to get to the grass. If you have a small lawn, you can do this by pushing a … Continue reading →

This month is a great time to plant container grown trees and shrubs. Planting them now will give them a great start for next spring. The soil will hopefully be moist and warm, therefore giving the roots chance to settle … Continue reading →

Keep deadheading roses, this stops the rose from putting all its energy into producing seeds and hips. These in turn will, especially in the case of modern roses produce more flower buds. Prune back to one or two leaflets below … Continue reading →

Don’t forget to deadhead your fading roses’ flowers, remembering to prune them just above a leaf. A bud should emerge from the leaf stalk and stem. Also consider feeding the rose with a rose specific fertiliser, this will prolong the … Continue reading →

As the threat of frost has gone it’s now safe to plant out your summer bedding plants, in your beds, borders, containers and hanging baskets. Make sure they are kept well watered, particularly in dry periods. Those spring flowering bulbs … Continue reading →

As spring flowering plants come to the end of their season, and warmer and frost free nights are now around the corner, now is a good time to remove them and prepare for summer bedding plants to go in. Don’t … Continue reading →

This month we will see a huge increase in slugs and snails due to warmer days and moist soils. For those of you who are non-organic (tut tut) spread a few slug pellets around those plants affected. For those that … Continue reading →

As the worst of the winter weather is over, now is a good time to prune shrub roses. Remove all dead, diseased or damaged stems, as well as crossing stems that may rub against each other. Once pruned don’t forget … Continue reading →

Now is a good time to trim overgrown deciduous hedges like hornbeam and beech. While the plants are dormant you can reduce them to a manageable size. On old established hedges you might need to use loppers or a pruning … Continue reading →