ENSURE YOU MAKE WISE BUYS By Clodagh and Dick Handscombe Holistic gardeners and gardening authors living in Spain for over twenty years.
For many people May is the major planting month of the year and garden centres and local markets are packed with enticing plants some of which will prove to be sensible buys and others an expensive short term luxury. And the latter is a good source of profits for garden centres!
Before you venture out to the garden centre do a little planning.
Ask yourself:
What gaps are there from last year?
Did we have colour on every terrace?
Did our colourful display fit in with views across the golf course?
Did the plants die because they were not drought resistant, frost resistant or were damaged by gale force wind or salt spray?
How successful were our window boxes and containers last year? Were they colourful throughout the summer and late autumn?
What plantings should we repeat and what should we change?
What are sensible choices where we want a change?
Over a period of ten years we tried almost every plant available in order to write Part Four of our book ‘Your Garden in Spain – From planning to planting and maintenance’ . This includes details of some four hundred plants with coloured photographs and gives details of what are drought and frost resistant, those good for containers and by the sea, those good in the sun and those in the shade, when they flower and their relative sizes etc.. Our experience is there for you to use.
Having decided on the plants you want think twice when you select the plants. Chose plants with a pot that looks as if the root ball inside will be able to support the extent of the green growth above . For instance if you buy a two metre high Bougainvillea in a ten centimetre pot it will have less chance of quickly establishing itself than if it were in a twenty centimetre pot. Likewise a large blue flowered Felicia perennial plant in a small pot is unlikely to establish itself easily and give several years of pleasure – look rather for a younger plant in a pot that looks right for the size. When buying annuals such as petunias, French marigolds, busy lissies and portulacas we
would rather buy small inexpensive plants with just one or two flowers out to indicate their colour than buy the largest plant one can see in full flower. The smaller ones will soon establish a good root ball and catch up with the larger plants.
Do prepare good planting soils and composts before planting. There is much advice re this in our book. But for starters recognise that many of today’s palm tree fibre composts are not as good as the peat based ones of a decade or two ago. We wished that we had known about TerraCottem soil improver that reduces watering needs by 50 to 70 percent and includes useful slow release nutrients.
If you are starting a new garden, about to do a lot of replanting, or want a long lasting display in your terrace pots it’s well worth buying a five or ten kilo container direct from the distributors – see
www.terravida.com. It may look expensive at first but one uses very little per plant and you save on water lost plants etc..
One word of warning about watering. Over watering probably kills more plants than under watering especially if you constantly feed your plants. Excess water and fertilizer stimulates fast weak growth that is more likely to be attacked by insects and fungi than slower stronger growth. If you recognise that this is one of your problems try cutting your watering back by half and your feeding by three quarters – and week fertiliser solutions are better than stronger ones.
Overall garden centres make a lot of money by you buying in appropriate plants for the microclimate of your garden, buying large versus small plants, over using fertilizers and then having to buy insecticides and fungicides. A well looked after garden and terrace pots will rarely face major pest problems and if they do occur there are handy ecological solutions as outlined in our book.
Having said all that we hope you all have colourful gardens this summer. © Clodagh and Dick Handscombe May 2009.
If you have any questions arising out of their latest article send them to
yourgardeninspain@hotmail.com
