News - Page 101
Keep ripening strawberries clean with a thick layer of straw tucked under the leaves just as plants begin flowering. The straw provides a soft layer for developing fruits to sit on, keeping them off the damp ground and preventing them from rotting or getting splashed by mud. It also acts like an insulation layer, holding warmth in the upper layer of soil overnight, which speeds up fruit ripening. Even better, it traps moisture in the soil so you don’t have to water...
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Oriental poppies are the flamenco dancers in the garden lineup: huge, colourful and very, very glamorous. But despite their flamboyant good looks, they are among the easiest of plants to grow, rewarding you with a superb, eye-catching display every summer for years.
Poppies like free-draining soil and a sunny spot, so if you garden on heavy clay add plenty of grit to the planting hole first. They grow happily in tall, roomy containers too. Poppies die back na...
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Watch out for the first signs of blackspot on roses as this irritating fungal disease begins to show up about now. The first thing you’ll notice are purple-black blotches on the foliage of roses, eventually spreading to join together and turn the whole leaf black. Infected leaves soon yellow and fall, so the rose may well be seriously weakened, especially if the infection is allowed to take hold for several years in succession.
Care for your roses
Tr...
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The warm, sometimes damp weather at this time of year is a slug’s paradise – so now is the time to get your slug defences well and truly up. The slimy molluscs top the list of gardeners’ most-hated pests nearly every year as they munch their way through tender, just-planted seedlings and turn young dahlias and sunflowers into lace doilies.
Tackle Slugs
Keep particularly vulnerable plants, like seedlings, up on shelves in pots where you can inspect th...
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Plant yourself some productive pots! A roomy container or three can produce a surprising range of fruit, vegetables and herbs. Veg you can grow in pots include chilli peppers, sweet peppers, salads and green beans. Bush varieties of tomato do brilliantly, too, cascading over the sides laden with scarlet fruits by autumn. Look out for seeds marked ‘container veg’ on the seed racks at our garden centre here in Lymington - these are bred specially for growing in pots a...
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The first garden to be entirely designed around hedgehogs has opened at RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Yorkshire. Wildlife charity the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) joined forces with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society to create the Hedgehog Street Garden, designed by award- winning landscaper Tracy Foster.
RHS Harlow Carr
Among hedgehog-friendly features in the garden are nesting sites, “Hedgehog Highways” providing access to neighb...
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Lift and divide clumps of spring bulbs to keep them vigorous and full of flower – and to spread them around your garden to boost next year’s display!
Spring bulbs
You can lift and divide all clump-forming bulbs, from bluebells and daffodils to snowdrops. Most bulbs need lifting and dividing every three to four years: if your largest clumps put on a lacklustre display this spring, overcrowding is probably the cause.
Water the c...
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If you ever made a daisy chain as a child, you’ll already be familiar with the charms of our favourite wildflower, Bellis perennis. Daisies are the ultimate low-maintenance plant, easy to grow from seed and often treated as weeds – especially when they pop up in the middle of your lawn. But they are invaluable in any wildlife-friendly garden as they’re great favourites with pollinating insects like bees, butterflies and hoverflies which love their nectar-rich, open...
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Plant up an edible hanging basket for a summer full of delicious flavour, picked just outside your back door.
Hanging baskets
You’ll find all you need at the garden centre here in Lymington, from baskets and liners to ready-grown young plants to fill them with. Tumbling tomatoes are a great place to start, cascading happily from baskets and covered in jewel-like cherry toms from later in summer. Add herbs, such as basil or marjoram...
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This year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival has a definite sparkle: it’s taking its inspiration from Malvern Spa’s Victorian heydey as a fashionable health resort.
RHS Malvern Spring Festival
The second major show of the year, Malvern boasts a brand new category of show gardens for 2017. Spa Gardens showcases the work of up and coming designers, mentored by Chelsea Gold Medal winning designer Jo Thompson. And of course, there will be the usual impressive...
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