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NIGEL COLBORN’S ESSENTIAL JOBS FOR YOUR GARDEN THIS WEEK

Sort out the stragglers

OvEr the next few weeks, gardeners will be planting up summer containers, as well as tender bedding. There is a worry that after such a dull spring, some varieties have become drawn and leggy.

This is especially true of pelargoniums, particularly zonal varieties.

Correct that by pinching back young plants. Shorten any abnormally extended stems, removing the top third of each. Cut each stem just above an outward-facing leaf.

With such clump-forming plants as penstemons, you can shorten all stems to encourage basal shoots. This will delay flowering for a few weeks, but will result in a bigger, more prolific and longer-lasting show later on.

For baskets and troughs, ivy- leaf pelargoniums look especially leggy and feeble. When planting out, shorten all overlength stems. Shortened stems will then branch more freely to develop bigger plants.

When you cut back young plants, the removed shoots can be rooted as soft cuttings.

With ivy-leaf varieties, I slip the best prunings into the growing medium close to the donor plants for denser growth and more flowers later.