Written by: Ashley Edwards
By now the garden should be looking rather smart, but if there are gaps in borders, or if the patio still needs a bit more colour, then do a quick top up before sitting back and enjoying it all while the weather is good.
Many of you won't be able to sit still for long though as there are always lots of little jobs that will niggle unless they're tackled.
Things like deadheading flowers that are past their best, tying in wayward climbers, pulling out the occasional weed and some general primping and preening won't take long, and they can all be tackled with a cool drink in easy reach. The plants will need plenty of these too, so make sure you keep up on the watering and they don't go thirsty.
Crocus Head Gardener Ashley Edwards tells us what else we can be doing in the garden this month
Testing plant resilience
In the Crocus at Dorney Court garden, we’ve created three experimental beds. One is traditional loamy soil with a compost mulch, one is rubble and hardcore, and one is sand on top of subsoil. Over the last few weeks, the temperatures have been extremely high, and despite not being irrigated, the plants in the sand and rubble beds are doing well, flowering and looking healthy.
The plants in the soil bed are also doing well, but are looser, taller plants and tend to appear more stressed in the hot temperatures. We are trying to show that by growing plants tough, and in sharp drainage, they put deeper roots down and are therefore more resilient when it comes to drought periods.
The plant choice is important as these growing mediums wouldn’t work with every plant cultivar. The best-performing plants are Achillea ‘Terracotta’, Euphorbia myrsinites, Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, Phlomis italica, and Allium sphaerocephalon, and the colours work beautifully together.
We haven’t irrigated these experimental beds, but if you do water your plants, it’s always best to give them a good soak less frequently, rather than little and often. This helps the plant produce deep roots that will be more resilient to drought periods. This is something you can replicate in your own garden routine, and if you happen to have building work or landscaping in your garden, save the hardcore, sand and gravel to create your own climate-resistant planting beds.
