• You can still plant any plants bought in pots into the ground, but make sure you have given them enough water and soaked them well first.
• Keep your weeds well under control, they are greedy and will take the nutrients away from your intended plants. We like to use the Swoe, or the Dutch hoe. Mulch using a layer of sterile bark chippings.
• Keep an eye on water requirements, if very sunny, water only in the mornings and the evenings to avoid burning the plants.
• Protect your herbaceous plants from slug attack. Use pellets, natural barriers, slug pubs or pick them off by hand in the evenings.
• Check your hanging baskets for water regularly.
Liquid feed containerised plants; you can use slightly higher nitrogen feeds such as Miracle Grow, or Phostrogen, but by the end of the month swap onto to higher potash feed such as Tomorite or Maxicrop.
Support your taller herbaceous plants with stick, link stakes, Hazel brush, or tree brush.• Start to train bindweed up bamboo canes and up pyramids ready for spraying in August.
• Take Soft wood cuttings of Forsythia, Caryopteris, Kolkwitzia, Spiraea and Rosemary.
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Gardening
Diary
All the things you could be doing this month in your ornamental or fruit and vegetable garden.
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Plant of the month
Lavandula stoechas
French Lavender
Lavandula stoechas is an evergreen shrub 50cm – 1m high, depending on subspecies or cultivars. A rambling, slightly more open and informal shape compared to the English and other lavender. They are widely distributed throughout the Mediterranean and have been introduced into Australia where they are now considered a menace. They are good for Jersey because they tolerate our extreme weather conditions and are not vigorous enough here to become weedy.

The fragrance is between lavender and rosemary with eucalyptus, from this lavender is extracted French Oil, which is used in air fresheners, deodorants, insecticides and disinfectants. SEE>MORE