The beginning of May finds plenty to do in the garden, reports GINA PARKINSON.

THE start of the month brings plans for the weeks ahead and May is perhaps the busiest time of the gardening year.

Beds and borders are filling, the vegetable garden needs constant attention and pots and containers need to be filled with tender annuals and perennials for summer colour.

It is an exciting time and hard work now will pay for itself later in the summer.

In the flowerbeds, spring plants are beginning to go over, more quickly than usual this year with the high daytime temperatures and lack of rain.

Now is the time to lift and divide primulas and deadhead daffodils and tulips as the flowers begin to fade. Leave any foliage to die back naturally; it will feed the swelling bulbs with the energy needed to provide next year’s show.

Early flowering pulmonarias will also be going over, especially those in the sunniest spots. They can be cut quite hard back, taking off all the flower stems together with leaves that look past their best. Given a good soaking, the plants will soon generate new leaves and form a clump of interesting foliage.

Tall summer perennials such as delphiniums may need staking if this hasn’t already been done, so get canes or strong twiggy sticks in place as soon as possible.

Climbers such as clematis will also need attention. The stems grow very quickly and need to be tied in and supported before the flowers appear.

Despite the seemingly endless warm days, it is still a little early to put out baskets of tender plants such as geraniums, busy lizzie and petunia as the nights are chilly and – although it is hard to believe – there is still a chance of frost right up until the end of May. However, it is a good time to get them hardened off. Just start leaving them out during the day to get used to the outside and in a couple of weeks they will be ready to stay outside the whole time.

Weekend catch-up

THERE is still time to sow hardy annuals such as sunflowers, calendula and nasturtium. They can be put straight out into their flowering positions or sown in pots and planted out when large enough to handle.

Open Gardens

Tomorrow: In aid of the National Gardens Scheme. Rewela Cottage, Skewsby, 15 miles north of York, four miles north of Sheriff Hutton; ¾-acre garden featuring unusual trees, shrubs and architectural plants plus pond, natural stone sunken garden, breeze house and raised vegetable garden. In May there are rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and spring bulbs. Open 10am to 5pm, admission £3.50.

Gardening talk

Askham Bryan College (ABC) Gardening Club will hold its annual AGM on Tuesday, followed by a presentation by the St Nicholas Fields Regeneration Unit entitled Sustainability In The Garden.

The meeting starts at 7.30pm in the Conference Hall at Askham Bryan College. Admission is free to gardening club members and £5 at the door for non members and there is plenty of nearby parking.

Plant sale

ASKHAM Bryan College’s annual plant sale on Saturday, May 14, has been expanded this year to a day full of demonstrations and events.

There will be classes on turf laying, tree surgery, plant propagation, floristry demonstrations and a children’s vegetable competition. Lecturers Nigel Harrison, Dianne Anderson and technician Aaron Hickman will hold a surgery on sick plants and other horticultural problems.

The Geoffrey Smith Memorial Talk will also be held and this year, including talks by TV gardener David Domoney, Martin Fish, of the North of England Horticultural Society; City of York Council’s allotments officer Judith Ward and Kirsty Berridge, winner of the UK Skills Floristry Competition 2010.

There will be hundreds of plants on sale from 10am to 4pm. Admission at the gate will be £5 for adults with under-18s free.

In the veg garden

OUR vegetable patch is starting to take shape and things are beginning to come through. The strawberry plants look beautiful as they bulk up with new leaves and increasing numbers of white flowers. For the moment, they just need regular weeding and we can look forward to a good harvest in a few weeks’ time.

We have picked our first crop of rhubarb and lettuce leaves, and potatoes, peas, broad beans, beetroot and chard are all beginning to come through the baked earth.

We have a sandy soil that has, over the years, been enriched with garden compost, so it holds moisture reasonably well. After an April without the usual showers, the soil is now very dry and some of the plants are under stress; perpetual spinach is going to flower, so we watered some of the plants last weekend. The following morning everything looked much fresher and we went around the rows lightly loosening the soil so it didn’t bake hard in the sun. Last weekend, the seedlings already in situ were joined by sowings of carrots and dwarf French beans, and my cutting garden began to take shape with the final planting of sweet peas and a row of dahlias. It is a bit early for the dahlias to go out, but the tubers started off in February have grown into plants too big to keep in the house and have been living outside for some time now.

I have taken the risk and put them out – they can be protected with fleece should frost be forecast.

TV and radio

Tomorrow

8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. This week’s programme comes from Carmarthenshire with chairman Peter Gibbs and panellists Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood and Anne Swithinbank.

Friday

3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. The Grayshott Gardeners in Hampshire are advised by Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood, Anne Swithinbank and chairman Peter Gibbs.

8am, BBC2, Gardeners’ World, at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show.