Collect more cuttings than you think you’ll need. The chances are that some will fail.

To give your cuttings the best possible chance, insert them in a half-and-half mixture (by volume) of peat and coarse sand.

Cuttings with leaves need a humid atmosphere, so keepthem in a propagator, or in a pot covered with a transparent plastic bag.

All cuttings require plenty of light – but not direct sunlight, which will scorch them. If you are uncertain which method to use, try hardwood cuttings first.

HARDWOOD CUTTINGS

In winter, when the plant has stopped growing, choose woody, hard stems of the current season’s growth and cut them near the base.

Trim each stem to about 20-25 cm in length. Remove the tip by a sloping cut, and trim the bottom of the cutting with a horizontal cut below a node – the spot where a bud or leaf is attached to the stem. Make the top cut just above a leaf node, the bottom cut just below a leaf node. Most cellular activity takes place at these nodes, and the trimming encourages the lowest node to throw out roots, the uppermost one to throw out shoots – increasing the chance of success. All leaves on the lower two thirds of the cutting should be removed. Large-leaved varieties tend to lose moisture rapidly: this can be reduced by slicing each leaf in half with a razor blade or sharp scissors. Do not remove all the leaves, though – they help to manufacture food for the cutting while it is rooting.

Plant the hardwood cuttings in a well-dug site protected from cold or drying winds and in semi- shade. Make a slit in the soil by inserting a spade tofull depth and then pulling forward a few centimetres. Lay a 5 cm layer of coarse sand in the bottom. Dip the bases of the cuttings in hormone rooting powder and plant them 6-8 cm apart with two thirds underground. Leave 40 cm between the rows. Push soil into the trench, water the cuttings well and tread them in firmly.

The quicker-rooting cuttings will be ready for setting in their permanent site after a few weeks. Slower-rooting species need a year or more. Be guided by the new growth that appears on the cuttings – ample, healthy, new growth is a sure sign that a cutting has rooted well.

Plants suitable for hardwood cuttings: Abel ia, berberis, Buddleia davidii, chaenomeles, datura, lonicera, privet, salix, sambucus, symphoricarpos and tamarix.

SOFTWOOD CUTTINGS

These cuttings are taken between early summer and autumn from the current year’s growth which has become moderately firm but is still growing. Softwood cuttings are green at the tip and the base. Semi-ripe cuttings are green at the tip and slightly woody at the base. Cut off sideshoots about 15-20 cm long, remove the leaves from the lower half and trim them horizontally just below the lowest leaf node.

Alternatively, pull off the sideshoots whole with a heel – a sliver of the main stem – attached. Whether the base has a heel or not, cut off the soft tip above a leaf node to leave a cutting 5-10 cm long. Dipthe base in rooting powder and insert the cutting in a tray or pot so that the lowest remaining leaves are just above the soil surface. Set the cuttings 2,5-5 cm apart.

Water them well and put them in a protected spot, or cover the pot with a transparent bag. Softwood cuttings take 3-9 months to root. Plants suitable for softwood cuttings: Al lamanda, arbutus, aucuba, barleria, brunfelsia, buddleia, buxus, callistemon, camellia (also suitable for leaf-bud cuttings, see cuttings), chaenomeles, choisya, cistus, cotinus, cytisus, deutzia, duranta, elaegnus, escallonia, euonymus, gardenia, garrya, hibiscus, hypericum, ilex, jasminum, ker-r, kolkwitzia, lavandula, lonicera, oleander, philadelphus, phloxes, photinia, potentilla, prunes (ornamental), pyracantha, rhus, roses, spiraea, viburnum and weigela.

TIP CUTTINGS

Try this method if you wish totakecuttings in early summer, though it demands constant care. Select shoots with 4-5 pairs of leaves and sever each shoot beneath the pair of leaves nearest the main stem. A 12 cm pot filled with cuttings compost or a half-and-half mixture of peat and coarse sand will take about 10 cuttings. Dipping thecuttings in rooting powder will help, but it is not really necessary.

Plant them in holes made with a dibber, firm in and water well. Cover the pot with a transparent bag and keep it in a warm spot, in a greenhouse or shade house, but out of direct sunlight.

Never let the compost dry out. The plants should root in 3-6 weeks, but they wi II need to be grown on in the pot for at least a year before being planted out. Because the cuttings usually grow very slowly, it is rarely necessary to replant them in other pots.

Plants suitable for tip cuttings: Abutilon, acalypha, callicarpa, conifer, erica, fuchsia, hypericum and mahonia.

LAYERING

Layering is an ingenious way of propagating shrubs without a shade house or greenhouse. Basically, a flexible branch is bent into the ground and encouraged to grow roots of its own before it is severed from the parent plant. One of the easiest methods is what horticulturists call simple layering. This is how it works:

Choose only first-year branches which have not yet flowered. In autumn, preparethe ground by fi lling a small hole with peat, coarse sand and’ soil, and bend a branch towards it, about 30 cm from the tip.

Strip off the leaves where the branch touches the ground. Notch the underside or twist it to injure the tissue. Dig a hole 15 cm deep in the prepared ground beneath the notched section and partly fill it with an equal-parts mixture of peat, soil and coarse sand.

Peg the notched part into the hole and cover it with the mixture. Stake the tip.

Make sure the spot never dries out, and within 12-15 months the layered branch should have rooted. You can check progress by gently scraping the soil away to have a look, and patting it back in place if the roots are still undeveloped.

Once the roots have formed a rootball I about the size of’the top growth of the tip above them, sever the new plant and its root from the parent branch and set it in its permanent home.

Plants suitable for layering: Azalea, camellia, cornus, cotinus, kalmia, lonicera, philadelphus, pieris, rhus and viburnum.

This tree grows on my neighbor’s wall. It is awesome. But it is amazing thing is the figs are very sweet and juicy.

Actually there are many varieties of fig, some with brown or purple skin and reddish flesh, others with yellowish-green skin and pale flesh.

Brown Turkey The best cropper for UK patios and gardens.

Brunswickhas larger fruits and ripens a couple of weeks earlier than Brown Turkey.

Bourjasotte Grise is especially sweet and needs to be grown under glass, or in a pot and brought indoors in winter.

You can expect some fruit the first year after planting. Once the tree is carrying a heavy crop, feed with a high potash liquid feed until the figs ripen.

It’s no wonder figs were a staple food in Ancient Greece and Rome. They thrive in warm, sunny climates where they produce fruit two or three times a year; they are sweet and succulent; and they are packed full of easily digested nutrients. Because they are soft-skinned, they do not travel well and so are best eaten, fully ripe, straight from the tree.

If you have a warm, sheltered wall facing south or south west, you can grow figs outdoors in a temperate climate. Under glass, with a minimum temperature of 13°C (55°F) from January onwards, you should be able to get two crops; outdoors, only one will ripen, even though the tree may form a second crop.

How to grow figs

The best way to grow a fig against a wall is to train it in a fan shape. This provides a lovely covering of big leaves, but for edible fruit you must give the plant special attention.

• Restrict the roots to keep the tree compact and make it bear fruit — if you don’t, the strong roots will romp away through the soil and all you’ll get is leaves. You can do this in two ways: by planting the tree in a pot that has good drainage and is at least 45cm (18in) in diameter, and sinking it into the ground; or by making a “box” or pit at least 60cm (24in) deep, lined with concrete or overlapping paving slabs and with a thick layer of bricks or rubble in the bottom. Both pot and box should be filled with soil-based compost, with pieces of brick or large grit added.
• Attach vine eyes 20cm (8in) apart, starting at 35cm (14in) from the ground, up the wall, and fix horizontal wires to them. Also ensure the wires are 5-10cm (2-4in) away from the wall to allow for air circulation when the plant is tied onto them.
• Plant the tree 20cm (8in) away from the wall. As the tree grows, tie the side shoots to the wires to form a fan shape.
• Water the tree frequently in the summer, daily if it’s very dry, or the developing fruit will drop off.
• The tiny fruits that form towards the end of the summer need to be protected in winter in cold areas. Cover them with bracken or straw held in place by mesh netting.
• The fig should be pruned in early spring, and any large fruits on the branches taken off.

There is a collector tray at the bottom which holds the liquid that is produced, with a tap to run it off. The lowest chamber has a layer of bedding where the worms live to start with.

As you add small amounts of waste, the worms wriggle up the chambers to eat it — they can eat at least half their own weight in a day — and their casts (droppings) sink down.

Once almost full, take out of the bin the “Black Gold” in the bottom chamber and start again. If you provide the right conditions and regularly siphon off the liquid, the worms will go on eating and breeding for years on end.

Nearly 40 per cent of our domestic refuse is organic material — things like vegetable and fruit peelings, tea bags and food scraps — which can and should be recycled. If they’re sent to landfill sites, they produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, and a liquid called leachate, which can contaminate water supplies.

An excellent way of being environmentally responsible and recycling your own organic waste is to feed it to a colony of worms in a wormery. These obliging wrigglers devour the waste (each worm eats up to half its bodyweight every day) in a dark bin and produce two natural byproducts: a top quality compost that gardeners sometimes call “Black Gold”, which you can use to condition the soil in your garden and in containers; and a liquid that you can dilute to make a superb tonic for your plants.

You can make your own wormery, using stackable storage boxes, wire mesh, a drain cock and synthetic carpet for a lid, but the simplest way to get started is to buy a readymade kit, complete with a supply of the same kind of worms that normally live in well-rotted manure or compost heaps.

Indoors or outdoors?

Wormery bins are often described as “odour free”, but many people find that when they lift the lid off to add more scraps, a strong earthy smell wafts out. So, it may be a better idea to keep your wormery in a utility room or outside the back door, rather than in the kitchen. Even if you rather like the earthy smell, you may find that the liquid that you need to siphon off too pungent. When draining off this liquid, use rubber gloves and store the concentrated plant food in a jar with a tight lid until you need to use it. Then dilute it 1:10 with water and watch your plants perk up within days.

Another reason for keeping the bin outside is that fruit flies are often attracted to the waste in summer and lay their eggs in it. They’re harmless, but a nuisance in the kitchen.

What composting worms like

A mixture of dry and wet waste, such as vegetable scraps, fruit peelings and cores, egg shells, coffee grains, tea bags, cardboard from eggboxes and toilet roll centres, shredded paper, dust from the vacuum cleaner.

• Dark, moist (but not wet) living conditions, at a fairly constant temperature. Keep them out of scorching heat in summer, and protected from frost during winter (for example, with an insulation jacket).
• Good air circulation.
• Regular amounts of waste, chopped up small or shredded.

What composting worms don’t like

• Too thick a layer of waste above them, which cuts off their air supply and makes their living conditions sour and airless.
• Too many foods that make the conditions acid, such as onions and lemons.
• Waterlogged living conditions — the liquid at the bottom needs to be drained off frequently and dry waste, especially cardboard, needs to be added regularly.

Do your muskmelons sometimes taste like squash? For increased sweetness, plant through black plastic. It will heat up the soil several degrees, and that often makes the difference between tasteless and first-rate melons.

“I can’t bear to put holes in my beautiful 6-mil black plastic,” says one lazy gardener. In April, she rototills, fertilizes, and digs organic matter into the plot where she plans to plant heat-loving crops. She lays large sheets of 6-mil black plastic over the soil and leaves them to kill weeds and heat soil until planting time in late May or early June. She lifts the plastic and carefully stores it, whole instead of holey, until next year; then she plants melons, cucumbers, and other heat-loving crops in warm, weedless soil, and lays “cheap black plastic” ( 1.5 mil) around them for continuing easy maintenance.

Warning: If you have snakes in your area, they may find the black plastic and crawl under it. They love the extra heat there.

“My Dad had the ideal solution for weeds in his asparagus patch,” a grower explains. “He built a fence around the bed, and after the harvest, when the spears had grown up tall and lacy, let his chickens loose inside the fence. They ate all the weeds, kept the asparagus beetle under control, and fertilized the soil with their droppings.”

A Few Final Weed-Beating Ideas

If weeds are growing around the perimeter of your garden, scattering seeds into the garden, cut those weeds with a scythe, then add them to the compost pile. The scythe is a remarkable and efficient tool in the hands of an expert. An able hand doesn’t flail at the weeds with the scythe. He holds it loosely, comfortably, and moves the blade by pivoting his body, keeping the blade parallel to and close to the ground. He stops often to sharpen the blade. The scythe doesn’t actually get dull that quickly, but frequent sharpening is a good way to relax shoulder and arm muscles.

Weeds in perennial flower beds are the gardener’s nemesis. How do you enrich the soil and mulch it without introducing weed seeds? “I have a new system, which works,” says Closey Dickey. “Never, never again will I add horse manure, and I’m loath even to use compost. Instead, I topdress every fall with a mixture of peat moss, bone meal, dried cow manure [no weed seeds], and churned-up leaves.”

Weeds are always a nuisance among onions and garlic. A fine, weed-free mulch, such as peat moss or grass clippings, applied soon after planting will lick the problem. You’ll have less area to mulch if you plant them in wide rows or square beds.

Can’t be bothered with mulches?

One gardener sets his lawnmower high and mows weekly between his garden rows, forming weed paths between the vegetables.

Another says, “To have a good garden, you have to get down on your knees once in a while. Recently, I’ve found it pretty difficult to do that. [The speaker is in his mid-eighties. So I leave four feet between rows and use my rototiller regularly to maintain a dust mulch and keep weeds down. It’s a waste of land, but it makes it possible for me to keep a garden.

To lick weeds, concentrate for just one year. This approach works particularly well on areas that haven’t been gardened before, but may be full of weed seeds. In the spring, till, then plant buckwheat at the rate of four pounds per thousand square feet. This is heavy seeding. After it has blossomed, but before the dark seeds form, till the buckwheat under. A day later, plant another crop of buckwheat, again four pounds per thousand square feet. Again, the buckwheat will come up, and so, too, will the weeds, but the buckwheat again will outgrow and eventually kill off the weeds by shading them out. This time, be particularly sure the seed hasn’t formed before you till it, or the buckwheat will be the weed you’re faced with next year.

After tilling in the second crop of buckwheat, plant another cover crop, such as annual ryegrass or winter rye. The result will be three cover crops tilled into the soil, enriching it, plus almost all the weeds eliminated from the site. This is an excellent method to use before raising strawberries, since weeds are what usually do in a bed of them.

Has your soil been poisoned with herbicides? This could be the case on a lawn that you now want to turn into a flower or vegetable garden. It could take as long as five years for the residue to dissipate. You can speed the process by adding extra organic matter to the soil and deep-watering to wash residues away. If the contamination is bad, you may want to mix activated charcoal with the soil, at a rate of 300 pounds per acre.

You think about edible flowers and you think ugh. But not if those flowers are chives. Rick some in a flower bed, preferably the flower bed nearest the kitchen door, and enjoy the lovely lavender blossoms. Throw a few in your salad bowl for beauty and a mild oniony taste.

Be adventurous and let your nasturtiums do double-duty as pest-repellents and gay additions to the salad bowl. Leaves and flowers have a spicy, delicately pungent flavor similar to cress. At pot luck suppers, I can always spot a salad brought by my neighbor, Catherine Osgood Foster, author and organic gardener. The artistically arranged garnish of red, orange, and yellow nasturtium blossoms is her trademark.

Don’t grumble at the zucchini and squash; eat their blossoms before they have a chance to overburden you with produce. Cooks often use the male blossoms, which can be recognized by their long stems. Add to soup, sauté, dip in batter and deep-fry; or stuff with rice, meat, or cream cheese and bake.

Harness the sun’s heat to help ripen cantaloupes. Place a flat stone under melons to absorb heat and help them ripen more evenly. No turning necessary.

For earlier watermelons, pinch out blossoms formed after the first two or three fruits are set, or prune the main vine to encourage side shoots, which set fruit earlier. Make sure the watermelon you worked so hard to grow is ripe before you harvest it:

• Thump it. It should sound hollow.
• Look at the rind. It should be yellow where it touches the ground.
• Inspect the tendrils at the joint just above the melon stem. They should be brown.

Ready to harvest? Cut (don’t pull) it from the vine, with a short stem still attached to the melon.

Take your two-week vacation in August, for best gardening results. By that time your vegetables will be large enough to compete with the weeds, and you won’t return to a jungle of intruders hiding a few defeated vegetables. You will miss harvesting some of your vegetables at their prime, unless you time your planting schedule carefully.

Try pruning fruit trees in summer, instead of in spring, when you are overloaded with planting. Remove all but one inch of new growth of non-fruiting wood. Leave a cluster of three to five leaves at the base. Do this when the base of the new shoot gets woody. This pruning dwarfs the tree, making for easier picking, encourages the development of fruit spurs for larger yields, and gets rid of most of the aphids on new growth.

Houseplants of vacationers will survive for a week or two if encased in plastic. If you plan to be away longer, try this:

• Soak houseplants well with fish emulsions.
• Sink into the ground in a shady place.
• Cover rims of pots with a little soil.
• Cut back some of the foliage on each houseplant.
• Your plants may surprise you by thriving in your absence.

Garden styles

There is a variety of garden styles, from formal to cottage garden, each with its own atmosphere and character. A predominantly natural or wild garden might look best in the country, or, alternatively, it could turn a town garden into a green oasis and bird sanctuary. A Mediterranean courtyard style would suit a small garden or echo Spanish-style architecture. You may like a formal garden for its symmetry, or an oriental garden for its serenity.

There is no need to follow a style slavishly but it provides a good starting point. Keep its essential flavour and use your own site, climate and way of life to give it individuality. Following are some style examples.

Natural garden

This will have relaxed informal shapes; local trees, shrubs and wildflowers; mulch, gravel or stone paths; natural textures such as old brick, stone and timber; log edgings; naturalised bulbs and perennials growing in longer grass; woodland corners; rough boulders and informal watercourses and pond. Plantings are wayward, with interlacing shrub and tree branches, and tumbling ground covers. Plants to choose are irises, day lilies, native plants, old-fashioned roses, fragrant plants such as evergreen magnolia, berried shrubs, violets, liquidambar, eucalyptus and larch.

Oriental garden

A tranquil, orderly design contrasts open space, such as raked sand or moss, against the shape and position of plants and rocks, asymmetrically placed in threes, fives or sevens, and used against real or simulated ponds and watercourses. Use stone lanterns; water basin and bamboo flume; bridges; stepping-stone rocks across water; pavilion; teahouse; hand- washing basin; pebble, rock or moss paths; pebble-covered beds. Plants, often carefully pruned or clipped to shape, include azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons, black and other pines, cycads, nandina, bamboo, podocarpus, Japanese maples, flowering cherries and other prunus, mondo grass and Korean grass, chrysanthemums, wisteria and bonsai.

Cottage garden

A profusion of drifts and clumps of flowers, herbs and vegetables epitomises the cottage garden, with perhaps stone-paved patio, crazy-paving paths, or paths of gravel or basket- weave brick, and rustic seats, arbour and pergola. Plants include old-fashioned shrub roses, violets, lavender, nasturtiums, marigolds, foxgloves, delphiniums, lupins, stock, wallflowers, forget-me- nots, lilies, mixed hedges, rough-cut grass with spring bulbs planted through, lilac, clematis, honeysuckle, and fruit trees.

Mediterranean garden

This ranges from the more formal tiled-and-walled fountain court to the dry- landscape garden which is simple, drought-proof, antique-looking, with wrought iron gates and grilles, and tiled paving.

It could have painted rough-cast brick, or tile- topped brick walls; terracotta or wrought iron accessories; stone fountain; statues; and shuttered windows. Plants include acacia, jacaranda, crepe myrtle, olive, hibiscus, oleander, lavender, rosemary, geraniums, marigolds, gazanias, verbena and marguerites. This style adapts well to gardens in dry areas and could include plants such as succulents and cacti, yucca, strelitzia, palms, and pepper tree. Crushed rock, raked sand and gravel surfaces can be used.

Tropical garden

Plenty of scope here for shady tunnels of green tree ferns overhanging trickling water, with mossy logs and rocks along the banks and leaf mulch underfoot. Plants could include philodendrons, palms, Dizygotheca elegantissima, gardenias, strelitzia, cycads, ornamental bananas, monstera, agapanthus, ginger, Eucharist lilies. In nontropical climates use large- leafed foliage plants for a tropical feel, such as acanthus, ferns, palms, Fatsia japonica, New Zealand flax, calla lilies, cordyline, hostas and yucca. The tropical garden style is easily adapted to an irrigated shady garden, or in cooler climates to a greenhouse or conservatory.

Formal garden

This style relies heavily on symmetrical design, clipped hedges and topiary; clipped balls and spirals of box or myrtle; rose or herb garden with geometrical layout; fountain court or patio paved with terrazzo, slate or stone; flanking pairs of urns or conifers; rows of trees or other plants; statuary and stylised plantings as in a knotgarden or parterre; or low, clipped, box-edged beds. Plants include magnolia, lilies, standard roses and gardenias, agapanthus in pots, irises, tall grasses, conifers, and citrus.

Contemporary garden

The contemporary look has clean lines based on rectangular modules or curves, with harmony in shapes, scale and textures. Features such as curved lawn area and flower beds, patio, pond or pool, and barbecue are fitted into the suburban rectangle. Some gardens have strong architectural features such as pergola, raised beds, retaining walls, latticed screens and paved areas.

Keep a style’s essential flavour and use your own site, climate and way of life to give it individuality

After preparing the seedbed, run string attached to two stakes across the garden. Line up one edge of a steel garden rake next to the string and drag it the length of the row For a wider row, lay out two strings to the desired width and drag the rake between them.

Broadcast seed in the raked area, slightly closer together than you would in a conventional row. Press into soil with the back of a hoe or rake. With the rake or hoe, pull soil from outside the row to cover the seed. (Use enough soil to make a covering four times the seed’s diameter, or for long seeds, as deep as their length. In clay soil, you can cover a little more sparingly than in sandy soil. ) Tamp again. You can cover a planting of fine seeds with a thin layer of straw to help hold in moisture until germination.

Raised Beds

Using the conventional method, soil preparation for raised beds was a lot of work. It involved double-digging, the contemplation of which would send any lazy gardener to the nearest hammock, plus spading in compost, well-rotted manure, bone meal, wood ashes, and more manure.

There’s an easier way. Start with a well-prepared seedbed, but it needn’t be double-dug. Enrich it with compost, manure, other organic matter or fertilizer. The raised beds can be formed with either hand tools or a tiller with hilling attachment.

Keep it simple with hand tools:

1. Mark the bed with stakes and strings. Dick Raymond suggests sixteen inches as good width. Some gardeners prefer beds three or four feet wide. Make them any convenient length. Walkways can be up to twenty inches wide. (One gardener makes them the width of a bale of hay for efficient mulching of walks.)
2. Use a rake to pull soil from walkway to the top of the bed. Stand in one walkway and draw soil toward you from the opposite walkway. When you have completed one side, repeat the process from the other side.
3. Level the top of the bed with the back of the rake. Sides should slope at a forty-five-degree angle. A lip of soil around the top edge of a new bed will help reduce erosion.

Help from a tiller:

1. Stake out walkways of two tiller widths.
2. Attach furrowing and hilling attachment to the tiller. Set hilling wings to the highest position, so they will push soil upward onto the bed.
3. Hill up beds. Line up the center of the tiller in front of the first stake, point it at the stake at the other end of the bed, and guide tiller directly toward it. Repeat on the other side.
4. Smooth the top of the bed with a rake.

To plant raised beds, broadcast small seeds as you would for a wide row. Larger seeds such as for bush beans or transplants such as cabbage should be spaced the distances recommended for a conventional row, but the spacing should be in a pattern that lets the leaves of mature plants barely touch one another, providing a living mulch.

Square Beds

The first year, till the entire garden space and mix organic matter into it before you lay out the four-foot by four-foot beds with walkways in between. In subsequent years, use hand tools to prepare and plant one four by four block at a time. First, divide it in quarters with string or by drawing in the soil. Then divide each of the four squares you have created into four more squares. Now you have sixteen planting units, each one foot square. Plant the recommended number of seeds or transplants within that one-foot square: sixteen carrots, beets, onions, or radishes nine bush beans or spinach four lettuce, parsley, or Swiss chard one broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, eggplant, or pepper

Summer squash and zucchini, of course, would never make it in a one-foot square. Give them more space. Grow tomatoes and wining crops like cucumbers, winter squash, pole beans, and peas on vertical supports.

Whenever you harvest from a one-foot square, add organic matter, such as compost or well-rotted manure, or fertilizer and dig it in with a trowel. That keeps the soil ready for planting, and preparation is never a major project.

Double stakes protect garden from hose

Another gardener, who has several small vegetable plots, drives a stake at the corner of each bed to protect plants while he drags the hose around.

Most of us move sprinklers around to get an even watering in a garden area. It takes time, and the water is rarely spread evenly.

A neighbor of mine, starting a garden, set up his sprinkler and staked out exactly where it watered. Those were the boundaries of his garden.

A chrysanthemum in the vegetable garden is like a canary in a coal mine. The mum wilts before other plants when water is needed, giving you early warning to start irrigating.

Save your water from cooking vegetables. Let it cool. Toss out the door on the herbs or salad greens in your kitchen garden, or the flowers, if that’s what grows there. In winter, use for house‑plants.

Don’t Forget the Flowers

Plant tiny bulbs such as snowdrops, scilla, crocus, grape hyacinths, and chionodoxa in a place they’ll be noticed in early spring but undisturbed during the summer. There’s nothing worse than inadvertently digging them up as you cultivate after their foliage has disappeared and you’ve forgotten they were there. Instead of putting them in a flower bed, try them below light mulch under deciduous trees and shrubs.

Beware of gifts. If your flower-gardening friends offer pieces of perennials they’re dividing, investigate the plant’s growing habits before you plunk it in the ground. It may be a spreader that will take over the garden and become a nuisance.

Have you inherited old flower gardens with your newly purchased home? “It pays to sit and watch for a year. If something continues to grow despite neglect, it’s hardy. Don’t fight it, keep it,” advises an experienced restorer of old grounds. You may find it easier to relocate gardens using old plant material, rather than trying to refurbish a garden in the same place. You can prepare soil in a new bed and move pieces of plants from the old site when you are ready.

Weeds in perennial flower beds are the gardener’s nemesis. How do you enrich the soil and mulch it without introducing weed seeds? “I have a new system, which works,” says Closey Dickey. “Never, never again will I add horse manure, and I’m loath even to use compost. Instead, I topdress every fall with a mixture of peat moss, bone meal, dried cow manure [no weed seeds], and churned-up leaves.”

Weeds are always a nuisance among onions and garlic. A fine, weed-free mulch, such as peat moss or grass clippings, applied soon after planting will lick the problem. You’ll have less area to mulch if you plant them in wide rows or square beds.

• Can’t be bothered with mulches?
• One gardener sets his lawnmower high and mows weekly between his garden rows, forming weed paths between the vegetables.
• Another says, “To have a good garden, you have to get down on your knees once in a while. Recently, I’ve found it pretty difficult to do that. [The speaker is in his mid-eighties. So I leave four feet between rows and use my rototiller regularly to maintain a dust mulch and keep weeds down. It’s a waste of land, but it makes it possible for me to keep a garden.

To lick weeds, concentrate for just one year. This approach works particularly well on areas that haven’t been gardened before, but may be full of weed seeds. In the spring, till, then plant buckwheat at the rate of four pounds per thousand square feet. This is heavy seeding. After it has blossomed, but before the dark seeds form, till the buckwheat under. A day later, plant another crop of buckwheat, again four pounds per thousand square feet. Again, the buckwheat will come up, and so, too, will the weeds, but the buckwheat again will outgrow and eventually kill off the weeds by shading them out. This time, be particularly sure the seed hasn’t formed before you till it, or the buckwheat will be the weed you’re faced with next year.

After tilling in the second crop of buckwheat, plant another cover crop, such as annual ryegrass or winter rye. The result will be three cover crops tilled into the soil, enriching it, plus almost all the weeds eliminated from the site. This is an excellent method to use before raising strawberries, since weeds are what usually do in a bed of them.

Has your soil been poisoned with herbicides? This could be the case on a lawn that you now want to turn into a flower or vegetable garden. It could take as long as five years for the residue to dissipate. You can speed the process by adding extra organic matter to the soil and deep-watering to wash residues away. If the contamination is bad, you may want to mix activated charcoal with the soil, at a rate of 300 pounds per acre.