Furniture
May
Key Tasks
Remove spring flowering bedding and bulbs, prepare the ground for summer bedding.
Plant out summer bedding plants towards the end of the month. Plant scented plants near doors, windows and near areas where you sit.
Support herbaceous plants while they are small, we offer a variety of plant stakes, trellis sheets and obelisks.
Apply a selective weed and moss killer to weedy lawns this month.
Some hedges will want their first cut, to keep the garden tidy. Visit our machinery department for shear sharpening.
Mow the lawn regularly, water if necessary and remove odd perennial weeds by hand or cut through them with a knife. We offer quality services in our machinery section for your mower, or if yours is looking tired we sell Viking, Hayter and Flymo mowers.
Feed daffodil bulbs to build up next years flowers.
Plant up hanging baskets, include long lasting slow release fertilizer and water retaining granules in your basket compost. This will save the task of having to include a liquid feed when you water and watering should be slightly reduced.
You could always come in and order your summer hanging baskets to be made up for the end of May/June.
Repot greenhouse plants that fill their pots with roots.
Lift early potatoes, there is nothing quite like the taste of home grown early potatoes.
Sow the seeds of herbaceous perennials and biennials out of doors this month in a prepared seed bed.
Lawn Care
Weed and Feed.
Mow at the normal blade cutting height once or twice a week.
New lawns should have their first cut when the new seedlings are 2 to 3 inches high with the blades set high.
Apply a top dressing of Lawn Sand.
Feed your lawn with a spring/summer fertiliser that is high in nitrogen.
Apply weed killer two weeks after you have fed the lawn - treating the whole lawn, not just individual weeds.
Veg Care
Make third plantings of vegetables mentioned for April (beans, sweet corn).
Control grass and weeds; they compete for moisture and fertilizer.
Locate mulching materials for such crops as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, Irish potatoes, okra and lima beans. Apply before dry spells occur but after plants are well established (usually by blooming time).
Pole beans cling to the trellis or sticks more readily if attached by the time they start running.
Try a few tomato plants on stakes or trellises this year. Now is the time to start removing suckers and tying the plants up.
Control Vegetable Garden Insects, for control of corn earworm and pickleworm.
Begin disease control measures as needed.
Water as needed.
Mulch as needed.
Keep a log book of problems and failures that occur so you can avoid or prevent them in the next planting season. Note successful techniques and varieties for consideration next season.
Make plans now for putting up some of your garden produce. Check with your county extension office for more information.
Garden Focus
Living Focus
What's new?
Sat, 19th May
"Guess with Us" - put yourguessing prowess to the test, all in aid of MNDA. Nearest guess takes the loot!.
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Sat 26th May
Cotswold Gold will be in store for tasting and information
Thu, 31st May
Jubilee Scarecrow Competition Judging at 3.30pm. Come and support your school!.
