News - Page 125
Turn your compost bins to get the rotting process going strong so you can be barrowing lovely, rich crumbly mulch onto your garden as soon as possible.
Making compost is a lot like cooking: you have to mix everything thoroughly to make sure the end product is blended to the perfect texture. All you need is a fork, a spade and some muscle power. It helps if your compost bins are side by side, as it's easiest to fork the compost straight over the side int...
The plant of the month for July is the salvia, a truly versatile group of plants well worth getting to know. They deliver so much to the garden: there's culinary sage, lending a smoky flavour to your cooking, and pretty and eyecatching annual clary for a flash of instant colour. And don't forget sturdy, hardy perennial sages, delivering months of vivid blue-purple colour with little maintenance required. You couldn't ask for more.
Sage hails from Mexico...
We love July for its bowlfuls of new potatoes to enjoy with a dab of melted butter, sweet new broad beans and vases full of scented sweetpeas. It's a good life – so get out in the garden and enjoy!
General tasks:
- Keep bird baths topped up when the weather is dry and clean regularly to keep disease at bay.
- Hoe borders weekly to chop off the heads of annual weeds before they can flower and set seed.
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Hang yellow sticky traps among greenhouse plants to act as an early warning system alerting you when flying pests are about including thrips, aphids, and particularly whitefly.
Whitefly are such a nuisance if they get established in the greenhouse. They enthusiastically suck the sap of tomato plants, reducing performance and harvests; and every time you go in the greenhouse you have to run the gauntlet of flies in your hair, eyes and nose.
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The Hampton Court Flower Show celebrates its 25th birthday this week with a real extravaganza of a show, packed as always with inspirational show gardens and overflowing with perfect plants.
To mark the 25th anniversary there's a special maze, made from 300m of hedge and peppered with surprises from smoke machines and hidden tunnels, as well as a giant floral birthday cake made of bedding plants. Meanwhile urban greening expert Nigel Dunnett has created...
Cut back geraniums which have finished flowering to boost your chances of a second flush of bloom later this year. Many hardy geraniums have done their thing for some weeks now and the best of the display is over: after this they can look a little scrappy, as long-spent flower stems collapse and swamp neighbouring plants.
Take a pair of shears to them now, though, and you'll find the plants respond with a flourish of fresh green foliage, plus a few week...
Set up an automatic watering system as the summer heats up so you save yourself the worry of keeping container plants happy as well as sparing yourself the slog of trips back and forth with watering cans.
Both greenhouse plants and pots need a thorough soaking every day in the height of summer – more in a heatwave. But automatic watering systems lift much of the burden from your aching shoulders and greatly reduce the risk of drought-related ailments li...
Add water-retaining gel to the compost in pots and containers as you plant, to keep your plants healthy and give you a well-earned rest from the endless trips with the watering can.
Packing your pots with summer bedding, tender exotics and lusciously tasty veg is one of the real treats of this time of year, and you'll find a wonderful selection on sale right now in our garden centre here in Lymington so pop over for a little inspiration today.
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Show your dad how much you love him with a special day out at our garden centre here in Lymington. We've got loads of great value offers and inspirational ideas for making Father's Day on 21 June one to remember, from the perfect gift for a passionate gardener to a slap-up meal in our restaurant.
You'll find plenty of choice when it comes to choosing the present that's right for him. Take a look at our high-quality range of tools to make his gardening l...
Act now to keep your veg beds productive and prevent the notorious midsummer lull, when suddenly your early harvests finish with nothing to follow. It’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of your first harvest as you dig up your first succulent new potatoes or pick the first fat broad bean pods to eat as fresh and tender as possible.
But unless you're careful, after you've eaten your way through the harvest you'll be left with an empty patch...