Alison Levey, Author at Tweeters Gardening

Monday: Flowers from seeds and cuttings

Choose some nice annuals as they will grow quickly and give you lots of flowers
Perennial plants can be grown from seed, dividing or cuttings. Buying them in flower is useful as you can see exactly what you are getting.
Look after your tender new plants, slugs and snails will think they are tender too and very yummy, use organic methods such as nematodes to keep the little blighters at bay
Weed carefully around your new plantings, do not get weeding frenzy and pull up ones you want to keep
If you have children involve them in choosing and sowing seeds: big seeds like nasturtiums, sunflowers and marigolds are great for small hands to sow and reliable so will almost certainly grow
Drink a nice mug of cocoa at the end of the day and think how glorious it will all look in a few weeks time

It should be warm enough for you to plant out your dahlias and cannas now. Keep them well watered so they establish quickly and give them a weekly feed. Liquid seawed is my plant food of choice.
Keep an eye out for slugs and snails, they love young dahlia shoots.
You will soon be choosing and planting bulbs to flower next Spring – always fun choosing what you want, keep notes on those you see and like so that you don’t forget.

Keep an eye out for greenfly, you can squidge them with your fingers or use soap-water made from swirling a bar of soap in some tepid water until it goes milky and then using this to wash off the greenfly.
Or leave the greenfly for the ladybirds and other wildlife that will eat them – decide how much damage you think they are doing and if you are prepared to just let them be.
Similarly decide your approach to blackspot. How much do you care? If you want to remove the affected leaves then do, but other than them looking a bit spotty they will not affect the blooms
Start keeping a list of the roses you want to plant next year. You can have too many as space is always a question, but you can push the limits of that space for quite a while.
Follow @rosesuk on Twitter if you want to see her daily rose choice, they are all so tempting

Weed your vegs beds and award yourself a medal for doing so, I always think I should have a medal when I do
You should be harvesting some broad beans, maybe the last of your purple sprouting broccoli
Keep an eye on your new plantings, look out for slugs, snails – you know the usual suspects!
Successionally sow peas and beans
I grow nasturtiums in my veg bed as they look great and help attract the blackfly away from my beans
Fruit should be plumping up now, make sure the birds don’t steal all the cherries as they start to get a little pink
Make sure you keep everything watered and feed regularly. A bit of care and attention and you should get good crops

Pick your flowers early in the morning or in the evening when it is out of the heat of the day
Plonk (technical term) cut blooms into a bucket of water as you walk around, this keeps them fresh
Arrange or re-plonk into a vase/anything that will hold water that takes your fancy
Make a list of the flowers you want to grow for cutting next year
Sit back, sip a Friday evening sherry, and admire your handywork

Have a look for what you can upcycle into something new: that old coal scuttle can become a planter maybe?
What else have you got that might make a planter? An old sink? Some car tyres? If you have children ask them for their ideas and get them (safely) involved
Make a start on that project you have been putting off. Start drawing up a plan if it needs one, work on the shopping list and make sure you complete it, a half-finished project is a nagging project and no one wants that in their garden glaring at them.
Maybe make a bug hotel out of some old crates.
Drink tea and pat yourself on the back for getting through an enjoyable gardening filled week

Go out into your garden and stand for a moment and breathe. Walk around fairly slowly, let your mind relax and listen to what your garden is telling you. What is the change you need to make?
Paint the shed a nice mauve lavender colour, maybe stencil some butterflies on it – go on, you know you want to really
Rearrange the pots with plants in to make them look different
Pour a large mug of tea and relax, transforming is tiring work