In this section you will find seasonal things to do and tips about gardening

Growing Roses

May is a good time to feed roses if you haven’t already done so. They grow rapidly from February onwards and are hungry plants requiring a lot of nutrients to stay healthy and flower well. So, in the winter months, usually December to January I layer on some thick mulch around them, which will beak drown over the year to produce a moisture retentive layer that will really help them survive the drier months of the year. From around April I start to feed them with chicken manure pellets or fish blood and bone sprinkled over the surface around the plants. By using this regime the plants grow well and stay healthy.

I never spray my roses to kill off greenfly or get rid of black spot. Because the plants are healthy and have plenty of nutrients they shrug off these problems very quickly. I remove infected leaves to help the process, but that is all. I don’t remove the greenfly, the birds that live in our garden and surrounding area do that for me. Greenflies and other insects are important food for them and their babies and I often see the small birds such as blue tits hanging on to the stems and collecting beak fulls of greenfly and swooping off to their nests. It’s really important to remember that what we do to the plants in our garden has an effect of the wildlife that lives there. Spraying plants with insecticides disturbs the natural balance of food chains causing creatures such as birds to go hungry.

Propagating Houseplants from Offsets

Many house plants produce identical baby plants which can be removed and planted to produce new house plants. Chlorophytum, or the spider plant is an example which you can see on the left hand side of the photo above. It produces these young plants which will start to grow roots as soon as they can sense some moisture.

The photo below shows what you need to grow an offset in an interesting tin can. A general purpose compost cane be used and is mixed with about one third its volume of sand and grit to make a very free draining compost. Chlorophytums are unfussy about soil, so you could probably get away with just using a general purpose garden compost, but I like to ensure good drainage for house plants.

If you are usiing a tin can make sure it has plenty of drainage holes in the bottom to let excess water out. An oyster knif or other sharp blade can be used for this purpose. Hold the can firmly to avoid it slipping and you end up hurting yourself!

Snip off one of the offsets from the mother plant and you can either put it in a jar or water to grow roots or simply fill a flowerpot or tin can with the compost mix and insert the young plantlet into it. Water well and keep it on a bright windowsill away from direct sun. It should grow away in a couple of weeks and start producing more leaves in about a month or so. Feed weekly with a very dilute general organic fertiliser in the growing season.

The Chlorophytum plant growing in its tin can after a couple of weeks.