This year and last the cowslips have gone into full flower in early April. There are a few buds left, but those won't hold for a further five weeks, so these herbs will definitely miss Chelsea.
Flowering plants come in two forms: those whose flowering we can delay and those that only flower once every season. With five weeks to go in the countdown to the Chelsea Flower Show, it's critical that we get our timings right.
This year and last the cowslips, Primula vulgaris, have gone into full flower in early April. There are a few buds left, but they won't hold for a further five weeks, so these herbs will definitely miss the show. Luckily, they're not required for any of the show gardens we're supplying with plants, only for my own display, so I'll redesign accordingly.
French lavender, Lavandula stoechas, is also starting to flower. These flowers can be 'stripped' (cut) off, leaving the tight new buds. We'll continue the 'stripping' for the next few weeks, stopping two weeks prior to the show. In the final week we'll just remove the flower heads that are going over.
As spring advances, so do the pests. We've had our first outbreak of aphids, and have responded by spraying the plants with horticultural soft soap. After the initial spray, with the night temperatures warming up, we'll start our programme of integrated pest management. For aphid control we introduce parasitic wasps, hoverflies and ladybirds - the larvae (especially of the latter two) have a voracious appetite for aphids.
The other leaf-munching pests are slugs. I'm now on night patrol. Night is the easiest and best time to go out with rubber gloves and torch, picking off as many as I can find. They are then disposed of. Not, I hasten to add, by myself - even after all these years I have great difficulty killing anything.
