Garden Tasks

Garden Tasks for May

Here you will get useful tips and hints to make sure that your garden stays lush and beautiful as the weather gets cooler this winter.

Food and Water

Feed pruned hedges with a liquid fertilizer such as Seagro or Nitrosol.

For lush container plants, regularly feed with Nitrosol or Supranure Plus.

Sweet peas need regular watering and a functional layer of mulch to protect their roots.

In subtropical areas, don’t water your mango trees before the end of July.

Feed your bulbs with Wonder’s Organic Granules.

Keep feeding Margaret Roberts Organic Supercharger (a safe liquid fertilizer) to winter vegetable seedlings; make sure the soil is moist before fertilizing.

If pansies start to stool, spray them with a trace element solution such as Trelmix.

Pests and Diseases

If your cypresses are infected with aphids, spray them with Metasystox, Aphicide or Ed’s Health Meridian.

Spray sweet peas with Ludwigs Insect Spray to ward off bugs and add Coppercount N to Ludwig’s Spray Stay to prevent fungal infections.

General Maintenance

Continue pruning hedges and topiary until new growth declines.

Now is the ideal time to create new beds and redesign your garden.

Continue strutting sweet peas and remove side shoots as they appear.

Remove all dead leaves off of your water plants.

Divide perennials that flower in late winter and summer.

Prepare your pruning equipment.

In winter-rainfall areas, bring your garden furniture in out of the rain.

Advice for Autumn Gardens

Now’s the perfect time to reconsider the layout of your garden if you’re unhappy with it – the cooler weather is ideal for moving plants, and most plants can be successfully moved given enough fertilizer, sunshine and the right soil.

Autumn leaves make an excellent natural compost that also protects plants against the cold.

Plant pansies and violas for garden colour now: add sufficient quantities of 3:1:5, fertilizer, bone meal and compost to the soil before planting.

May is a good month for planting tulips, as the colder weather matches the European climate from which they originate; plant them away from walls or paving that reflect heat.