Weekend gardener: Get growing

Ornamentals

Split up hellebores after flowering, if they are getting too large or crowded, are not flowering as well as they might, or more stock is required. A generous application of leaf mould or well-rotted manure will give them a boost.

Ensure you match herbaceous plants with conditions that they like. Such plants are available for sunny, dry, hot, damp, shady, cool spots and many combinations thereof.

Plants for shady places include arthropodium, bergenia, clivia, Iris stylosa, liriope, omphalodes and rudbeckia. Liking semi-shade are alstroemeria, campanula, heuchera and thalictrum. While aquilegia, Iris japonica, Japanese anemone and trillium like a bit of moisture as well.

For damp or wet spots in full sun, try astilbes, filipendula, helenium, hosta, ligularia and monarda.

For sunny dry spots, try arctotis, carnations, catmint, cornflowers, dianthus, echinacea, stokesia and watsonia.

Prune buddleia back hard after flowering.

Keep an eye out for aphids on new rose shoots – squish or wash off with hose.

Edibles

Most vegetables like as much sun as you can give them. Notable exceptions are lettuce and coriander which tend to bolt (that is flower and go to seed) in hot conditions. So sow them now in the sun, and later on in the season sow somewhere they get shade from the noon sun – in the lee of a taller crop, such as sweetcorn, is good.

Sprinkle lime onto soil before sowing peas. Sow 5cm deep, about 7cm apart in rows 25cm to 40cm apart. Sow asparagus seed in sheltered beds for transplanting into permanent beds next August. Crowns planted last year should be picked only very lightly this year, and crowns planted this year not at all, remembering too heavy cropping will weaken the plant.

Feed

Apply well-rotted animal-based manures (such as horse, cow, pig or chicken), or sheep pellets, blood and bone, fishmeal and worm castings, around fruit trees and bushes, and grape vines, keeping well clear of trunks. These nitrogen-rich fertilisers are especially good for fast-growing leafy fruit crops, such as passionfruit, strawberries and tamarillos.

Leaves on a variety of plants turning yellow usually indicate a deficiency of some nutrient. As a guide, if the edges and tips of leaves turn yellow, the plant is lacking potassium. If tips and centre vein yellow, it needs nitrogen, while yellow leaves with small green veins indicates a lack of iron. While fertilisers are useful in addressing deficiencies, the most benefit to a plant is healthy rich, soil, achieved through incorporating plenty of organic matter. – Mary Lovell-Smith

SALLY TAGG Hellebores, commonly known as winter roses, flower in speckled shades of pink, lime, maroon and white, with hybrids adding pale hues of yellow and apricot as well as deep inky purple.