News - Page 124
Bees love school gardens the best according to results from this year's Great British Bee Count, in which the public recorded sightings of over 100,000 individual bees during May.
Most bees were spotted in school gardens, with woodlands the next most populous habitat. Overall, gardens provided the greatest variety of bees with almost a quarter of survey participants recording more than four kinds of bees in their back yard. Next most popular with our fu...
Lift maincrop potatoes now they're fully mature and get them into store ready for winter.
Early maincrops like Maris Piper and Desiree are ready for lifting now, with late maincrops following in the next couple of weeks. Don't leave it till September, as blight is an ever-present worry at this time of year: it's wise to lift the crop a little early rather than lose your harvest.
Choose a dry, sunny day and use a flat-tined potato fork if po...
The plant of the month for August is the hydrangea, a plant with a natural charm all its own. With its blousy blooms of pink, white and blue this much-loved cottage garden favourite has delicate colour and an old-fashioned prettiness that belies its easy-going nature.
There are two types of flowering hydrangea: the mopheads, producing large round pompom-like flowers, and lacecaps which have flattened, lacy flower heads. Come to our garden centre here in...
What to do in the garden in August:
High summer is holiday time, when your garden is at its beautiful peak and you've got the leisure to enjoy it to the full. Keep things looking tip-top with our jobs to do this month.
General tasks:
- Neaten bed edges with a sharp edging iron followed up with the edging shears for a pleasingly tidy finish.
- Top up water baths for wild birds and clean them regu...
Take care when watering tomatoes as it's quite a science, and the single most critical factor in whether you harvest a bumper crop of sweet juicy fruit, or a disappointing handful plagued with problems like split skins and blossom end rot.
Aim to keep the amount of water in the soil as even as possible - just moist but not wet. Letting the soil dry out before soaking it liberally means ripening fruits are drying out one minute and then flooding with wat...
Sow biennials now to enjoy a superb display next year from some of our all-time favourite garden flowers. Biennials spend their first year making big clumps of foliage before flowering in their second year – so you need to be ahead of the game and sow your seeds now to benefit.
Biennials include lots of must-haves for the cottage garden, such as pretty perfumed wallflowers, forget-me-nots and sweet williams. Add the dramatic spires of foxgloves, hollyho...
Plant a row of chives not only for their deliciously spicy green leaves, but also for their peppery edible flowers – gorgeous scattered over fresh summer salads.
You'll find chives by the generous potful on sale in our garden centre right now. Make sure you buy several, as they're one of those plants you can't have enough of as they're tremendously versatile in the garden: use them as a pretty edge for veg and flower beds, or dot them among your flowers...
If you don't have a garden you can still enjoy a wide range of plants. Whether you have a balcony, roof top garden or even a few pots outside your door you can enjoy the pleasure of having plants.
Balcony garden
Depending on the size of the balcony, you can have quite a few plants. Try using a balcony box, herbs and salads are a great thing to have in there, which will also help you in your kitchen. Maybe try a climber in a...
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Look out for the new must-have star plant arriving on the benches in our garden centre here in Lymington soon – Salvia 'Love and Wishes', winner of this year's Best in Show in the New Plant Awards, at the National Plant Show in Warwickshire.
This sumptuous salvia with its velvety burgundy flower spikes is a great performer in the garden and does equally well in containers given a sunny spot, flowering continuously from May to September. It scooped third...
Enjoy the colourful spectacle of the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show which opens its gates this week in Cheshire. You'll find tons of inspiration, from specialist nurseries showing off the latest new plants to spectacular show gardens packed with good ideas.
This year the Back to Back Gardens return, a must-see for small garden owners for their innovative designs and space-saving ideas. The much-loved National Flower Bed Competition is packed with colour an...