The May Decorative Garden...

May - The Flower Gardener's Diary

May is the first really rewarding month of the year when cut flowers for the house can be expected. Carry on with the jobs started in April, as hoeing, sowing, thinning and planting still needs to be done.

May is the time to:

Prepare:

- Clear beds by lifting spring bulbs. Fork over the ground lightly

- Window boxes for the summer display

- A new compost heap or bin

Sow Outdoors:

• Half hardy annuals, such as nasturtium
• Wallflowers
• Forget-me-nots
• Honesty
• Canterbury Bells
• Other biennials for flowering next year

Plant:

• Pelargoniums (Geraniums)

Divide:

• Forget-me-nots
• Double daisies (Bellis perennis)
• Polyanthus

Things to do

- May is a good month to apply selective weedkillers

- Stake tall, herbaceous perennials such as delphiniums, lupins and foxgloves

- Lift spring bulbs after the last flowers have died

- Mulch paeonies and delphinims with well rotted compost

- Thin out any seedlings sown in April. Stake seedlings with small twiggy sticks

- Set any divided plants apart in a nursery garden border, for use the following year

- Continue to prune early flowering shubs after they have finished flowering

- Cut back any evergreen shrubs to make them shapely

- Feed roses and lillies with liquid fertilizer

- Pelargoniums (Geraniums) may be planted into boxes or tubs outside at the end of the month

- Remember to water window boxes and tubs regularly

- Keep an eye out for aphids, especially on rose bushes. Spray if necessary

- Continue to mow the lawn at regular intervals, the blades can now be lowered a little

- Dead head and flower heads that have faded in the rock garden