In the Garden this weekend
There's no better way to spend a spring weekend then out in the garden. So grab your gardening tools from out the shed and get stuck in.
Obviously every garden is different, but here's a few things I'll do doing around my garden this weekend.
A few weeks ago I planted a cut flower bed with gladioli. As you see the first lot are taking off. This weekend I'll put in another row to ensure I have fresh flowers throughout the season.
As well as planting some in my cut flower bed, I'm going to naturalise a few Gladioli bulbs in my garden bed.
My plum tree has almost finished flowering and fruit are starting to develop. Pays to observe which branches aren't producing for pruning at a later date.
Although I don't want to give my plum tree a full prune yet, you can remove suckers that grow from the trunk. These won't bear good fruit and just waste the trees energy. And cutting them off won't shock the tree too much.
My peach trees have also nearly finished blossoming. Again it is a good idea just to observe where the fruit starts growing. In a few weeks or so I will give it a prune to maximise fruit size and quality. Hopefully I'll have time to write a how-to blog about it!
As always there is weeding to do. Now's a good time to get them gone before they start getting a foothold. I tend not to spray and instead rip out by hand, which is particularly painful when trying to clear a rockery!
Weeds out, time to sweep them up and put them in the waste pile. Not the compost heap! Although Duratuf build Steel and Cedar sheds, my south facing gully is very wet and doesn't get much light so I've gone for a Lifetime plastic shed. I can't recommend it enough.
My Grapefruit tree has been churning out some monsters this season. Just a few left to pluck from the tree. Unfortunately they're about 20FT in the air! Wish me luck!
I've lifted this Dahlia tuber and was going to divide it, but I don't think it is quite big enough for that yet. So I'll plant it in a nice big pot to give it some room to bulk up and maybe next year I'll start dissecting it.
Can't remember if this is a blackberry or a loganberry, but treatment is basically the same for brambles. I pruned away spent stems early winter and left 4 or 5 strong ones for this season. I'll start training these along the fence and hope to get some decent berries off them!
Last but not least deadhead any spent flowers. But this tulip is looking great so I'll give it another week!
That's it for now! We hope the weather stays fine wherever you are and you get a chance to hit the shed and tend your patch!