UFO Info Week-End

Put the plant in and tuck the rest of the soil and some more compost or mulch around it

Put the plant in and tuck the rest of the soil and some more compost or mulch around it.Watering with Maxicrop (the seaweed fertiliser) in the evening, about once a week, would be doing it proud Plants love to be fed through their leaves. Anything you buy in a pot and transfer to the garden will perform better if you give it a good start. If you want plants to thrive, they have to be kept weed-free, otherwise they suffer from the competition. Even the worst weeds will give up after a summer of repeated hoeing, but if they have established themselves in the roots of existing plants, they will never be completely routed, as they can always regroup from their safe retreat.If this is the problem, a heavy mulch around shrubs can help draw some of their roots to the surface, but with persistent creepers like ground elder or bindweed, poisoning or complete digging out is usually the only answer.FEEDING AND WATERINGNew plants, especially large ones, will need some encouragement if they are to grow well. If it starts to look thin as the season progresses, top it up with more.Hoeing, which means stirring the soil just below the surface, provides a dust mulch and costs nothing but effort It has to be done every ten days to keep the soil clean. Roses will only grow and flower a little, but next year they should be terrific.ALL ABOUT MULCHINGMulching with compost now, around established plants, will almost reduce the need to weed and water throughout the summer.

A layer of grass mowings (if they are not being left on the lawn) is cheaper than buying soil conditioner, but looks less agreeable. Cocoa shells or finely chopped bark are useful, but for large areas prohibitively expensive Whatever you choose, make it 10cm deep. Shrubs like buddleia and lavatera will grow as much as 1m in a summer. If you buy one plant of a kind that increases quickly, you should have ten by next summer. Hardy geraniums, campanulas, valerian and alchemilla are examples of fast spreaders Peonies and delphiniums will barely double in size.

You are aiming for a final spacing of 4in apart and you will have to thin the plants out if they come up like cress Water with a fine hose if it does not rain for three days. If you have to thin the sowing, do it when the ground is wet.The cheapest, most sensible but least colourful option is to choose perennials or shrubs. When the soil warms up, so it does not feel cold to the touch (perhaps around St George’s Day, 23 April), rake the earth backwards and forwards, tread it, then rake it again until it looks like sandy brown sugar with no lumps. Sow the seeds in patches if you like to keep the colours separate, or mix them all together for a “hundreds and thousands look”.Shirley poppies, nasturtiums, Love in a Mist, red flax, unimproved marigolds and cornflowers would be my choice Be sparing with seed.

Be cautious, as apart from the rue they will not break into leaf from bare wood; so only cut back to just above where the leaves are growing.WHAT TO PLANTWait until all danger of frost in your area is past to settle any plants which are tender into their summer quarters. If you have managed to get the ground clean, sowing seeds is not as hard as people make out. Lilac needs a light touch.Shrubby herbs – among them salvia, rue, santolina and lavender – need a trim in April to encourage new growth Rosemary will have to be pruned after flowering. This means removing old wood and shortening new shoots to make them stronger.