JOBS FOR THE WEEK
■ You can sow courgettes and pumpkins in pots for planting outdoors next month. French and runner beans and sweetcorn will also be ready for sowing outdoors after frost is gone.
■ Prune early flowering spring shrubs such as forsythia and ribes after the flowers have gone. Early flowering clematis such as C. Montana and the evergreen C. armandii can
The echo that I hear in garden centres and nurseries at the moment is shoppers musing in front of colourful displays of shivering bedding saying, “I’ve got to do my baskets”. It’s that time of the year – we want to be ready for when it’s frost free, usually by the end of May, to hang our exuberant displays of colour around the house.
Whether it’s by the front door, under pergolas or arches, or from brackets anywhere, planting a hanging basket has as much ritual, pomp and ceremony as a royal wedding. But what will you need apart from your basket?
Good quality multi-purpose compost is essential – don’t skimp on this bit as this will be the basis of your successful basket. You can add in some water-retaining gel pellets and slow-release fertiliser, although neither is necessary if you are vigilant about watering and add a liquid also be clipped back after flowering if necessary.
■ Continue hardening off tender bedding for outdoors.
■ It’s a good time to start a compost heap to manage weeds and lawn clippings. Mix with brown waste such as newspaper and cardboard for best results.
■ Repair lawn patches with a seed and feed mix. tomato feed once a week during the summer.
If using a traditional wire basket, you will need to line this first to keep soil and plants in.
Moss looks good but if you can’t get your hands on some, there are plenty of ready-to-buy cardboard or fibre linings. Failing that, a plastic sheet, such as an old compost bag, will do just as well. Ideally your basket will end up smothered in flowers so the lining won’t be visible anyway.
Make some slits in the lining around the base of the basket – this will enable you to plant some trailing varieties.
Place a layer of compost on the bottom of the basket and gently push the trailing plants from the inside gently through the liner, keeping the rootball within the basket.
Cover with a layer of compost and, depending on the size of your basket (and your ambition!), you might do another layer of trailing plants.
For the top layer you will want your star plant which has a bit of height and volume. Best bets for non-stop ■ Make homemade liquid feed – stew leaves of nettle or comfrey in water for a high nitrogen type.
■ ■ Pinch out seedlings of annuals such as cosmos and zinnia. Doing this will help to form bushier, stronger plants. flowering during the summer are the old reliables, petunias, calibrachoa, pelargoniums, marguerites, fuchsias, begonias and lobelias.
Foliage plants can act as a calming contrast to this riot of colourful flowers. Helichrysum Silver Mist has lovely silvery green textured foliage which will work well with either pastel colours or to cool hot colours. It’s easy to grow and there’s a lovely trailing variety called ‘Gold’ which has zingy golden yellow foliage.
Creeping jenny (Lysimachia Aurea) also has yellow-green leaves and is often used to cascade over the edges of containers and baskets. Meanwhile, Dichondra Silver Falls is a real beauty, creating a waterfall of silvery leaves and it can even look stunning just planted on its own.
Its drought tolerance is an added bonus as baskets can dry out so easily. Trailing nepeta has that distinctive catmint scent and there’s nothing to stop you popping in some other herbs such as basil, parsley and sage in order to create a herb hanging basket.