It’s time for the annual Village Flower Show, and time to make your garden blooming lovely!
To ensure your flowers are worthy of a display at the local village show, looking great in your garden, or just pretty enough to bring inside in a vase, we’ve compiled our top tips for making your garden the envy of your neighbours. And of course, at Colour Supplies we have everything you need to ensure colourful pots, beds and borders all summer long.
Prune regularly
Pruning ensures you maintain good order in your flower beds. It’s the process of cutting away any unwanted parts of your flowers and shrubs, or shaping them ready for next year’s flowers.
Pruning the stem tips of your plants can ensure thicker growth and a good shape but beware you don’t prune off the flower heads on late flowering plants!
You can also remove any overgrown branches and leaves if you want to ensure uniform height – on a hedge for instance.
We have pruners available from the sharpest small snips to long handled hedge pruners and hedge trimmers. More items available in store.
Dead head
Most flowers will lose their beauty as they start to deteriorate and so, to keep your flower bed looking the best it can it’s important to dead head.
As soon as you notice a flower head has died or is wilting you need to remove it. You can do this either by using your hands, protected with gloves, or by using a pair of garden shears. Dead heading will prevent the flower from seeding which can encourage more flowering in some plants, and also allow more sunlight into the plant.
Generally, dead heading plants just makes the garden look neater, unless plant seed heads are part of their winter attraction. For a great selection of gardening gloves, shoes and secateurs you can also visit us in store for even more choice.
Water, water, water!
At this time of year, especially during times with little rainfall, you should consider giving your flower beds a good watering perhaps once a week. Pots will need watering once or maybe even twice a day. It’s also important that you do not over water your flowers so ensure they have good drainage and are not sitting in a puddle of water.
Plants will send their roots down to search for water when it has been dry, which makes for a stronger plant that can survive dry periods better and this is why any watering of beds should be a good long soaking with time in between rather than more frequent short sprinklings. This only encourages roots to remain near the surface and therefore more susceptible to drying if they do not get water. When you water is also a matter for discussion. Watering flowers first thing in the morning can be thought to waste much of the water as it then evaporates in the heat, but watering last thing at night means leaving the plants damp and more susceptible to attack by slugs and pests.
If you notice that you do not have the growth you were expecting, or some of the leaves and stems are looking a bit sorry for themselves, consider watering more regularly. For a regular soak try a drip hose, or we have all manner of hosepipes, sprinklers and fittings with hosepipes of all lengths. Even wall-mounted hoses for easy storage and of course you'll find watering cans in store too.
Control pests
You must be vigilant when it comes to controlling pests in your garden. Pests can cause a lot of damage to your flower bed.
Pests, depending on their size, will cause damage in different ways, small insects will leave evidence of holes or jagged edges on leaves. You can control pests by installing barriers or by using pesticides. You could also try companion planting for a natural way to control pests – the practice of planting something alongside that either masks the plant you want or is more tasty to the pest and therefore is sacrificed in order to keep the show piece plant.
You will find a huge range of products for pest control in store, and sprays and sprayers online.
Weeding
Not only will weeds use up valuable water and nutrients from the soil, but if allowed to seed can quickly take over your borders.
Whilst some garden plants can also be quite aggressive in their spread, you will have to decide what you want to keep and what you want to remove!
We would recommend using gardening tools or membrane to control weeds in your flower bed, and we have a great selection of weeding tools in store and some online with an extra light range as well as regular garden tools.
Fertilize
All your roses and summer flowering plants will benefit from extra feeding to encourage prolific blooming.
But beware – not all plants benefit from feeding so check carefully on the internet or gardening books to get to know your flower’s needs.
In store we have all purpose fertilisers as well as specialist fertilisers available for roses, ericaceous plants and more. Roses, especially, are greedy feeders and will take plenty of feeding for good flowering and healthy plants.
Sections you may like to visit to shop online: Garden Care & Watering, Wellies, Cloggies & Garden Shoes, Garden Tools & Equipment, Garden Extras.
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