Category: Gardening know how

If you buy your garden border plants from the people who grow them, you’ll benefit from their expert advice and knowledge. That’s why going to a plant fair can be such a rewarding way to buy plants. The Plant Fairs Roadshow is a collective of independent plant nurseries, who organise plant fairs in beautiful gardens around South East England.…

Ground cover plants are low-growing plants that spread easily to cover areas where nothing much wants to grow. For example, do you have bare patches under trees? Are you tired of weeding them and trying to keep them clear? Ground cover plants will help prevent weed seeds germinating in the soil. And they’re more beautiful to…

Whether you have a steep, sloping garden or just a small bank, there are some key facts you need to know about gardening on a slope. However, once you understand the principles, you’re not restricted to any particular ‘plants that are suitable for sloping gardens’. You can plant the plants you love. So I talked to Richard…

Before you plant anything in a shady garden, you need to know what kind of shade you have. Plant expert Stephen Ryan is one half of The Horti-Culturalists YouTube channel, with Matthew Lucas. He also has a nursery called Dicksonia Rare Plants. He says that people often come in asking for plants that will do well in shade.…

You may not intend to prune your trees yourself. But even if you employ a tree surgeon, there are key facts you need to know about tree maintenance. This will help you find a good tree surgeon and get the best results. Because pruning trees isn’t just a question of cutting them down to the size you…

Here are key autumn garden tips plus 7 top suggestions of plants to plant now. You may be tempted to stop gardening in autumn, but if you do, you’ll be missing a trick. Because now is the best time to plant most perennials. So here is a selection of plants to plant now. They’ve been recommended by…

Are you looking at plants in your garden and wondering why they aren’t flowering? I am. And I’ve discovered a surprising reason why my cosmos plants don’t even have any buds on them. So to get to the bottom of what stops garden plants from flowering, I asked local flower farmer, Sue Oriel of Country Lane Flowers,…

If you’re going to puppy-proof your garden, there’s lots of advice out there. Not all of it works. As a journalist, I start every project with the assumption that I know nothing and must question everything. I talk to experts, read books and look up scientific research on the internet. And not everything I found about…

Here are 5 top insider tips on how to choose the best plants for your garden. I visited multi-award winning nursery, Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants to ask Rosy Hardy what the experts look for when they’re buying plants. Choose the best plants by looking at the base ‘But it’s more important to look for strong, healthy growth at the…