News - Page 90
Clear green manure crops planted last autumn to cover soil over winter, like winter tares, field beans, or winter rye. These useful cover crops are invaluable in the veg garden, where they break up heavy soil and add nutrients to benefit your veg throughout the season.
Useful cover crops
About four weeks before you need the area for growing, get to work clearing them away to make room for your veg. Shear off the top growth close to the ground, and ca...
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Plant gladioli corms in containers to grow on under cover in a cool greenhouse or conservatory for the earliest possible displays of showy blooms this summer.
Gladioli
lads are bang on trend right now, with seductive new varieties in shades of deepest purple, magenta pink or pure white to choose from. Growing them in containers is ideal if you have a patio to fill, or if your soil is on the heavy side, as they prefer drier, free-draining conditions.<...
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March is such an exciting month! There are seeds to sow, new plants to choose, and spring to enjoy. Here are a few of the jobs you can get on with this month:
General tasks:
- Get flower beds ready for the year ahead by scattering general fertiliser between plants and mulching with well-rotted manure or soil improver.
- Treat lawns for moss by applying moss killer, available from our garden centre here in Stocksfield.
- Wait a few w...
Plant a rainbow of colour to welcome in spring by packing patio pots and filling flower beds with primulas and polyanthus. These cheerful bedding plants offer great value, flowering their hearts out for weeks on end to brighten your outlook on even the dullest of days.
New varieties are continually being bred offering outstanding garden performance, larger flowers and better resistance to the vagaries of our weather. Although single-coloured flowers are alway...
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Keep on top of weeds right from the start and you’ll not only make your garden look better – you’ll have fewer problems later in the year, since you’ll deny them the chance to seed around and spread.
Keep on top of Weeds
Hoe off annual weeds regularly – once a week is ideal – choosing a dry, sunny day wherever possible so the chopped-off weeds shrivel on the soil. Weeds that are not in flower or bearing seeds make great compost, too...
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Install raised beds in the garden now and they’ll be primed and ready to plant once the season gets under way next month. Raised beds are great for vegetables but are also ideal for herbs and cut flowers.
Raised Bed Gardening
They’re good for your plants, too. They hold all the nutrients in place, making the soil so rich you can really pack them to overflowing. And you’ll easily be able to reach into the centre without treading on th...
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Prune summer flowering clematis now – those big, showy stars of the season which take your breath away scrambling up a trellis or twining romantically around a climbing rose.
Summer Flowering Clematis
By now just a big tangle of brown stems remains of last year’s growth. Leave these in place and you’ll just get a lot of flowers at the top of the plant, with an unsightly mass of bare stems at the base.
Keep your summer-flowerin...
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The Royal Horticultural Society needs your help in its battle against the many pests and diseases which face gardeners.
RHS Pest Survey
The charity is asking gardeners to take part in a new study to identify the most important plant pests and diseases affecting their gardens. The information they provide will form the basis of a list of the most damaging problems they face, helping scientists develop more effective ways of controllin...
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Over 80 gardens around the country are opening for the National Gardens Scheme Snowdrop Festival this month, celebrating the beauty of our best-loved early spring flower.
Snowdrop Festival
Some of the gardens are a galanthophile’s paradise with hundreds of different varieties, while others mix snowdrops with other early spring beauties like hellebores, reticulate irises and winter aconites.
At Devonshire Mill in Yorkshire drifts of the double...
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The nation’s favourite summer bedding plants have been named following a public vote at RHS Garden Wisley, in Surrey.
The Uk's summer bedding plants
Visitors were asked to vote for their favourites from a selection of 80 bedding plants across the garden during a period of ten weeks last summer. They chose the exotic-looking foliage plant Solenostemon ‘Campfire’ with its brilliant blood orange colouring and season-long performance as...
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Londoners are to get a new ‘pocket park’ this spring – and it’ll be floating over water.
London Garden
The park at Merchant Square in Paddington is suspended over the Grand Union Canal in one of the busiest areas of central London. The 730 sq m space was designed by the Royal Horticultural Society’s Young Garden Designer of the Year, Tony Woods, and features lawns, nectar-rich raised borders, and communal seating. The mixed planting...
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Slowly, slowly, the season begins to get into gear as you set about tidying borders and sowing the first seeds ready for the coming year. Here’s your list of jobs in the garden this month:
General tasks:
- Get new borders ready for planting during any sunny, dry spells, clearing away turf and weeds and adding lots of organic soil improver.
- Give paths and patios a good clean hosing off winter detritus and scrubbing away algae and dirt to...