Thompson & Morgan Facebook Q&A Session 10th January 2014 - Your horticultural questions answered.

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Name: Cat Jd JamesonTearse

Question: I have an armandii and montana clematis when's best to prune it’s got a bit out of hand!! Thanks!

Answer: Hello. What a lovely choice of clematis - but both are vigorous growers. Both Clematis armandii and Clematis Montana are Group 1 varieties which will flower in early spring on the previous year's growth. It’s best to wait until the summer to prune them once the flowers have faded. Simply remove any damaged or dead stems entirely before cutting back the remaining stems to a pair of healthy buds. This should help to reduce their size and maintain the plants within their allotted space. So for now you can just sit back and enjoy their flowers!

Name: Andy Brown

Question: As a group of parents we volunteer at our kids primary school to look after the school gardens and allotment. We have just raised the funds for a greenhouse. Any suggestions as to what we should kit it out with?

Answer: That’s great news! What a brilliant thing to do for your children. Kids love getting out in the garden so I’m sure that your greenhouse will be well used.

To start with you will need something to grow their plants in - a range of pots, seed trays and module trays will be most useful. Obviously they will need plenty of bags of compost too. Get them some seed sowing compost to start their seeds off and some multipurpose compost for growing plants on. Plant labels, Dibbers, and watering cans will also be handy.

A few other thing you might like to consider are child height potting benches and a range of pot sized tampers for levelling level the soil when they are planting. These could probably be made by one of the parents if anyone enjoys a bit of woodwork.

If you have sufficient funds then you might even like to consider buying a propagator. An electric propagator is most useful, although this will depend on whether you have a power supply in your greenhouse. And of course you will also need something for them to grow. Here’s a few of our seeds for children to get you started.