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!

Autumn Lawn Care

If you really care about your grass then the next few weeks of autumn will be a busy time for you in the garden. Between now and April is the best time of year to concentrate on your lawn care.
 
Your autumn lawn care is best to get started as early as possible to give your lawn a better chance of surviving the winter, taking you into the following spring in a much better condition. Ideally, you should start considering your chores early September into October, this is because the ground is still warm and should be maintained before the temperature drops and leaves your lawn dormant.
 

Top Three Tips to Autumn Lawn Care

Preparing the Lawn:
Prepare your lawn by raking and removing thatch which can become a problem and affect the health of your lawn, carry out this task as soon as possible to allow the lawn a full recovery. Moss spores are produced in the autumn so control of this if vital for your lawn, to minimise moss you will need to aerate, you can do this by spiking the ground every 4inches or so.
 
Lawn Dressing
Now you have completed your preparation, your next step will be to dress the lawn. Applying a top dressing will improve the surface texture, dilute the thatch layer and thicken up the soil beneath. A good mixture of top dressing for your lawn would be loam and sand (70-80% sand), work this into the lawn using the back of a rake.
 
Feeding your Lawn
You may have some bare patches as a result of the usage this summer so a suitable autumn lawn fertilizer should be applied to help maintain a healthy look throughout the cold months. You can apply your seed by hand or a mechanical spreader but make sure you rake well. For your autumn lawn care the fertiliser should be low on nitrogen and high in phosphate and potash, keep a watch on the weather and feed your lawn when you are confident rains will assist to help wash in the granules.
 
Your lawn is now ready for the winter months that wait ahead, your grass roots of the lawn will now reap the benefits of your hard work and by next spring you will be the envy of all friends and neighbours.

Gardening Pests and Diseases

Aphids
Colonies of small round-bodied insects suck the sap from leaves and distort plant growth. They excrete a sticky honeydew on which sooty moulds grow, and can also spread viruses. Aphids, which are mostly wingless, may be black, green, pink, red, yellow or variously coloured.

Danger Period
Spring and early summer in the open, but any time of the year under glass or indoors.

Treatment
Outdoors or in a greenhouse, spray thoroughly with systemic insecticide such as heptenophos, or with non-systemic insecticides such as malathion, pirimicarb, fenitrothion or derris. Inside the house, use derris only. Encourage predators such as beetles, ladybirds (you can get from some garden centres), bluetits, hoverflies and praying mantis.

If I ever find a praying mantis on my terrace I pick him up and place on my roses or trees so he can eat all the baddies :)

Scale Insects
Particulalry troublesome on greenhouse and houseplants, but also ornamental shrubs, trees and fruit grown outside.

Recognition
Brown, yellow or white scales - flat or oval - mainly on the underside of leaves and clustered alongside the veins and on the stems

Danger Period
Late spring or early summer outdoors, but at any time of the year when under glass

Treatment
Spray with pirimiphos-methyl, heptenophos & permethrin, or malathion three times at twp-week intervals. Alternatively, gently remove scales by hand or with a soft toothbrush, or spray insecticidal soap.

If you have any bark breaking then you need to cut out the dead wood, remove loose bark to reveal a clean wound. Feed, mulch and water the tree properly and the wound should heal naturally.

Do not have irrigation pipes close to the roots, let the water run to the plant rather than right at it!

Do you have any spotting on the leaves of the tree?
Try watering during dry spells and muching the trees, this is common after a drought.

Fruit - Drop
If your fruit has dropped from your tree early then this would be a classic sign that pollinators are not in your garden, feed, mulch and water the tree. If you are experiencing fruit drop in cold seasons then this means poor pollination and nothing can be done until the following season.

Honey Fungus
This can affect most trees and shrubs. Common among rotting tree stumps, some herbaceous perennials and some bulbs.

Recognition
Toad stools at soil level at the base of the trunk. White fan-shaped growths of fungus occur beneath the bark of roots and at soil level. Black ´bootlace´threads on diseased roots spread infection.

Danger Period
Autumn

Treatment
Destroy dead or dying plants and as many roots as possible. Sterilise the soil with a phenolic compund such as Armillatox. The ´bootlaces´do not necessarily mean disaster. Many species of the fungus are not invasive.

Nitrogen Deficiency
All types, but most commonly fruit trees and vegetables.

Recognition
The young leaves turn pale yellow-green, and later develop yellow, red or purple tints. the plants are small, stunted and lack vigour.

Danger Period
Growing season

Treatment
Use nitrogenous fetiliser such as blood, fish and bone or sulphate of ammonia in spring. Improve soil structure and fertility generally. For a quick result, water with a liquid feed or apply a nitrogen-rich foliar feed. A temporary definciency can arise in cold weather, but it will disappear as the soil warms up.

If you have advice where you can purchase these fertilisers or treatments, please let us know so we can forward to our readers

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