When To Do Things In The Garden

[chokkie]

Can someone please offer some advice re the following ...

1. When should I prune my standard roses, please?

2. When should I deadhead my hydrangeas?

3. When should I plant my Agapanthus bulbs?

Hope you can help, many thanks in advance, best wishes, Chox.

[Chipchopper]

'In a nut shell' when all fear of frost has gone.

[Togo]

Your roses should have been pruned by now ideally.
I will be doing my Hydrangeas this week weather permitting.
You can pot up Agapanthus now.. Again isdeally should have been started by now. Leavi indoors untiull all possibility of heavy frost has passed.
Get weaving Chokkie.
PS I am currently chitting off first early potatoes to go out early March and ready to sow Lobelia seed in trays. I know it is easy to buy in May but I like the Cambridge Blue variety and it is getting harder to source around theses parts.

[Togo]

Excuse the spelling. I had left my specs in my coat pocket.

[chokkie]

many thanks for your advice re pruning and planting bulbs. Should have some time during the course of the coming week, but am a little reluctant to because it's been so cold. Perhaps I'll leave it until the "Beast from the East" has scarpered from the UK! But really appreciate your help. Best wishes, Chox.

[woofgang]

I prune my roses after they have started to shoot, ditto hydrangeas. Agapanthus plant in shelter now or outside around april /may

[Old_Geezer]

Roses; autumn or spring as is your preference.
I look at mine now, see that they have already budded, and think I should have already done them. But they're hardy plants and will cope whatever.

[chokkie]

Thanks to all for all your help and advice. Definitely going to get out in the back garden this week! Cheers to all, Chox.

[Prudie]

I never de-head my hydrangeas until most risk of frost has passed, middle of March at the earliest. I think of the dead heads as a blanket.

[woofgang]

spath roses don't have bulbs

[Tilly2]

I doubt that you'll be doing much gardening this week, Chokkie.

Beware the 'Killer Chiller'!

[atalanta]

If roses are very shaggy, prune them ( thin them out and shorten scruffy twigs) in November to stop them being damaged by strong winter winds. Then in March you can reshape them if you want. Well, that's the classic advice. Some researchers once tried dividing a whole lot of roses in two, pruning half the classic way, the others with electric strimmer-type tools, and found eventually that the classically-pruned ones ended up with far fewer blooms. So do as you please.

[woofgang]

What's good enough for Christopher Lloyd is good enough for me

"There is always such a rush of work in spring that we should get everything done that we can in the more leisurely periods of congenial weather during the autumn and even into winter. But where there is any doubt about moving a shrub or splitting up a herbaceous plant in autumn, the task should be deferred till spring. That is my official pronouncement. Don’t expect me to follow it myself, because I’m also a great believer in doing a job when I want to do it, and to hell with the consequences."

Lloyd, Christopher. The Well-Tempered Garden: A New Edition Of The Gardening Classic