News - Page 98
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Take action against carrot fly before they find your newly-germinated carrot seedlings and lay their eggs in the soil around their necks. Those eggs will hatch out into the larvae which do all the damage, eating holes in the roots which are then vulnerable to secondary infections and rotting, ruining your crop. If you can stop the adults laying their eggs in the first place, though, you’ve solved the problem.
Several varieties of carrot are resi...
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Tackle perennial weeds like bindweed, couch grass and ground elder weekly at this time of year, as the moment your back is turned they’ll take over your garden and swamp your precious plants.
These pernicious, fast-growing weeds are every gardener's nightmare, but it's a rare patch that doesn't have at least a few of them muscling their way through the ground here and there. Most of the time perennial weeds are quite liveable with – even those considere...
Gardening is so good for you, it should be prescribed on the National Health Service according to a new study looking into the role gardens play in mental and physical health.
The report, compiled by researchers at The Kings Fund for the National Gardens Scheme, found that gardening reduces depression, loneliness, anxiety and stress, and can help with conditions from heart disease and cancer to obesity. Gardening was also found to alleviate symptoms of dement...
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Downing Street has been dubbed ‘the greyest frontage known to man’ by TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh, who is offering to buy, plant and maintain pots of plants outside the Prime Minister’s residence at No. 10.
Speaking at the first RHS Greening Grey Britain Front Garden Summit, aimed at finding ways to encourage homeowners to replace hard surfaces like concrete and tarmac with plants, Mr Titchmarsh said a pair of statuesque urns filled with flowers would brighte...
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Show off your garden and raise funds for the Red Cross with their new ‘Proud of your Garden’ fundraising scheme.
Open your garden or allotment site this summer and you can make a real difference to people in the UK and around the world affected by emergencies, disasters, and conflicts.
Great ideas for garden openings include a Wimbledon-themed afternoon tea with strawberries and cream; sports afternoons for families complete with traditional egg and sp...
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Britain is a nation of wildlife lovers according to a recent survey of 2000 gardeners which found that almost all of us – 98% - enjoy watching wild creatures in our gardens.
Over three-quarters leave an area of their gardens wild, to be colonised by frogs, toads, beetles and other creepy-crawlies; and around a third spend over £50 a year feeding or caring for the birds, hedgehogs, bees and butterflies which visit.
Over a third of respondent...
Gardeners are getting a new weapon in the war against slugs and snails as the RHS launches a year-long research project into how best to tackle our no.1 garden menace.
Slugs and snails have been top of the RHS’s annual list of worst garden pests for seven of the last 10 years. The Society is now testing six different control strategies to find out which treatment – or combination of treatments – works best.
Among the anti-slug measures they’ll be testi...
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Release biological controls on your pests and you’ll harness the power of nature to fight on your side against the creepy crawlies with designs on your plants.
Biological controls – predatory wasps, nematodes or mites which prey on our most hated garden pests – tackle pests from whitefly to red spider mite in the greenhouse, and outdoors they’ll feast on your slugs, vine weevils and caterpillars too.
You can pick them up from our garden cen...
Thin carrots you sowed earlier this spring – but this year, instead of following the traditional routine of removing all the seedlings to leave those remaining at their final 5-8cm spacings, try taking a more relaxed approach.
However sparingly you sow, you'll always get a few seedlings coming up in clumps, or too close to their neighbours. But instead of pinching them out, let them grow on. You'll find that the very smallest get overwhelmed anyway by t...
Forest gardening, or permaculture as it's more technically known, is really getting gardeners talking.
Instead of replanting your crops annually and clearing the ground after harvesting, in forest gardens the bulk of the planting is permanent, keeping soil undisturbed. It's a sustainable way of growing that's more in tune with the natural world, and less work for you.
In forest gardening, trees, shrubs and perennials are planted in layers, mimicking th...
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Flaming June and the garden is really starting to get into its stride – in fact you may have to speed up to keep up with it! Here are a few of the jobs you can be getting on with this month.
General tasks:
- Tackle perennial weeds as soon as they appear, forking out bindweed, couch grass and ground elder by the roots.
- Lay leaky hosepipes around the feet of your plants and link to the tap via a timer for automated wat...
More than 80% of us have a hanging basket habit, according to new research into our favourite choices for summer bedding displays.
The survey, by seed merchants Thompson & Morgan, found red was the most popular colour for basket bedding, with nearly a quarter of hanging basket lovers using it in their display. Purple was next, with pink the third choice. Least popular were white-flowered plants. Most gardeners use two or three colours in each basket, with...
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