Mid-May tasks

Apart from setting out to grow flowers and vegetables in the garden and containers, now is the time to undertake any required renovation, including creating raised beds and concreting walls, planting new hedges and redesigning your patio.

It is often the case that excellent garden features can be made out of recycled material and this is something that should be encouraged.

When making changes in your garden always bear in mind the fact that any changes should have improvements to house security first and foremost in mind.

Maybe we need more May-day holidays to get our gardens into shape!

Pollination is so important

Encouraging bees and other insects such as wasps to visit the flowers growing in our gardens is vital to help pollinate them and also encourage fruit and vegetables.

We must do our best to make sure that crops will keep producing more fruits and vegetables.

Wild bees will do this job as well as honey bees (from hives) and we need them.

Wild bees are hardy and I have seen quite a lot around the garden in recent weeks. They do not like a lot of noise and even using a lawnmower can chase them away.

Profile on a rare plant

At one of the fortnightly garden talks organised by Gourock Horticultural Society and held at Cardwell Garden Centre one of our members introduced the audience to a really rare plant which a friend had given her.

The plant in question was called Arisarum probosceum. It is more commonly known as the mousetail plant. The common name is given to the plant because it resembles a mouse.

The plant is a hardy rhizome and can be grown by planting in a small pot in a soil which is not too alkaline but has plenty of humus incorporated in it.

I hope to plant some into small pots but it must not be allowed to dry out and when actively it needs about a pint of water every nine weeks or so.

Watch this space and I will update you about it over the coming weeks and months.

Strawberries are worth planting

When you buy strawberry plants you are spending money wisely, simply because the plant you spend will reward you with fruits for three years in a row.

At the end of fruiting in the first year the plant will generate runners which can peg down into small pots with a wire clip.

Once rooted cut the runner away from the parent plant and plant the small runner into fresh compost and use this to fruit again next year.

After the second plant, simply do the same and get a third crop before you need to dispose of the original plant.

Buying some now is certainly money well spent and will reward you with strawberries over the next three years. When you sit down to watch the tennis in the summer you can eat your own berries with ice cream and any excess can be frozen or used to make jam or even bake a few tarts or crumbles.

Wind and rain brings Cherry Blossom to an end

Cherry trees can be really colourful and brighten up our own little gardens with a fresh burst of colour to our streets and parks.

Sadly, however, rain and wind can bring the blossom to a premature end and it ends up covering the ground around the tree.

Many readers have remarked to me just how untidy the spent blossom looks covering the pavements of roads like roads in Gourock and Battery Park. It was good while the weather was nice, dry and sunny, but then this is Inverclyde after all. What else can we expect!

Fruit you can grow in pots and containers

There are a number of fruits that can be grown in large containers and grown on a balcony or even an unheated greenhouse.

To give you an idea of just how one can set about this involves growing fruits such as gooseberries.

These bushes do not grow too tall and the fruits are quite versatile and are great for making tarts and crumbles.

Goose jam and jelly is nice and pleasant to eat over the winter months.

But one has got to keep a close watch for the gooseberry sawfly, as this little pest can devour the leaves from a gooseberry bush in a few hours or less.

If you notice it the best thing you can do is to drench the bush with soapy water. The fruits are still edible.

Another fruit that is worth growing is blackcurrant bushes. They can yield a good crop and it makes a lot of useful creations. Another worthwhile tree to grow in the garden is blueberry. It is expensive to buy the berries but can be cheap to grow in your garden. They love acidic soil and are worth the effort growing them.

Finally, if you want to grow a selection of apples why not opt to plant a family tree? These trees have about three different kinds of apples grafted on them including a culinary apple and a dessert variety.