Time to Spring into action!
We’re not quite yet done with winter, but it is certainly time to start planning and planting for warmer weather. Remember, spring is just around the corner and all garden centres are stocked to the brim with instant colour. Don’t forget to put out seeds for our feathered friends, which are slowly returning to the garden!
Go on the colour run in your garden with annuals: Trays of pretty flowering snapdragon seedlings, both the tall and dwarf varieties, are available now in seedling trays. Also remember that you can still plant pansies and violas, which will flower till late summer if set out in cooler areas of the garden with morning sun and afternoon shade – they will be in full flower at your favourite garden centre now, so you will be able to choose the colours you love! Other stalwarts for now include dianthus and petunias, lobelias, begonias, gazanias, and marigolds.
Petunias, whether purchased in trays, hanging baskets or small pots, are always a winner at this time of year. They are not fussy and simply require a sunny spot with regular removal of the spent flowers. Feed them regularly with a liquid plant food and they will go on for months in your garden, providing splashes of colour!
Hot tip: If you are impatient to fill some gaps, go for ‘colour bags’. They contain fairly mature annuals and biannuals in full flower, as early instant colour.
It’s not quite time to start sowing flowers in earnest, but you can buy bumper seed packs of alyssum to fill bare spots. Alyssum loves the cooler months far more than hot weather and will turn your approaching spring garden into a carpet of colour!
Perfection with perennials: Plant all the lavenders now. Use different varieties together for a purple-pink splash of colour. Start pumping up your petal power with typical spring daisies like Argyranthemum frutescens ‘Madeira’, a range of daisy bushes that will really excite you if you are daisy crazy.
We are blessed with many different types of vivacious vygies, succulent groundcovers that might not always look appealing in other seasons but can definitely take spring to a more colourful dimension when they smother themselves in luminous, satiny flowers. Pelargoniums are at their best at this time of the year, and there are lots of species and hybrids to choose from. They are great in the garden and lovely for pots, especially hanging baskets, and can supply colour all summer long.
Revive the lawn: It’s time for the ‘spring treatment’, which means a low cut, firm raking, spiking, generous feeding, levelling out and covering with a nutritious blanket of organic lawn dressing. Use only registered lawn dressings, which are available from your local Garden Centre Association Member, to avoid introducing unwanted weeds into your lawn. Ask your local garden centre what their proffered lawn fertiliser of choice is. There are many good, reliable products available that will wake your lawn up from its winter sleep, and 7.1.3 is a firm favourite! This is normally done in August, while September is still fine for colder areas. However, this treatment should only be applied to runner-type lawns like kikuyu and some of the tougher cynodon grasses.
Source: Life is a Garden
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