Weekly jobs
TALL perennials are shooting up so put in stakes or supports to help show off their blooms and prevent them bending or snapping. Or you can do the Chelsea chop, cutting back perennials in the stride to make them bushier and less likely to flop over. This reduces the need for staking and can produce more flowers. Plants that will benefit from this include heleniums, sedums, rudbeckia, phlox and solidago. You can also choose to chop some plants and leave some alone so you will have different flowering times and heights in the same border.
PLANTS grown in containers will need TLC – scrape off old compost and replace with fresh and keep fed fortnightly and well watered.
IN the veg garden, lucky asparagus and rhubarb growers will be harvesting the fruits of their labour – pick asparagus spears before they get too tall. HARDEN off outdoor tomatoes and courgettes for planting out next month.
APHIDS and greenflies are busy reproducing ... check plants, especially roses, for any infestations and remove what you see by hand. You can also use organic pest sprays, which are natural fatty acid mixtures that destroy the insects, or make up a very dilute soapy mixture.
MAKE a simple homemade fungicide by adding baking powder to water and spray on roses to prevent mildew and blackspot.
SOW lettuce, radishes, spring onions and carrots at fortnightly intervals.
CHECK lilies for scarlet lily beetles and remove by hand – otherwise you may be left with ragged foliage.
ARE your dahlia tubers ready for planting out? Depending on your region, you will be frost free now shortly.