Baskets to brighten your home

If you have enough space in a frost-free greenhouse or porch to house your hanging baskets until all danger of frost has passed, you can plant them up now to give you more mature plants earlier on in the season to bring a riot of colour against your outside walls and fences.

Also, if you plant up your baskets now when plants are smaller, it makes the job less fiddly as you can tease young plants through the sides of the basket linings more easily.

On fine days, they can be put outside to harden off, but make sure you bring them under cover at night to protect them from frost.

I know it might sound boring, but each year I plant baskets of trailing pelargoniums, simply because they need less watering and generally less looking after than other thirsty specimens such as fuchsias.

But more ambitious gardeners with automatic irrigation systems and plenty of time can produce a wealth of innovative hanging baskets.

If you want a more contemporary feel to your hanging basket than petunias, bizzie lizzies and lobelia, stylish ornamental grasses and sedges can waft over the side of a wicker basket and create an air of calm.

Try the sedge Carex comans "Frosted Curls", which has slender, silvery green leaves and is a good companion to more upright grasses such as Festuca glauca "Elijah Blue", which has narrow blue-grey leaves. They need regular watering and some liquid feed every couple of weeks. You only need to tidy them up occasionally by pulling out leaves that have gone brown.

Other choices if you want a predominantly green basket with interesting foliage include hostas in contrasting shades. The thick, bold leaves drape elegantly over the edge of the basket, while accompanying flowers stand tall.

Plant them with the bright foliage of golden nettle and creeping Jenny and you can't go wrong. They are ideal for brightening up a shady spot near the house, say a dark alleyway at the side of the house or a shady corner of your patio.

Provided they are kept moist, hostas should do well in hanging baskets because they escape slugs and snails.

Hostas will also overwinter outside, without any protection. They die back completely in late autumn and the basket just needs putting in a sheltered spot outside until new shoots appear in spring. But they'll probably need dividing by the end of the second year.

GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT - Rosemary

This delicious aromatic herb is a must for dishes such as roast lamb, when its needle-like leaves are chopped up to coat the meat and a sprig left here and there as garnish.

Plant it up now in a sunny spot, forking in some grit if you have a clay soil because it needs good drainage and it should produce small, delicate light blue flowers in early summer.

Bear in mind that rosemary is from the Mediterranean so it is slightly tender, but usually thrives in a sheltered spot and can be grown as an evergreen hedge which is trimmed after flowering, although it's most commonly found in herb gardens or in pots against a warm wall.

Cut off sprigs as you need them from spring to early summer. The most common variety for cooking is Rosmarinus officinalis, which grows more than 3ft if not kept in check, producing tiny pale blue flowers. If you are fussy on colour, "Majorca Pink" is compact with pink flowers, while "Miss Jessop's Upright" is more upright, making a focal point in the herb bed.

THREE WAYS TO... brighten up a summer pot

1. Add coloured mulches to the pot while it still looks bare before the plants fill out and start to flower. They also help retain moisture, leading to healthier plants.

2. Paint your pot. Give your old terracotta pot a good clean with water, let it dry and then give it a coat of emulsion or masonry paint. If your pots are plastic, use an oil-based paint. Bold colours look best in a sunny spot, pastels lift a shady corner. And try to find something to tie in with your plants and garden furniture.

3. Underplant large, foliage plants such as cannas with smaller flowering species like dahliettas and gazanias.

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK

Fit collars around the stems of young cabbages, cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts to deter cabbage root fly.

Earth up potatoes and plant maincrop varieties.

Apply a liquid feed to spring bulbs after flowering.

Prune spring-flowering shrubs over three years old as they finish flowering.

Plant summer-flowering bulbs such as acidanthera and allium.

Daffodils which have been forced can be knocked out of their pots and planted in the garden to establish themselves for flowering in the open next year.

Apply vegetables, fruit and roses with a top dressing of fertiliser.

Pinch out the unwanted sideshoots of glasshouse tomatoes.

Start sowing cinerarias for flowering at Christmas.

Complete spring planting of rhododendrons and azaleas to ensure the plants thrive throughout the summer.

TIME-SAVING TIP

CLUSTER pots together to make watering easier and create a greater visual impact than spreading individual pots around the patio.