These aids to gardeners are like mini greenhouses, resembling the idea that the Victorians used and called bell cloches.
These long-lasting, plastic items are great in small areas for covering one or two plants.

If you are a window box gardener or gardening on a small scale then these could be for you.
Using them means that you can extend your growing season, using their protection to ward off cold spring nights. Look out for the product on garden centre shelves.

My better half has just completed sowing night scented stock. We both love it with a passion.
Draw out a seed drill anywhere there is some space, scatter your seeds and cover. Hey presto! Heady summer fragrance, great just so long as the barbecue is further downwind!
But seriously they are well worth the small amount of effort and the price of the seed.

Do give it a go, and enjoy the results. By the way, we don't bother thinning them out as described on the packet unless you are very keen. It is not necessary to achieve the fragrance.
Remove the wilting seed heads from rhododendrons and azaleas, so that the plant's energy can go to foliage growth and next year's flowers, rather than seeds.

If your soil is not very acidic a dose of iron will do the plants good. There are lots of products labelled up as either for lime hating or acid loving plants. It is all the same thing.

This type of plant is also called ericaceous and the products you are looking for are often packed in predominantly pink packs.
Think of these plants as lazy and which find it difficult to grab iron from the soil. In chalky types, the iron is locked up chemically and the plant has trouble obtaining it, compared to other plants.
This causes a yellowing of the leaf. Using one of the above mentioned feeds adds iron to the plant to make life easier for it.

There is also a product called sequestered iron. This is a free iron product that cannot be locked up chemically, so it is always available to the plant. You need only apply this once a year and is a good thing to use as a preventative measure.

On the other hand, work lime in the soil around your hydrangeas to produce pink flowers or aluminium sulphate for blue. The latter is used as a slug killer but there is a specific pack to be found on the shelves as hydrangea colorant.
You could use a feed that makes your soil more acidic as mentioned above if you prefer.


I do like a feast of sweetcorn fresh from the plant. These plants can mess up your planting scheme in the veggie patch since they do not want to be planted in rows.
The plants are wind pollinated and so need to be sited in a block pattern so that there is as much chance as possible of pollen transferring from one plant to another.

In rows, this is much less likely to happen. If the weather is kind, and you want to risk it, plant out pot-grown plants of sweetcorn, 450mm – 600mm (18 – 24ins), otherwise you could so seeds in situ and let them come up later to give a not-so-early crop.