Action plan: Nigel Colborn's essential jobs for your garden this week
- Camellias are giving a wonderful show this year, but it will soon be over
- After flowering has finished, give each shrub a vigorous shake to dislodge any dead blooms
- If you’ve recently sown seed in pots or trays, the young plants will need pricking out
Camellias are giving a wonderful show this year, but it will soon be over.
After flowering has finished, give each shrub a vigorous shake to dislodge any dead blooms.
Camellias tolerate hard pruning, but that is seldom necessary. Just trim any awkward stems or chafing branches.
Containerised camellias need pruning if the shrubs grow too tall and top heavy, or if they become woody and lose their vigour.
Camellias are giving a wonderful show this year, but it will soon be over
Prune as hard as you like, but always try to maintain an attractive, natural-looking shape. If camellia foliage turns yellow, suspect magnesium deficiency.
To cure this, dissolve up to 30g of Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) into five litres of water and sprinkle on to the leaves and the ground around the plant.
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Feed potted camellias every 14 days until midsummer. Or apply ericaceous slow-release fertiliser granules.
On neutral or marginally alkaline soils, yellow sulphur can help to increase acidity.
Sprinkle the powder around each plant and work it gently into the soil. Roughly 200g will treat a square metre — enough for one plant.
PRICK OUT SEEDLINGS
If you’ve recently sown seed in pots or trays, the young plants will need pricking out.
Always have clean hands and use the lightest touch to hold seedlings by a leaf. Keep tender plants inside until May in case of a late frost.
If you’ve recently sown seed in pots or trays, the young plants will need pricking out
SWEET PEAS
This is a good weekend for spring sowing sweet peas. Place seeds 3cm deep, 7cm to 8cm apart, in crumbly yet moist soil.
Support seedlings on poles, sticks or strings when they emerge. And don’t let the plants set pods or flowering will cease.
This is a good weekend for spring sowing sweet peas. Place seeds 3cm deep, 7cm to 8cm apart, in crumbly yet moist soil
READER'S QUESTION
The leaves on my broad beans appear to have oval or half-moon ‘bite marks’ around their edges. What is the cause?
Mr J. Wright, Suffolk.
The pest you describe is the pea and bean weevil Sitona lineatus. Though the bite marks look alarming, treatment shouldn’t be necessary. Where infestations are bad, a contact insecticide might help. But it’s kinder to your pocket if you let the beans recover naturally.
PLANT OF THE WEEK: COWSLIP
As well as being one of our prettiest wildflowers, cowslips have immense garden and wildlife value.
And, though they’re still a common sight on country road verges, these enchanting primulas have all but vanished from most meadows and pastureland.
Their pale green stems harmonise beautifully with the clusters of intense yellow flowers — each with tiny, rustcoloured freckles at its throat.
As well as being one of our prettiest wildflowers, cowslips have immense garden and wildlife value
The fragrance is reminiscent of freesias, but far gentler.
Cowslips prefer alkaline soils, but they will thrive almost anywhere other than in deep shade or a bog.
Heavy clay soils suit them, as does hungry chalk-based downland. If happy, they will seed freely.
But to germinate, the seed must be sown in autumn and frozen over winter before emerging in March. You can lift and divide mature plants.
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