Straightforward advice on choosing, planting and caring for flowers, shrubs, trees and other plants that suit real gardens.
A small garden can feel full very quickly. You start with a couple of pots by the door, add some herbs, perhaps a tomato plant or two, then strawberries appear, a bag of compost gets tucked into a corner and suddenly there is nowhere left to put a chair. The difficulty is that growing more…
A tiny garden can still grow a surprising amount of food. The key is choosing crops that earn their space, using containers well and making the most of walls, fences and every useful corner.
By late summer, most gardens are not crying out for a complete redesign. They usually need something much simpler. A gap has appeared where an earlier plant finished. One end of the border has gone rather brown. There is plenty of green but not much colour. Or the bees are still arriving and there suddenly…
An easy guide to knowing when perennial plants need dividing, the signs to look for and how to replant them successfully in early autumn.
August can make the garden feel like one long to-do list. This guide sorts the jobs that genuinely help from the ones that can wait, so you can keep things growing without spending the whole month working in it.
I had always assumed drip irrigation belonged in professionally landscaped gardens, along with underground sprinklers, immaculate lawns and somebody arriving every Tuesday to trim things. Apparently not. You can now set up a basic drip irrigation system for a flower bed or mixed border for under $40. Add a programmable timer so you do not…