KEY TASKS THIS MONTH

  • Clean up your garden, remove weeds from flower beds, veggies and fruits.
  • Look after your lawn, regularly cut it and use weed killer where needed
  • As hot weather approaches, water more often around your whole garden
  • Containers and hanging baskets can now be planted, but still be aware of frost!
  •  Begin to use liquid feeds where necessary
  • Make sure to support perennials with canes in windy areas
  • Continue to sow all your annual seeds
  • Watch out for pests on roses and black spot, to try and prevent this use a fungicide every couple of weeks 

PREP

It's also important to prepare your garden for the month ahead, here are some key tasks to get you started:

  • Create a planting calendar! This can be done for seeds, and there’s not need to be anything too technical but it'll keep you organised on when to plant each seed, and you could add ways to prevent or deal with different diseases!
  • Continue to collect rainwater, weather is unpredictable and you never know when we are going to get a dry spell!
  • Add the right compost to your garden, at Upcountry we have all the composts you may need whether that's ericaceous, multi-purpose, tomato planter, john Innes(1,2,3 and seed sowing compost)...

 

WHAT TO PLANT THIS MONTH

  • Summer flowering bedding plants! If you haven't bought these already now is the time! They are ideal for hanging baskets or containers and can even be used to fill in your borders. They are easy to look after and brighten your garden up.
  • Courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, beetroots, radishes, sweetcorn..
  • Herbs! They thrive in the summer months and are not only a great essence for your garden but also for your dishes. Check out our blog for great ideas for herb gardens!
  • Continue planting summer bulbs, that will still supply you with beautiful flowers in autumn

 

PRUNING

Pruning and training your plants is a vital step towards achieving a beautiful garden! Over the winter months your plants have definitely overgrown or got damaged, so for healthy future growth it's important to prune!

  • Tie rambling/ climbing roses, same with honeysuckle and clematis
  • Prune overgrown Camellias 
  • Prune Clematis 
  • May is the latest month you should be pruning your roses!

 

GARDEN  MAINTENANCE

Maintenance is vital for your garden. It's important to keep on top of jobs and keep your garden looking the best of its ability!

  • Lawn time! This is the ideal time to put turf down or seed in patchy areas!
  • Keep up with mowing the lawn, if needed lower the blades on your lawn mower to achieve shorter grass
  • Apply lawn weedkiller where necessary
  • Lawn edging - is a stylish and effective way of keeping your borders tidy 
  • Cut evergreen hedges 
  • Put netting around your fruit plants to keep birds off
  • Watch out for the greenhouse overheating, to prevent this you can use shade paint on the outside or install blinds

 

WILDLIFE

It’s a great time to encourage wildlife into your garden using some tempting treats, but also it’s important to watch out for them eating your crops or damaging the health of your plants and flowers!

  • Slugs and Snails! It's prime time for these 2 so watch out and make sure to use slug tape and home remedies like a beer trap!
  • Keep feeders well stocked up! Whether it's fat balls or just seeds, most types of bird feed will encourage birds into your garden!
  • Build an insect box! These can attract insects such as ladybirds which actually feed off insect pests!

 

PEST CONTROL

  • Try to not leave food or crumbs around to keep ants away!
  • Make sure rubbish bins are sealed
  • Look out pests on veggies like, cabbage worms and asparagus beetles 
  • Pale yellow Viburnum Beetle larvae feed on your leaves. It's important to get rid of them as soon as you spot them, they are home remedies for this too!