Gardening Jobs for May

 

Hello,

May is when the real gardening begins, but remember to take time to stop, to look and to enjoy the beauty found in your garden.

If you are looking for a few gardening jobs for the month, here are “just a few” things to keep you busy.

Sow half-hardy annual seeds outdoors where they are to flower.

Tidy up Clematis Montana once it has finished flowering.

Clear pots and containers to make way for summer displays.

Prune spring-flowering shrubs once they have finished flowering.

Tie in early tomatoes and keep feeding them with liquid feed.

Top-dress permanent pot plants to refresh the compost.

Supplement container plants with balanced liquid feed every 2-4 weeks to promote healthy growth, liquid Growmore is ideal.

Closely inspect plants for pests and diseases — early prevention is much easier than curing an infestation.

Look out for signs of blackspot on roses. If discovered, treat it with a systemic fungicide, I use Rose Clear Ultra, this seems to work very well. Remember to remove any infected leaves, and to clear up any fallen infected leaves from the ground around the plant.  Roses should be fed regularly with a good quality rose feed.

Continue to weed beds and borders, this reduces your plants competition for water and nutrients.

Put straw under strawberries to prevent young fruit rotting.

Sow sweetcorn in blocks to aid pollination and sow root vegetables.

Start planting out summer bedding plants. 

Prune forsythia after flowering If you do not do this every year, they quickly get unmanageable and flower less well. Using sharp loppers and secateurs cut a quarter of the old growth to the base. Also remove diseased, dead, dying, and wispy stems cutting them to the ground. Finally prune stems that have just flowered to two buds above the previous year’s growth.

Please remember to keep pots watered, when a plant is in the ground it can usually find moisture, but when in a pot or container the soil dry’s, not only from the surface but also from the sides of the pot. The smaller the pot the more often it needs watering!

Plant out dahlia tubers and cannas after all risk of frost has passed.

Continue sowing annuals, such as California poppies, into gaps in borders for colour from August into autumn.

Tie in climbers.

Remove faded spring bedding, such as wallflowers and forget-me-nots once faded and add to your compost bin.

Pinch out the shoot tips of bedding plants and young annuals to encourage bushier growth.

There is no shortage of seeds to sow in the May garden, with many now being able to be sown straight into the soil outside, sunflowers, cornflowers, zinnias, nasturtiums, nigella, poppies, and wildflower mixes can all be sown directly into beds, borders, or outdoor containers.

In trays and pots, you can start growing biennials and perennials, such as foxgloves, wallflowers, delphiniums, lupins, and primroses in the greenhouse or on the windowsill to flower next year and years to come.

Feeding now will pay dividends later, but you must use a slow-release fertiliser containing potash, to encourage more flowers. Vitax Q4 is excellent, and this general fertiliser can also be applied to roses, herbaceous plants, and fruit. Avoid adding nitrogen-rich plant food: it produces too much leaf.

In the middle of May, around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show, do the ‘Chelsea Chop’: Cutting the stems of flowering herbaceous perennials such as sedums and asters will keep plants smaller and encourage more flowers. This should not be done on flowers which flower only once, or flowers which are intended to be tall and striking.

Keep an eye on slugs, especially when it has been raining. Indeed, during a rain shower is the perfect time to get outside.

Weeding: Five minutes here and there (rather than a whole afternoon) with a hand or long hoe saves fingers and backs.

As well as weeds you will also find self-seeding plants taking off in May. Thin out gluts of self-seeders such as poppies and fennel leaving the strongest where you want them to flower, remembering that its best to keep them from flowering too close to the edges of beds.

In the flower border any frost-damaged leaves should be pruned back to the next healthy bud or side shoot. Frost damaged plants often recover so do not immediately pull them up but wait until summer, giving them time to regrow. If there is no sign by mid-summer, you can pull them up.

Get rid of any brown or faded material in the borders. Certain plants have already finished flowering, and they can be tidied.

Deadhead all, or most, aquilegias, because these self-seed far too enthusiastically.

Look after your finished spring bulbs for next year. Once they have gone over, resist the temptation to cut back the foliage. Instead, let it die and break down on its own and add liquid fertilizer all around the clumps. This will give you an even better display next spring.

Harden off half-hardy plants by leaving them outside during the day and bringing them back under cover at night for 7 to 10 days before planting outdoors.

Continue dividing herbaceous border perennials to improve vigour and create new plants.

Divide established clumps of hostas as they come into growth.

Towards the end of the month, keep an eye out for powdery mildew on flowering shrubs and flowers, like rhododendrons. Treat with fungicide to prevent further spread.

Lift forget-me-nots to prevent heavy self-seeding and reduce spreading.

Prune penstemons now — cut all the old shoots back to the base, providing there is new growth at the bottom of the plant. If there are no new shoots at the base, cut just above the lowest set of leaves.

Lightly cut back & tidy up late-flowering honeysuckle. Leave any big pruning jobs until winter.

Take cuttings of tender perennials, such as fuchsia and pelargoniums (tender geraniums). The new shoots of hardy perennials can also be used for cuttings.

Take softwood cuttings of shrubby herbs. 

Tie in rambling and climbing roses. Laying the stems horizontally will help to produce more flowers.

Tie in sweet pea plants with sweet pea support rings to encourage them to climb.

Cut back flowered shoots of choisya to promote a second flush of flowers in autumn.

 

As always, I wish you happy gardening.

 

 

Rog

 

 

 

The writer, Rog Leppard, is a professional gardener and gardening writer with his own gardening business, English Cottage Chic Gardening, based in Ashurst Bridge.

 

Website: www.english-cottage-chic.co.uk.