May is the month our beds, allotments and containers explode with colour and energy.

What’s on

3rd - 4th May Toby’s Garden Festival at Powderham Castle, Kenton.

3rd - 5th May BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu.

9 – 12th May RHS Malvern Spring Festival, Three Counties Showground, Malvern.

12th May Borde Hill Specialist Spring Plant Fair, Haywards Heath.

17th - 26th May Floralies Internationales, Vendee, France.

20th May World Bee Day

21st - 25th May RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

25th - 28th May Blenheim Palace Flower Show

25th May - 2nd June National Children’s Gardening Week will again be partnering with THE WORLD OF PETER RABBIT™ this May half term.

30th May - 3rd June Bloom at the Visitors Centre, Phoenix Park, Dublin.

Plants mentioned: Aquatics - water lilies, marginals and oxygenators can be established now. Camellias, Cauliflowers, Cherries, Cucumbers, Chili peppers, Courgette, Daffodils, Dahlias, ‘Enorma’ Runner Beans, French bean ‘Cobra’, Forsythia, Gooseberries, Helenium, Hosta, Iris, Kale, Malus (crab apples), ‘Padron’ Pepper, Potatoes, Roses, Sedum, Sweet peas, Sunflowers, Sweet Corn and Tulips.

Products mentioned: Fertilisers – Doff, Growmore and Tomorite, Tea for soaking bean seeds and Speedplanters.

This month’s Dig It Top 5: Most popular liquid feeds

News

Climate change and verticillium wilt puts brewers hops under threat.

Kew scientists assess extinction risk of flowering species using computer modelling

Readers to the trade magazine Horticulture Week voted for Alan Titchmarsh and bagged compost as the most influential person and product impacting the gardening world over the past 50 years.

A major revamp of Torbay’s 100-year-old Italian garden brings 1,600 new plants after 40 cabbage palms were felled.

Yorkshire base, fourth generation rhubarb grower @ehubarbrobert is a social media hit.

An OBE for garden designer and landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith. The RHS have awarded Neil Lucas of Knoll Gardens and Nurseryman Chris Young the prestigious Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH). The Elizabeth Medal of Honour was bestowed on non-dig guru Charles Dowding for his outstanding contribution to horticulture as a non-professional gardener.

New initiative to revive railway hedges.

Latest DNA fingerprinting could help identify lost apples that are resistant to climate change.

International Women’s Day: 100+ Leading Women in Horticulture 2024 announced.

University of Sussex launches The Big Bee Hotel experiment to discover more about bees that nest in artificially created habitats.

New Tulip variety named after King Charles III unveiled at Keukenhof.

Garden Organics says the Government isn’t moving fast enough on the peat ban.

RHS Chelsea Flower Show gardens go through ‘green audit’ for the first time.

£12million Lottery Heritage Fund to restore Great Yarmouth’s historic winter gardens, the last surviving Victorian ironwork glasshouse on a seaside promenade.

London’s Royal Parks have openings for ten apprentices.

Weather causes concern with potato farmers.

Discover how to take part in this year’s Henchman Topiary awards.

Gardens start to bounce back visitor numbers wise with Kew Garden and RHS Wisley and the Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh taking the top spots.

Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for supplying the music.

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