In this episode Bill and Peter suggest a visit to Toddington Open Gardens on the 4th and 5th July and also if you are passing they both like Poplars Garden Centre as a great place to visit or pop in for tea and cake if you are going past on the M1. In Northamptonshire we have Irthlingborough and Drayton Parslow in Milton Keynes.

Hanging baskets are looking good now, but are food hungry so feed them with a high potash feed (K) like Tomorite

The Hertitage Seed library was at the NEC for Gardeners World live and at the show they were asking people to bring in seeds and plants that they think might be heirloom varieties. You can get seeds from them which you won’t find in most Garden Centres.

Grass is on the telly a lot at the moment with the World Cup on. Bill shares some of the methods of commercial turf cultivation and growing. With our lawns at home in the summer experiencing less rainfall ideally they need to be watered but it’s best not to aerate in dry spells as this opens up the ground and will cause evaporation. Granular fertilizer as well can cause issues if it doesn’t rain after application, if you want to use a fertilizer then a liquid one is probably best.

If you have bedding geraniums cut the flower stalks off once the flowers start going over, deadhead surfinias to encourage more flowers. If you are feeding your plants it’s best to do it in the morning, and if possible do it on a cloudy day so there is no chance of water droplet magnification which can cause leaf burn from the sunlight.

Bill also tells us of other plants we can trim back to encourage more flowering next year and a great recipe for a winter fat ball for your birds. Make sure you keep your bird baths filled up with fresh clean water. If you have Strawberries try Slug gone pellets to help keep the slugs from eating them.

Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for the music.

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