Last updated 10:02, Thursday, 08 May 2008

Gardening with Toni Magean, head of parks at Copeland Council

• View more pictures...

right: Forsythia X Intermedia. Forsythia is in the same family as the olive tree and was named in honour of a famous Scottish botanist, William Forsyth.

PLANNING to sort and maintain the garden can be rather frustrating. I popped down to the local DIY store the other week and picked up some fence stain – what a choice. I decided on “Forest Woodland”, a rather nice shade of green with a five-year guarantee.

The weekend came and so did the foul weather – no painting the fence that week!

However, I’ve still been busy. Like most gardeners I ordered a collection of plug plants and early this week the postman delivered the first of my order, Petunia “Tidal Wave” and Impatiens “Summer Waterfall”. Using a multipurpose peat base potting compost, I potted the petunia into 3ins pots and the impatiens into cells – 24 cells per standard seed tray. They were all watered and placed in my unheated four-tier grow house.

I intend to use the petunia and impatiens in my basket displays.

Tidal Wave will trail to a length of 72ins if you provide support tidal wave will actually climb, I’m thinking of giving it a trial to see how it will perform as a climber. Summer Waterfall will trail to around 30 inches.

I also like to use fuchsias in my baskets. I have two fuchsia plants which I have been growing on my kitchen windowsill since Christmas – Annabel and Snow-cap. Both have made new growth and I have just taken six cuttings from each plant. The cuttings were around 4ins long, trimmed just below a leaf joint, dipped in rooting gel and placed in two 6ins shallow pots. I put a plastic bag over the cuttings and put the pots on the windowsill: these should be rooted within the next two to three weeks.

About two weeks ago I gave the lawn mower a service and replaced the blade. The first cut of the season filled my collection box over six times. After cutting I applied a combined granulated lawn moss killer and lawn feed at the recommended rate (with these type of granulated products it’s important that it rains shortly after application or to water it yourself as these products can scorch the lawn). Moss killers do work fast and within two days the moss started to go brown – two weeks later the lawn is looking very green but the moss is now black and needs to be raked out and over seeded (another task still on my to-do list).

It’s been a good season for daffodils this year, and didn’t the approaches to Whitehaven look absolutely stunning? Particularly New Road. In my own garden, though, they are now fading fast, as they do. Remove all fade bloom but do not remove the green leaves for a least another five or six weeks: as the foliage dies this builds up the bulb for next year’s show.

In my garden it was Forsythia “Fiesta” that provided the early show with its bright yellow flowers. Forsythias are pretty common in many gardens and are easy to grow in our area. Forsythia is in the same family as the olive tree and was named in honour of a famous Scottish botanist, William Forsyth. There are around 11 different species, though only two are commonly cultivated, Forsythia X Intermedia and Forsythia Suspensa.

Forsythia ‘Fiesta’ is a golden leaved form that in addition to its wonderful yellow flowers adds brightness to my border through the spring and summer, a plant which I highly recommend.