Tasks for July

Give your plants a pick-me- up with a midsummer feed to take them through the rest of the season in tip-top health. After months of non-stop growth, levels of essential nutrients like nitrogen for leafy growth, root-promoting phosphorus and potassium for flowers and fruits are in short supply. In confined spaces like greenhouses and containers feeding is even more [...]

What to do in the garden in July It’s not so much gardening as refereeing at this time of year: it’s a full-time job just keeping everything in order! Here are a few of the jobs you can be getting on with this month. General tasks: Go slug hunting on damp evenings just before dark and you’ll catch hundreds [...]

Take care when watering tomatoes as it's quite a science, and the single most critical factor in whether you harvest a bumper crop of sweet juicy fruit, or a disappointing handful plagued with problems like split skins and blossom end rot. Aim to keep the amount of water in the soil as even as possible - just moist but not [...]

Sow biennials now to enjoy a superb display next year from some of our all-time favourite garden flowers. Biennials spend their first year making big clumps of foliage before flowering in their second year – so you need to be ahead of the game and sow your seeds now to benefit. Biennials include lots of must-haves for the cottage garden, [...]

Plant a row of chives not only for their deliciously spicy green leaves, but also for their peppery edible flowers – gorgeous scattered over fresh summer salads. You'll find chives by the generous potful on sale in our garden centre right now. Make sure you buy several, as they're one of those plants you can't have enough of as they're [...]

If you don't have a garden you can still enjoy a wide range of plants. Whether you have a balcony, roof top garden or even a few pots outside your door you can enjoy the pleasure of having plants. Balcony garden Depending on the size of the balcony, you can have quite a few plants. Try using a balcony box, [...]