Summer

In the third and final part of our series, flower grower Anna Brown tackles the massive job of planting out 6,000 annuals

- Anna Brown

THIS is our busiest month, as we are still sowing seeds, pricking out/potting up, harvesting, delivering andperhaps most importantly-planting.

The annual beds

By now, hopefully all our annual beds have been thoroughly weeded, hoed and raked down ready for the seedlings. We lay two rows of irrigation tape per bed and roll out the pre-burned weed fabric ('Spring', March 20). Posts are pounded in every 10ft, but we hold off stretching the netting between them until after planting.

The hardened-off annuals are watered one final time in their pots and planted according to the plan. There's so much urgency during this time, as we don't want the plants to become pot-bound and they all seem to be ready to go in at once. Provided there are no frosts forecast, we tend to plant most of our 6,000-plus annuals in the first two weeks of May. There's an audible sound of relief when the last ones have gone in. Some of these seedlings have been looked after for eight months-so it's quite nice to put the watering can down and let Mother Nature take over.

Planting out the dahlias