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Category: Tips Hints and Ideas

Help for the new and not so new gardener

Edible Flowers Top Ten for Chelsea

Edible Flowers Top Ten for Chelsea

Eat up the fruit and veg in your Chelsea Pimms and look for flowers in your salad.

Book Cover
Food for Free (Collins Natural History Paperback)

There are many plants whose flowers can add spice and variety to our food. Use the petals after removing the stamen and pistils. This list of tips and a top ten is based on colour and taste.

  1. Wild Garlic flowers can be picked in hedge rows and add a soft garlic taste to salads.
  2. Lavender can be used to flavour sugar or dried and used in cakes.
  3. Courgette flowers are often stuffed or battered in posh restaurants and make a delicate starter.
  4. Nasturtium flowers make good salad or sandwich accompaniments
  5. Legume flowers like pea and bean flowers are delicate additions to a salad or soup.
  6. Rosemary flowers go well with fish
  7. Calendula or Pot Marigold petals have a peppery taste and make good salads.
  8. Violet flowers are also peppery but look good decorating a salad.
  9. Day Lily ‘Hemerocallis’  flowers can be used in stir fries.
  10. Chive flowers taste fine in an omelette aux fine herbs.

Do not eat flowers that have been sprayed with insecticide or fungicide.
Always wash flowers gentley but well.

2 Ways to Kill Your Slugs

2 Ways to Kill Your Slugs

2 way slug killer

I have always wanted a new way to kill the slugs in my garden and now I have discovered how. The ‘old mangle trick’ seems to be the one for me, put the slug between the rollers and give the handle a good old turn.
Environmentally friendly (if not in the slugs mind) this mangle uses no chemicals and causes no CO2 emissions. Slug juice can be caught in the green urn and bits removed with a pointy stick provided.

If you are squeamish or squashist then you will have to resort to the blue pill (I mean pellet). Available from slug lovers Amazon

The mangle is not yet tested on the large evil Spanish slugs that are achieving what the armada failed to do

Garden Tools – Maintenance Tips

Garden Tools – Maintenance Tips

When the growing season comes to a close there are garden maintenance jobs that can make next years gardening even more pleasurable. Good maintenance will extend the life of your tools and save you money.
An appropriate and well maintained tool will do a better job than making do and mending. From my experience these are some top tips for maintaining your tools during autumn.

clippers

Tool Maintenance Tips

  1. Start with the best quality tools you can afford and look after them.
  2. Keep your tools clean and do not put them away wet.
  3. Maintain your Secateurs by sharpening and oiling.
  4. Keep a sharp edge on cutting blades including spades. It is worth investing in a sharpening stone (they are quite cheap and easy to use).
  5. Wipe off any sap that gets on the blades or edges of your tools. Sap can be very sticky and build up a thick layer on lawn mowers or secateurs unless you are careful.
  6. I like to oil wooden handles to keep them smooth and discourage cracking. Sand off any rough edges and use a good furniture oil.
  7. Set up a place to store your tools when not in use. Small tools can be strung & hung from a frame in the shed rather than lumped together in a pile where they may get damaged.
  8. Do not leave standing water in metal buckets, watering cans or wheelbarrows to avoid rust or frost damage.
  9. A brightly coloured handle or bright marking will help you find that trowel that you have just lost. A dab of paint may do the job
  10. Where needed I wrap ‘gaffa tape’ around rough handles to improve the hold.
  11. Straighten and bent tools and replace any badly damaged tools.
  12. Learn how to select a special tool for a garden job

Using the right tool for the job makes a gardeners life easier. However many gardeners take delight in making do and mending – on balance I like a mix of both methods.

Top Rockery Plants for Growin In UK

Top Rockery Plants for Growin In UK

alpine21

Rockery plants look very good in spring as they trail over rocks and edges in the garden. The rockery mimics natural conditions for these alpine dwellers often with limestone rocks or fast draining poor soil.

Top Rockery Plants for Beginners

  • Arabis shown above is also known as snow-in-summer and has showers of white flowers. The plant is robust and useful for covering rough stoney ground. Some species need a bit more care but are useful in the rockery including Arabis rosa a pink form and arabis bryoides that forms a small mat of hairl leaved rosetts.

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Quick Gardeners Tips

Quick Gardeners Tips

Holly in the Wild

A tip of the month from last years gardening calendar with selected additions from Gardeners tips.

  1. Recycle your Christmas Tree by shredding it for mulching Rhododendrons
  2. Put out fresh food and water for the birds through winter
  3. Protect emerging shoots from Slugs from March
  4. Plant strongly scented plants next to edible ones to deter pests

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Growing Gazania ‘cos they goes in here

Growing Gazania ‘cos they goes in here

Gazinia

These flowers goes-in-‘ere

Gazania are one of the most colourful of garden flowers. The star shaped daisy like flowers can be up to 3 inches across and are available in a range of colours as this photo shows.
The flowers of most varieties are stripped and zoned. As in this photo they display their vibrant colours even in cloudy conditions but prefer the hot sun.

Gazinia …

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Tree Planting Tips

Tree Planting Tips

Planting Deciduous Trees

Tree planting isn’t difficult as long as you remember a few top tips. Find out how tall the tree will grow so you can plan and allow enough space. Do not plant trees with big root systems too close to buildings. Focus on getting good root systems in the first year. I prefer bare rooted trees to container grown trees to help root growth.

Season for Planting

Choosing the right season is important for your tree’s health. The best season to plant just any all tree is Autumn or early winter when the weather is cooler but not yet freezing. The roots will develop in the cooler weather, and by spring, the tree will be ready to put on leaves and take up nourishment.
Trees grown in pots can be planted as soon as they have been purchased. Avoid pots where the roots are pushing through or are tightly twisted around the pot.

Trees

Planting Your Tree

Prepare the soil where you want your tree by adding some compost and drainage material, if the soil is too water logged. Trees will be in the same position for a long time so I add some slow release bone meal fertiliser at the bottom of the hole. An old saying is dig a £30 hole for a £10 tree or make it a large, deep, well dug hole so the roots can spread. The tap root helps hold the tree in place and the hair roots help feed and water the tree. Spread the roots out cutting off any damaged roots. Tease out the root ball from a pot grown tree to avoid roots curling back on themselves.

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Plug for Jersey Direct Plug Plants

Plug for Jersey Direct Plug Plants

wall flower

Plug plants are an excellent way to acquire plants without the risks, time, space and effort needed with seeds. They are a fantastic way to buy annuals, perennials or bedding plants to fill your garden with colour or get some part grown veg plants.

July is a good time to order spring-flowering wallflowers, primroses, pansies and bulbs amongst others. I have just used Jersey Direct for my wallflowers that I want to get in early this year so they have a chance to get bushy. Generally I leave them to get a bit straggly so I must remember to pinch out the growing tip before they start their winter slumber.

If you wish to see what other plants are available as garden ready plugs for delivery from now until October from Jersey Direct click on our button on the bottom right.

March Jobs

Icebergs Rosey and Leafy

Icebergs Rosey and Leafy

Rose Iceberg
Rosa Iceberg

Global warming has not made my Iceberg rose melt or disappear. On the contrary it is doing very well.

In the top picks for many rose enthusiast this is one shrub that can look after itself. Any floribunda rose should have lots of buds and blossom and Iceberg doesn’t disappoint. These buds are slightly pink, opening regularly through summer and autumn to display classic white roses.

Compared to other roses this plant is disease resistant, feeds some aphids and has sharp thorns but all is forgiven in lieu of its great display.

Tips

  • Icebergs bloom on new wood so prune before Easter to get good growth.
  • Encourage your Iceberg to grow tall in a ‘White Garden’ – you can also get Iceberg as a climber sport

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