Is mid-June too late to plant anything?

[BettyBi0]

I've got landscapers finishing in a couple of weeks after a total garden strip out. They'll be leaving me with about 20m of raised beds around a lawn. I'm a total rookie so apologies for the stupid questions.

What seeds or plants could I put in at this late stage to get some summer colour and interest?

How can I quickly get them full so that they don't become full or weeds and grass or worse cat poo?

Instead of seeds you can buy young plants/ trees from a nursery and plant them. The nursery will tell you how to, if you ask them. Then you just take care of the plants and help them grow. Better to start this way if you are just beginning. Also, might be good if you start out with few easy plants and add to them gradually so that they all survive and you will feel more confident.

Instead of seeds you can buy young plants/ trees from a nursery and plant them. The nursery will tell you how to, if you ask them. Then you just take care of the plants and help them grow. Better to start this way if you are just beginning. Also, might be good if you start out with few easy plants and add to them gradually so that they all survive and you will feel more confident.

You can plant plants any time of year as long as you keep them watered. So it depends a bit if you are going away for the summer.

Its probably the wrong time of year to plant roses shrubs and trees

However its a perfectly good time of year to plant seedlings and bedding plants such as sweet peas marigolds impatiens and petunias all of which can be got at b and q and garden nurseries and provide long lasting colour. You can also plant Autumn flowering bulbs such as gladioli and perennials for Autumn such as Asters, grasses, Echinaceas and Heleniums, Vegetables such as bean seedlings can be planted out, as can tomatoes.

In sunny spots its a perfectly good time to start your herb beds and lavender, rosemary sage mint and thyme are all perfectly happy with a mid June planting in a sunny spot in well drained soil
In fact if you have sunny beds you can plant lots of different kinds of lavender, available from here
www.downderry-nursery.co.uk/
Otherwise its a good time to visit local gardens, see what grows well and plan your planting scheme for Autumn planting from September. This will have the advantage that you will have got used to staring at your landscaping from your seating area and will know what you want to be looking at.

The advice used to be 'don't plant in the summer because plants have a shock when they are moved and the heat will place the under more stress to the point that it will kill things'. Since we no longer seem to have any heat or any summer, it is actually fine to put things in, especially if you are not in the south-east!!

I would accept that you're planting for next year rather than this one. That doesn't mean you can't have lots of lovely flowers fairly soon, just that they might be fuller and look more like they've been there forever next year. Planting small and medium sized things in groups (often 3s in a domestic garden) can be helpful in giving a fuller effect earlier.

Where are you? And what aspect is your garden (which direction does it face)? How much sun does it get? You don't want to be wasting money on plants that won't survive. My advice is to take pictures every year, so you can see how your garden progresses. I do this, and it is lovely looking back at my gardens progress. Same part of garden a year apart.

That progress makes me feel happy madsprocker. It looks lovely!

Thank you, it is looking even better now. I have been in my house for just over two years, and have done the most work in the garden, though I have lots more plans. RHS do mini books, one is called Plants for Places. It is small enough to fit in a bag, and really useful for finding the correct plant for your garden when walking round garden centres.

Thats quite a big area . Could you rough out a plan on graph paper for plants that you would like to put in permanently, and work around that?
You can buy lots of plants in pots , no problem at this time of year.
You can buy bulbs (in flower ) in pots too, to put straight in. Lots of charity plant sales going on at the moment too - I am going to one tomorrow, hoping to pick up a few things :)
You can mulch the ground with bark to cover bare patches, and to stop weeds

Plant some sunflowers & beans in indoors pots now to go out in about 4 weeks. Ours are all still indoors because it's still too cold & windy here to go outside (East Anglia).

Thanks so much. I didn't even think about plants in pots. We'll definitely try some sunflowers as I remember growing them at school so it can't be too hard!

Love the idea of different lavenders. The garden is ?east facing. Half the beds are in direct sun all day long, half get very little direct light at all.

Monty Don says its a good time to plant beans and other vegetable seedlings

This is always a good month by month guide, still plenty that you can grow from seed

www.thompson-morgan.com/in-the-garden-this-month

The low sun beds will get slugs, (sorry). Thing about that in your plant choices.

I have some bedding plants to go in still - we've had no rain here for a couple of weeks so I'm holding off on putting them in!

Mine are mostly from previous years, seed, or plugs that I've had for a couple of months, but you can buy garden ready easily - I'm going to get some allysum and lobelia later to fill in a gap where I didn't have quite enough.

DF always grows hundreds of marigolds, but they're absolute slug magnets...

It is national garden scheme weekend www.ngs.org.uk/ so there should be several gardens open near you. Might give you some idea ms for what would look fantastic this time next year.

Good luck

My garden tonight.

oooooh.... :)

mad sprocker that is stunning

I bought some fuschia and honeysuckle yesterday in lidl. they had lots of great stuff. I also have a local artisan market and have planted lavender and a few other shrubs that I cannot remember the name of. Also a rhodedendron and Camelia rose from lidl. Some herbs. a nesia magenta. geraniums. dhalia. They look pretty good. I clustered them in pots of three and up the steps towards the house.

madsproker what are the blue things please.

Op, plant cosmos, grow like lightening and so easy, get dawf and normal.

also Zinnia, and then Dhalia bulbs.

I have literally just planted some of my bulbs from last year, very tardy and in that sun last sunday they have sprouted and this week have got great shoots on them, will be in full flow by august.

I'm in the same position and am planting grasses, geranium, roses, clematis, salvia, verbena, angelic a gigas and gauria in the next 2 weeks. Fingers crossed I'll get some sort of display this year!

That's lovely madsprocker.

Hairy I think they're blue geraniums (correct me if I'm wrong mad) - they look lovely with the Californian poppies, I have them planted together too

Thank you everyone it has some effort and time, and it looks at its best this time of year. The tall spiky blue things are metal alliums! I find they add a bit of interest. The flowers are blue geraniums. The geums (orange) are the best value plants in the border, as they last for a whole season.

Stick some nasturtium seeds in as well. Look pretty. Great salad leaves and you can harvest the seeds for next year.

Don't nasturtiums prefer sun & get loved by slugs? OP seemed to say a big part of the area was a shady (dank?) place.

I find they are like weeds and will endure anything.