I have taken to having baths recently. This isn’t because I have developed OCD or just because there is something delicious about sitting in a chilling bath with a glass of wine in my hand: it is because I can use the water on my pot plants.
By making a small hole with a sharp knife in the bottle cap of your average large plastic bottle (cutting and twisting about one centimetre by half a centimetre) and turning the bottle upside down to leave on a pot, the water will slowly percolate out. The trouble with using a hose and a watering can is that it can be so wasteful: a great deal of water goes straight through the container and comes streaming out the base.
Over time the finer parts of compost can get washed through and out of pots leaving a gritty mix that has very little ability to retain moisture. That is why adding compost each year is important. Which I must do as I forgot to do it in the spring! Fitting a “saucer” base also helps but care must be taken not to damage plants through lack of drainage.
Other jobs this month include:
• Putting out summer bedding hanging baskets and bedding now the frosts are over.
• Cut back early flowering perennials such as delphiniums, lupins and oriental poppies after their first flowering. This will give them a chance to flower again on the new growth.
• Cutting down the stems of the spring flowering bulbs such as daffodils.
• Cutting and clipping Privet, box and evergreen honeysuckle hedges (Lonicera nitida)
• Philadelphus, Kolkwitzia, Weigela and Deutzia can all be pruned after they have flowered. In doing so the new growth will have time to develop in order that they may flower the following year.
• Give Clematis montana a good hacking if needed when they are over (they can take it!) and tie in other climbers.
• Remove stems of any variegated plants that are reverting to their original colour or the whole plant will ‘revert’.
• Divide Hosta as they come into growth and fill out any gaps in the borders with bedding.
• Give ailing plants a shot of liquid feed as that is the best way to give them a lift.
• Keep a close eye on the soil moisture levels as newly established plants can easily suffer.
• Evergreens such as Viburnum tinus and Choisya can also be cut and shaped once they have flowered.
• Roses can be deadheaded to encourage repeat flowering when they fade. Do this by cutting just above the first leaf below the faded bloom.
We may well be in for a long dry spell: the more water saving habits that become second nature, the better off everyone will be – in every sense of the word!