Good gardening requires extreme patience

Just add gravel (and seedlings – please go away now frost)

I imagine by now you are tempted to start planting things out into your cut flower bed but I would recommend giving it another week or maybe even two. As we’ve seen, the weather is still changeable and you don’t want all of your hard work to go to waste. In the meantime here are some other jobs you can be getting on with.

Feeding

I feed my seedlings every two to three weeks in between regular watering, using liquid seaweed.  I also continue to do this once I’ve planted them out.

Spacing

You can start to think about your plant spacing alongside getting all of your seeds out in preparation for the plant up. My research suggests you can plant quite densely. I’ve listed below the planting spacing I will be following.

  • For annuals – 24 per 24 cm
  • For bulkier flowers such as Cosmos – 30 per 30cm
  • For large plants such as sunflowers – 40 per 40cm

Supporting your plants

Many annuals will require support to keep them upright.  You can do this by adding netting, stretched horizontally for the plants to grow upwards or alternatively by adding obelisks (or your own obelisk type shapes using some canes). 

Wooden or metal obelisks create fabulous height, support and visual interest to a garden

Preparing the soil 

Hopefully you have fed your soil with mulch and compost. If you haven’t, try and mix some good quality compost in to help the condition. In preparation for planting up, make sure dig and rake over your soil and remove any large stones. I would do this until you are ready to sow. You can also mix in a little bone meal.

Other gardening jobs for this month.

Glorious florals in Karen’ s beautiful garden
  • If you have climbing plants such as clematis or wisteria, make sure they are fully supported
  • if you are planning on creating some hanging baskets and you have a greenhouse then you can start to plant them up.  You will need to keep them in the greenhouse for a few weeks before putting them outside
  • Pinch out the shoot tips of bedding plants and young annuals. This will encourage them to create a bushier plant and more flowers. Do this when the plants are about 20-30 cm high. You can use your fingers (or scissors) to snap off the growing tip. You only need to do this on plants that grow multiple flowers i.e. single stemmed flowers do not need this done.

With love and stay safe,

Flowers and Lifestyle by Margot – www.instagram.com/flowersandlifestylebymargot/
http://www.flowersandlifestylebymargot.co.uk Find out more about me – www.flowersandlifestylebymargot.co.uk

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