On the nursery in June

Still, a busy month, selling our summer bedding, this creates some gaps on the benches allowing us to space the last batch of potting.
Spacing plants improve their shape and stop them from stretching.

New arrivals

We start to pot our autumn foliage plants, we use them to make up planters and hanging baskets.

We also pot our Autumn chrysanths or garden mums they are easy to grow, quickly growing into a ball shape with masses of mini flowers.

Pest & disease

Time to watch out for caterpillars if you can catch them now you can prevent a massive outbreak later. Most gardeners think of cabbage white butterflies attacking you cabbages but there is also a wide range of moths that attack garden plants. You will need to think about stopping or slowing them down. You can use chemicals but there are physical barriers like fleece or mesh, we use biological pest controls but with limited success, so we may use some chemicals (there are some chemicals that only kill caterpillars) if the pests take over.

Pests are increasing in numbers, we monitor them with sticky traps. We introduce a steady supply of predators to keep on top of them.

Here we can see them working, some turn the mummified aphids silvery but this one called praon sets up shop under the aphid.

Time for some weeding

Now is a good time to tackle some weeds, you need to stop them from spreading, the secret is to stop them from flowering. During June we often find weeds germinating on the benches and plant pots, they blow in from outside. The answer is to get outside and stop them from flowering with weedkillers, mowing or strimming.
Weeds can act as hosts for pests and diseases, they can spread onto your plants.