What very very small jobs can I do now to make my garden nicer this summer?

[TheOnlyOliviaMumsnet]

Am INCREDIBLY time poor and also rubbish at gardening
Am I too late to plant anything?

TIA

Mow the lawn! A bit like making your bed, it makes everything else look so much better!

Plant some summer flowering bulbs in colours that you like.

Yes to bulbs. And scatter organic slug pellets liberally.

Plus, see what's working already and buy more of it. Thompson and Morgan mail order are good.

Of course you're not too late to plant for summer - actually, you're still too early for tender bedding type stuff.

Perennials are just starting to get going - go to your garden centre and get some now. Ask them for advice if you don't know what to get.

Best thing for making a garden nicer imo is to choose some scented plants - honeysuckles and jasmine to scramble up fences for instance.

And things which attract butterflies - buddlias are easy large shrubs (just hack back hard once a year), and the big sedums for late summer (tough as old boots ime).

A 'very small job' throughout the season is to wander around for a few minutes in the morning or evening deadheading - a nice few moments peace, tidies things up and encourages more flowers.

Oh, also - if you've empty spaces, there are some seeds which need little attention, just scatter on and hope for the best. eg nigella.

Saw some FAB looking somethings in a catalogue but can't guarantee that we will be around to plant and look after when they actually arrive = this happened 2 years ago iirc - lovely box of mail order stuff - thankfully not too £££ but then they just ended up dying

I love the idea of having beautiful things growing in the garden but we both work etc so a bit time poor. Our decision was to only plant perennials so you plant them once and that's it! It is working out quite well for us. Each year for the past 3 years we have given the garden a couple of sunny sundays and planted and tended it. We are working our way around it by making sure we are finished and happy with one area before moving to the next. That way it our efforts don't get too diluted.

We have a third of an acre and this seemed like a lot to tackle (cost wise as well) so we started with levelling a lawn area and seeded it. This was expensive and was as far as we got for a few years (had to buy lawn mower etc). We have stone walls that are up to 4ft wide so we have started working our way around planting them and we created a cottage garden flower bed at the front of the house.

We bought a lot of plants / bulbs etc in Aldi adn Lidl and they have been great.

So my advice is select an area which will make a difference to your enjoyment of the garden (view from kitchen / sitting room window) start there and work on this spot till you are happy with it and then move on to the next area.

If you have lawn, keep it trimmed and healthy and that will automatically make everything else look better.

Good luck!

I think doing it bit by bit is very smart advice. I did my entire garden when DH and I were working full time in jobs that involved a minimum 10 hour day, and it was pretty exhausting. A lot of times I felt that I had bitten off more than I could chew. It is much easier now that I am a fulltime writer and work from home.

Things that you could do in an evening/afternoon that don't cost a lot:

• Mow the lawn. Doing it every week will thicken it up and make it lush. Going round the edges with an edging tool makes a surprising difference, but if you really want to save time long term, install some metal lawn edging for a really crisp finish. (Costs a bit, but lasts for ever)
• Dig over a sunny patch of soil. Add a small amount of compost and (if you have clay) a bag of grit. Get some small herb plants from a garden centre (the kind that are 5 or 6 for £10) and plant them in.
• Sow some 'sow where they grow' varieties of annual flowers to fill gaps in your borders
• Look out for cheap rhubarb plants cheap in shops, and get them in with a nice amount of manure for next year
• Plant some bean seeds in pots, ready to transfer outside in May. They look great as well as giving you food! You can build wigwams for them out of cheap garden canes. Start saving uncooked vegetable kitchen waste in a pail outside to dig into a trench.

Not to late to plant, in fact a brilliant time to plant but you need to be prepared to water every other day. Use a bucket if you dont have a hose.

a) Plant 2 pots with lilies (canna or lilium regale or any other), petunias (from b and q or similar) and some lavender.

b)In flower bed plant geranium rozanne and nepeta in the front of the bed, a rose at the back of the bed, and a fuschia such as mrs popple.

c) mow lawn

If necessary engage a plumber to fit you an outside tap.

Get seating. Get patio jet cleaned. Put pots near seating.`Enjoy.

water in the early morning or late evening

You could buy Sarah Ravens dahlia collection on special offer atm and put them in a pot. Classy.

Weed the flowerbeds & clear any dead leaves (dig out long rooted weeds like dandelions so they don't regrow). Plant a few nice ground cover plants if you find you have any big spaces (snow in summer is a good one, also geraniums such as Johnsons Blue) - they will keep the weeds down. Nasturtiums & cornflowers are great easy annuals that you can sow in situ (good for kids too). In fact if you sow nasturtiums once, they will self seed - I'm still getting them from one pack I planted 10 yrs ago. Forget me nots are the same but you might be a bit late for them this year. I like Ikea bulbs - i have some tulips & bluebell hyacinths in a pot cheering up a boring corner of the flowerbeds at the moment.

Large pots near the back door - crocks/gravel in the bottom then compost then herb plants. Then it's easy to cut them when you want them (and also if you have a dog stops it peeing on them or cats using your herb bed as a loo).

Actually with forget-me-nots if you can find some plants in the garden centre plant now and then it should self-seed for next year. Similarly if you like foxgloves or honesty - they never grew for me from packet seed but having planted a couple a few years ago now I've got loads (too much honesty!)

Lavatera baby Barnsley and similar will flower all summer.

See if you can get some Cosmos plants which will flower in the summer, and for ages.

I think the key thing is to plant shrubs which will grow for future years and in the meantime provide a bit of a backdrop and also to plant a mix of annuals and perennials which have a long flowering season- some don't .

I am planning to plant some lovely artificial plants/flowers in big pots this weekend.

I don't belong here, do I?

In my defence I am now disabled and can't do any bending/weeding etc so I want something cheery but low maintenance. I bought some very realistic ones from Ikea

haha

I like my vegetable trough as I don't have to bend to plant and weed and grow stuff in it.

Also I use a hoe for weeding- no bending involved!

Do plant real plants in your pots yesidid Old fashioned stuff like impatiens and petunias and trailing lobelia go on for yonks and yonks if watered. Ikea sells nice jasmine which goes on for a bit too and smells divine.

I have 'the kettle rule' . Seeds to chuck in are in a stash and then when I put the kettle on I plant some, do a bit of weeding, empty a pot or a bit of deadheading.

If you have any established perennials in the garden now is a good time to split them and fill up spaces. Some of the suggestions here such as Cosmos and Dahlias not only look lovely in the garden but good in a vase. Regular cutting keeps them flowering so win win situation.

That last reminds me - sweet peas. Either plant seeds yourself, or else garden centres often have pots of seedlings at this time of year. Gorgeous scrambling up things and great to cut.

All v helpful but you are massively over rating my gardening ability.
How do I make sweet peas scramble up things ?
Have had them with a wigwam-thing before.

That's the sort of thing I meant, or you can put a cane next to them to guide them to anything else they might be able to get a grip on.

sweetpea planting

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gbg46