STIHL GB | STIHL May Garden Guide with Jane Moore | May Gardening Jobs | STIHL GB @STIHLGB | Uploaded May 2023 | Updated October 2024, 6 hours ago.
We’re back with the latest instalment of the STIHL garden guide! This month, award-winning gardener, Jane Moore, showcases jobs to do in your garden in May in the STIHL May Garden Guide video.
🔶 Protecting Tender Plants
It’s so easy to get lulled into thinking that summer is here in May but do your best to resist the urge to get carried away and start planting out tender plants. Be cautious that frost or cold nights can still happen, so save planting out those tender perennials once you’re sure there will be no hard frosts.
If you have taken the plunge then don’t worry, the chances are your plants will be okay, but to be on the safe side keep a piece of horticultural fleece handy so you can cover plants if the forecast looks chilly. Fruit trees, like peaches or apricots, are especially vulnerable to frost as they come into flower, those tender little blossoms can get killed by a sharp frost and that will ruin your fruit harvest, so cover fruit trees up if you need to.
🔶 Sowing Wildflowers
If you’re not sure what to do with vacant garden beds, planting an annual wildflower meadow mix will look great for this summer and will give you some time to decide what you want to do. Annual mixes are great for this purpose – they give you a breathing space to think and they’re also good for ‘resting’ the soil after being planted with shrubs for such a long time. Plus, they’re also great for attracting pollinating insects and they look good too.
Wildflowers are very easy going about soil - as long as it’s well drained and in a sunny spot. Clear any weeds and then just fork over the bed, raking it out before sowing seeds and water afterwards. If you don’t get any rain for a week or two, then give them a good water, and keep an eye open for any weeds too. But really, once they start to germinate, they look after themselves – no thinning, no staking – just lots of flowers.
🔶 Deadheading Daffodils
Late tulips in Jane’s garden are looking really good, but all the early bulbs have finished. The daffodils were lovely this year, but now they’re a bit sad with all the dead flower heads. It’s tempting to chop back all those messy leaves but don’t do it. It’s essential that the nutrients in the leaves die back into the bulb to make it big and strong for more flowers next year. In fact, it’s a great idea to give them a liquid feed right now to help those bulbs build up. While you’re at it, deadhead them, taking off any seed pods too. You don’t want the plant to waste its energy making a fat seedpod.
🔶 Pruning Plants
May is a great time to get on with a bit of cutting back. Penstemons and Gaura can be pruned now – they’re best left until late spring as they’re a bit tender, but May is the time to cut all the old shoots back to just above where there is new growth at the bottom of the plant. They often get a bit battered and bruised in the winter but they’re sort of woody at the base and will spring back into life. If there are no new shoots at the base, cut just above the lowest set of leaves.
🔶 Pruning Hydrangeas
While you’re doing some pruning, don’t worry if you haven’t got around to pruning your Hydrangeas as you can still do it now. You shouldn’t be as tough as you would be in April, but a light prune, removing the old flower heads will shape it up nicely for the season ahead.
🔶 The Chelsea Chop
The end of May is the perfect time to do the Chelsea chop on some of your late flowering herbaceous perennials. It’s called the Chelsea chop because the ideal time to do it is around the Chelsea Flower Show at the end of the month. It’s a really good way of prolonging the flowering period of late flowerers like Phlox, Heleniums, Asters and Sedums, perennial sunflowers like Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' and achillea. It’s also good for Sanguisorbas as demonstrated in the video.
Choose a robust clump, and then prune by about a third to a half. This will prolong the overall flowering time keep plants shorter and more compact.
🔶 Wildlife Watch
You know that some plants are 'greener' than others, so when it comes to deciding which plants to grow, keep your choices as eco-friendly as possible. Look online for lists of plants for pollinators or look out for the logos on plant labels and seed packets; these tell you that this plant is an especially good choice for bees and other helpful pollinating insects like hoverflies, butterflies and moths.
Let us know what jobs you’re completing in your garden in May in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to the Stihl GB channel for more ideas in June.
🔶 STIHL Website: stihl.co.uk
🔶 Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/stihlgb
🔶 Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/stihl_gb
🔶 Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/stihlgb
#STIHL #STIHLGB #MayGardenGuide #GardenGuide #STIHLGardenGuide #JaneMoore #WildlifeWatch #PruningPlants #PruningFlowers #PruningPerennials # PruningHydrangeas #DeadheadingDaffodils # SowingWildflowers #PlantingWildflowers
We’re back with the latest instalment of the STIHL garden guide! This month, award-winning gardener, Jane Moore, showcases jobs to do in your garden in May in the STIHL May Garden Guide video.
🔶 Protecting Tender Plants
It’s so easy to get lulled into thinking that summer is here in May but do your best to resist the urge to get carried away and start planting out tender plants. Be cautious that frost or cold nights can still happen, so save planting out those tender perennials once you’re sure there will be no hard frosts.
If you have taken the plunge then don’t worry, the chances are your plants will be okay, but to be on the safe side keep a piece of horticultural fleece handy so you can cover plants if the forecast looks chilly. Fruit trees, like peaches or apricots, are especially vulnerable to frost as they come into flower, those tender little blossoms can get killed by a sharp frost and that will ruin your fruit harvest, so cover fruit trees up if you need to.
🔶 Sowing Wildflowers
If you’re not sure what to do with vacant garden beds, planting an annual wildflower meadow mix will look great for this summer and will give you some time to decide what you want to do. Annual mixes are great for this purpose – they give you a breathing space to think and they’re also good for ‘resting’ the soil after being planted with shrubs for such a long time. Plus, they’re also great for attracting pollinating insects and they look good too.
Wildflowers are very easy going about soil - as long as it’s well drained and in a sunny spot. Clear any weeds and then just fork over the bed, raking it out before sowing seeds and water afterwards. If you don’t get any rain for a week or two, then give them a good water, and keep an eye open for any weeds too. But really, once they start to germinate, they look after themselves – no thinning, no staking – just lots of flowers.
🔶 Deadheading Daffodils
Late tulips in Jane’s garden are looking really good, but all the early bulbs have finished. The daffodils were lovely this year, but now they’re a bit sad with all the dead flower heads. It’s tempting to chop back all those messy leaves but don’t do it. It’s essential that the nutrients in the leaves die back into the bulb to make it big and strong for more flowers next year. In fact, it’s a great idea to give them a liquid feed right now to help those bulbs build up. While you’re at it, deadhead them, taking off any seed pods too. You don’t want the plant to waste its energy making a fat seedpod.
🔶 Pruning Plants
May is a great time to get on with a bit of cutting back. Penstemons and Gaura can be pruned now – they’re best left until late spring as they’re a bit tender, but May is the time to cut all the old shoots back to just above where there is new growth at the bottom of the plant. They often get a bit battered and bruised in the winter but they’re sort of woody at the base and will spring back into life. If there are no new shoots at the base, cut just above the lowest set of leaves.
🔶 Pruning Hydrangeas
While you’re doing some pruning, don’t worry if you haven’t got around to pruning your Hydrangeas as you can still do it now. You shouldn’t be as tough as you would be in April, but a light prune, removing the old flower heads will shape it up nicely for the season ahead.
🔶 The Chelsea Chop
The end of May is the perfect time to do the Chelsea chop on some of your late flowering herbaceous perennials. It’s called the Chelsea chop because the ideal time to do it is around the Chelsea Flower Show at the end of the month. It’s a really good way of prolonging the flowering period of late flowerers like Phlox, Heleniums, Asters and Sedums, perennial sunflowers like Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' and achillea. It’s also good for Sanguisorbas as demonstrated in the video.
Choose a robust clump, and then prune by about a third to a half. This will prolong the overall flowering time keep plants shorter and more compact.
🔶 Wildlife Watch
You know that some plants are 'greener' than others, so when it comes to deciding which plants to grow, keep your choices as eco-friendly as possible. Look online for lists of plants for pollinators or look out for the logos on plant labels and seed packets; these tell you that this plant is an especially good choice for bees and other helpful pollinating insects like hoverflies, butterflies and moths.
Let us know what jobs you’re completing in your garden in May in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to the Stihl GB channel for more ideas in June.
🔶 STIHL Website: stihl.co.uk
🔶 Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/stihlgb
🔶 Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/stihl_gb
🔶 Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/stihlgb
#STIHL #STIHLGB #MayGardenGuide #GardenGuide #STIHLGardenGuide #JaneMoore #WildlifeWatch #PruningPlants #PruningFlowers #PruningPerennials # PruningHydrangeas #DeadheadingDaffodils # SowingWildflowers #PlantingWildflowers
