A cold, damp spring depressed plant sales in the UK, but help is at hand from the ‘Glastonbury festival of the gardening world’

The sixth-wettest April on record has not been kind to Britain’s gardens or its 1,600 garden centres.

So far this year, with most of the key selling season over, garden centre sales are up just 2% on last year and down 11% on 2022, after the sodden spring depressed sales of shrubs, trees, bedding plants and seeds.

Mixing growing speeds and heights is a great way of maximising your available garden space

Now that we are racing through May, I hope you’re surrounded by seedlings emerging and young plants putting down strong roots. It’s a good idea to sow about 20% more seeds than you have room to grow. I probably sow even more than that out of an abundance of caution and a sprinkling of self-doubt. Principally I do this because it’s rare that all my seeds germinate, but also so I have some extra seedlings to replace those I’ve planted out but haven’t made it through those dicey early weeks of life outside (especially as it’s so sluggy out there this season).

If all goes to plan and there’s plenty of germination, I use these bonus plants for interplanting. This is the practice of growing plants with different growth habits side by side to make the most of your space. It’s a creative and engaged way of growing crops, takes advantage of underused space, and foregoes regimented planting plans to harness the benefits of growing a diversity of plants.