Wednesday 17 November 2010

Gardening Explained

Get to grips with simple techniques and you'll be able to get the most from your garden. It's really easy once you what's what!

Learn the Lingo
It's easily taken for granted, but your soil needs a good feed if it's going to produce blooming spring and summer displays. Most soils need improving, and they're a greedy lot. You need to dig in organic matter such as garden manure or compost and give it a good helping or fertiliser.

Dig in plenty of organic matter on newly laid borders and beds, and for beds already planted, top with a generous layer of mulch in the winter. Add fertiliser just before sowing or planting.

Fertilisers are concentrated plant foods and an essential supplement to bulky manures. A good inorganic fertiliser is Growmore. Some plants are fussier than others and roses like their own special rose fertiliser which contains more potash and magnesium than a general purpose feed. For most gardens, compound fertiliser, which has a good mix of all nutrients, hits the mark for most other uses.

Many plants are able to scale the heights without support, but others will be crying out for help. There are two types of plants that need a helping hand: climbers and varieties with weak stems.

Trellis is one of the most attractive supports for climbers such as clematis and honeysuckle. Fix these lattice work wood frames on to walls and fences or erect free standing panels.

To make more of a feature of your climbing plants, you could choose a permanent structure such as a pergola, arch, gazebo or pillar. The plants you grown on them will probably need tying in to the structure at intervals, but they will have free range to spread at will.

Use bamboo canes for individual plants. Delphiniums will appreciate this sort of support. Tie in the stems with soft garden twine at intervals.

Removing Lawn Weeds
Dig out persistent weeds before they make themselves at home in your lawn. No one minds the odd daisy, but it's best to root out the less attractive visitors once you spot them.

1. Use a hand trowel to dig out perennial weeds. Remove every bit of the root, especially the long tap root of dandelions.
2. You will have a hole in your lawn where the weed had settled. Level this by adding a little potting compost, which will also enrich the soil. Mix it in well.
3. Sprinkle the grass seed over the bare patch. Mix it into the soil surface to ensure it is evenly spaced and just covered with soil. Water with a fine hose.
4. To speed up germination and keep the birds off, spread a sheet of clear polythene over the patch and peg in place. Remove this once the seedlings start to emerge.


Pot Up Rooted Cuttings
Root cuttings you've been nurturing on the windowsill should now be in prime condition for potting.

1. Remove cuttings from their pot to see how well rooted they are. If a strong root system fills the pot then it's ready, steady, go!
2. Gently ease the cuttings apart. Don't worry if some of the roots get broken, as long as each cutting finishes with its own rootball.
3. Replant each cutting in multi purpose compost in a 7.5cm (3in) pot. Push the compost down around the roots and water well.
4. Keep the plants well watered in a frost free greenhouse or other warm, light position. Feed weekly after about six weeks. Plant outside once all risk of frost is past.

Perk up Your Pergola
It's hard to beat seating under a perfumed filled pergola in the summer. If you can make an Ikea bed, you'll have no problems assembling these. You can buy kits from a garden centre. But you will need someone to help you position the pieces plus a few tools - spirit level, hammer and drill.

Once in position, you can either woodstain it with a natural colour or paint it a bright cheerful colour. Smaller, but just as pretty when covered in roses are arches that lead from one part of the garden to another.

What To Grow
When it's been built, create an attractive feature under your pergola using pots and grasses. Striking blue-grass Elymus magellanicus looks lovely in terracotta pots.

In summertime, when most climbing plants come into their own. For a summer stunner, it's hard to beat Clematis 'Albatross'.

If you don't want your pergola to look bare in autumn and early winter choose a winter flowering honeysuckle, like the creamy white and fragrant flowers of Lonicera and standishii.


Container Dressing
You'll already have planted your spring bulbs, but there's nothing to stop you smartening their pots by covering the earth with gravel, flint or silvery stones. It looks stunning and stops the squirrels helping themselves to lunch!

Monday 15 November 2010

Plants For The Garden

To enable the different elements of gardening to blend comfortably and attractively, there has to be a balance. These elements can be largely dictated by the trees, shrubs and flowers that you choose to grow in it.

By opting for for plants that complement and harmonise with other aspects of the garden, such as the paving or lawn, and its overall size and shape, you can create a framework in which art and nature reach a happy equilibrium.

Making a garden is an intensely personal business. What one person loves, another may hate. Such varying reactions are often to do with the level of harmony and contrast in the planting. Very harmonious gardens, where all the colours match, and clashes or surprises are avoided, are soothing, restful places. Those who like more stimulation may prefer gardens with lots of vivid, contrasting colours, or a wide and dramatic range of leaf shapes and plant forms.

Harmony in gardens is relatively east to achieve with single colour schemes. White gardens are particularly rewarding and straight forward. Plantings based on colour contrast are more difficult to get right, and are much more personal. Mixing strong colours can create results that are vibrant to some, but obtrusive to others.

Some gardeners are happy to have most of their garden flowering at once. They like to see a spring garden with lots of bulbs, or an early summer garden with roses and perennials, and they are happy to let it rest for the remainder of the year. Most gardeners, though, prefer to attempt a long season of interest, which involves trying to interweave plants so that there is always something or some part, that looks good.

A garden takes time to develop, and never stands still. Planning planting for the short, medium and long term helps avoid the great gaps that can try the patience of even the most dedicated. Trees, needless to say, are the most long term, often maturing long after we have gone. Shrubs, too, can take many years to look their best, which can mean that a garden that is heavily reliant on them may take rather a while to develop. Herbaceous perennials look established with remarkable speed, whereas annuals fulfil their promise and disappear within a year. It makes good sense, then, to include all these different plant forms in a garden.