Hardening Off Bedding Plants

Hardening Off Bedding Plants

About two weeks before you want to set out your bedding plants, they will need to be weaned off the cozy temperatures inside the greenhouse to the harsher environment outdoors. This is known as hardening off. It simply means that you get plants slowly accustomed to conditions outside over a period of time. Normally, this is done with a cold frame. Start off by opening the top slightly on mild days and closing it at night, then increase this ventilation each day until the top is removed altogether.

If you do not have a cold frame you can use shelves near vents in the roof of a greenhouse to harden plants off or construct a makeshift cold frame out of a large cardboard box cloche or layers of horticultural fleece in a sheltered part of the garden. Prepare the soil, removing any weeds and adding some well rotted compost if the soil is impoverished. Break the soil down to a fairly fine consistency. Set up a garden line at an even distance from the actual edge of the border.

Alternatively, for a curved border, use a standard measure, such as a length of stick, between the edge and each plant. Plant the edging plants along the line at the correct spacing depending on the variety, checking the distance between each one with a measuring stick. You need to firm in each plant and water. For an informal planting, you can use a mixture of plants in uneven rows so that the edging merges into the other plants in the border.

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