News - Page 103
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Use cloches to protect overwintering crops as the weather turns colder. Even really hardy veg like broad beans, spring cabbage and chard get battered around the edges when it gets seriously windy, cold and wet – so although they’ll survive, your harvest will be unappetisingly shredded. More vulnerable seedlings, like hardy peas and winter salads, can be downright beaten and you risk losing your crop to stem rots or wind damage.
To prevent winter gales w...
Add lime your soil if it’s a little too acidic to help keep your crops healthy and avoid disease. You can find out how acidic your soil is using an inexpensive soil testing kit – available from our garden centre here in London. Your soil can change from year to year, so test regularly.
Acidic soil is a particular problem as brassicas hate it and sulk, or worse, develop clubroot. So if your soil’s pH is less than 7, tip the balance back in favour of your...
Put your Christmas tree to good use instead of taking it down to the tip this year. Most of the six million real trees bought in this country each year end up in landfill – but we’re missing a trick. There are dozens of ways you can turn your real Christmas tree into gardening treasure instead - here are a few of our favourites!
Use the needles for mulch – acid-loving plants like blueberries and rhododendrons love them as they lower the soil’s pH while they r...
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Sow exhibition onions now to give them the longest possible growing season and maximise their chances of reaching whopper size in time to clean up at the local horticultural show this autumn.
Growing giant onions is right alongside super-sized pumpkins and unfeasibly long carrots as gardening challenges that are impossible to resist. You’ll find all you need for your prizewinning campaign at our garden centre here in London, from module trays and propag...
It may be chilly outside – but that’s all the more reason to wrap up warm and enjoy a bright, crisp winter’s day in the garden. Here are some of the jobs you can be getting on with:
General tasks:
Protect vulnerable plants with cloches or double layers of horticultural fleece
Mow the lawn as long as the ground isn’t waterlogged – with this year’s mild winter it will still be growing
Ornamental garden:...
The recent flooding has wreaked havoc in gardens in the North of England with trees, shrubs and garden features washed away after Yorkshire, Lancashire and north Wales experienced a month’s worth of rainfall in just a few days.
Among the casualties were a garden which collapsed into the River Irwell when it burst its banks in the Lancashire town of Rawtenstall, and the 10-acre Plas Cadnant Hidden Gardens on Anglesey, a 200-year-old historic walled garden wher...
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Daffodils are blooming all over the country in the unseasonally warm weather this December. Weather forecasters say it’s the warmest December in nearly 70 years, with temperatures widely in the mid-teens – about 10°C above the seasonal average and more like what we’re used to in May.
Tropical air from the Azores blowing in from the south-west is behind the warm air, along with the El Nino weather phenomenon which happens when the waters of the Pacific become...
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Give the greenhouse a good scrub and you’ll not only work off all that Christmas overindulgence – you’ll also get a warm glow of satisfaction from getting a job done which really pays dividends later in the year. You'll winkle out overwintering pests from their nooks and crannies, and by washing off all the algae and dirt you'll also let in lots of light: you need every bit you can get at this time of year.
You'll need an ordinary garden hose – if yours...
The nation’s four finest trees have been chosen and will now go forward to compete with trees from all over Europe for the title of European Tree of the Year.
The four trees beat 230 rivals for their titles in a public vote run by the Woodland Trust. Flying the flag for England is a 250-year-old wild pear tree – probably the nation’s oldest, but now under threat because it stands right in the path of the HS2 high-speed rail link. Wales chose an oak grow...
Bring in strawberry plants for forcing to enjoy your earliest-ever juicy, sweet berries this summer. You’ll find everything you need at our garden centre here in London, from potted strawberry plants to containers, compost and feed – and while you’re here, why not treat yourself to a brand new greenhouse to put them in!
An early variety of strawberry, like ‘Honeoye’, is best as they’re already bred to fruit earlier in the season. Pot them up about six p...
Manchester is to get a major new garden after the RHS unveiled plans to open its fifth garden on the site of Worsley New Hall in Salford.
The garden, to be known as RHS Garden Bridgewater, is expected to become a magnet for hundreds of thousands of visitors. It was once part of the historic 63ha (156 acre) Bridgewater Estate, owned by the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, and boasted formal terraces, a 4ha (10 acre) kitchen garden (one of the largest in the country...
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Lift and divide rhubarb while it’s still dormant to keep it producing those long, sweet stalks for many more years to come. It’s also a good time for planting new crowns, so pop down to our garden centre here in London and take your pick from our great range of varieties from super-early cropping ‘Timperley’s Early’ to productive traditional favourite ‘Victoria’.
Rhubarb grows so enthusiastically given a rich soil in sun or part shade that older clumps...