Gardening in the searing summer sun is always a challenge. Not only do plants wilt in the heat, but gardeners also suffer. But hot summers don’t mean that you can’t have a colourful garden. Numerous care-free plants with tropical temperaments crave high temperatures and strong sunlight. Read the rest of this entry »

Beautiful Rose Gardens, featured examples from the major classes that rosarians use to describe garden roses. All roses belong to a single botanical family, Rosaceae, and also are part of the genus Rosa. There are more than 150 different species of true wild roses found throughout the world, spanning native locales as varied as the tropics and the arctic. A few “roses” commonly grown in the garden are actually hybrids between the true roses and other, non-rose species. Read the rest of this entry »

Training roses to grow on vertical supports allows you to use vertical space in your garden while creating a memorable and creative garden feature. Most rose varieties are suitable for training onto supports, but climber, rambler, and piller roses are the plants of choice for best results. The roses also benefit from the air flowing through their foliage, helping them to dry more quickly and avoid fungal diseases. Read the rest of this entry »

Roses planted in containers require somewhat more care than do in-soil roses. Containers are subject to overheating, dehydration, loss of water-soluble nutrients, and other conditions. Help them thrive by watering them whenever the soil becomes dry, fertilizing every 2-3 weeks, and shielding them from direct sunlight when temperatures climb. Read the rest of this entry »

Regular, deep waterings are best for most roses. Always follow them with several dry days to allow the soil to dry. For container plantings, more frequent irrigation is a must, especially in hot weather. Read the rest of this entry »

Suspended anywhere from a door to a tree, baskets of flowers have an old-fashioned appeal. But with the right plants and container, the hanging basket can have a place in even the most modern of settings. Read the rest of this entry »

Soft colours in gentle harmonies enhance a terrace, a patio or a quiet corner of the garden on sunny days and long, balmy twilit evenings.

Shades of mauve and pink are enhanced by the lilac-grey mulch, which was not only used in the pot but also spread onto the ground at its base. Read the rest of this entry »

A very wide range of tools can be used to create deadwood features in bonsai. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and it is up to you to decide on the amount and kind of deadwood work you want to do, which will, in turn, help decide on which tool would be the best for your purposes.

Chisels

A set of sharp hand chisels and gouges are good for small tasks such as stripping the bark and wood of a small juniper. Chisels are, incidentally, also useful for experimenting with grafting. Read the rest of this entry »

A combination of half coarse river sand, silica sand or fine stone chip (2-4-mm particles) with half good-quality compost is a suitable general mixture. The proportions can be adjusted slightly, depending on the area where you live. Read the rest of this entry »

Some people say you should water plants from overhead, while others advocate surface irrigation. Which is best?

When you water your plants from overhead, you water both the foliage and the ground at the same time. When you surface irrigate, you only wet the soil. Read the rest of this entry »

Growing tomatoes

When is the right time to grow tomatoes and how should I go about preparing the ground for them?

Tomatoes are a warm-season crop and the main sowing period is from mid-September to November. But seed can be sown up to a month earlier if you have a greenhouse or some other protected place. Read the rest of this entry »

There are five main methods of pruning. These match the five main categories of different types of shrubs: deciduous spring flowering shrubs, deciduous summer flowering shrubs, winter flowering shrubs, evergreen shrubs and small- leaved shrubs.

Whichever method is used, you should bear in mind these general points. Read the rest of this entry »

There are several ways to increase your shrub stock. The methods most widely used are hardwood cuttings, softwood cuttings, tip cuttings and layering. Of these, hardwood cuttings are the most likely to succeed, especially with deciduous shrubs. But with certain species, the other methods may produce better plants more quickly. The sections that follow describe how to carry out each technique, and which plants it works best with. Whatever method you choose, bear in mind these general points: Read the rest of this entry »

Gardens, no matter how small, have become incredibly important havens for wildlife. This is because wild creatures have lost many of their feeding and breeding sites in the countryside — either as a result of intensive farming, which makes widespread use of pesticides, or changes in land use. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday afternoon, several folks of mine decided to treat ourselves to a green barbecue of delicious foods. we recycled a spare terracotta pot from the garden instead of buying an expensive high-tech metal barbecue, and use charcoal from sustainably managed woodlands.  I had to say the whole garden pot barbecue idea is awesome. The barbecue is extremely delicious, sizzling and less smoky. Read the rest of this entry »

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

The wormery is a bin (usually plastic) with a lid, and layers or chambers through which the worms move as they eat up the waste.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Green manures (also called cover crops) will improve soil quality A green manure crop is plowed under right in place, adding organic matter high in nitrogen to the soil. In decomposing, it produces humic acid, which helps release locked-up minerals, so you need to add less fertilizer in other forms. Read the rest of this entry »

The extreme case of the lazy gardener might be the college professor who planted his entire vegetable patch in spring and never looked at it again until it was time to harvest. He overplanted and just let the whole business go weedy. He got enough food for the family out of the enterprise, and that was all he was after in the first place.

Most of us aren’t that lazy. We take pride in order and control. The specter of carefully planned and planted crops being choked by weeds makes us shiver. We dream of lush crops and flamboyant flowers with few weeds, but we’d like to be able to reach that goal without accepting slavery. So we compromise and let a few weeds grow, or take a different tack and smother them with mulch. Read the rest of this entry »

“Please, please tell me how to keep weeds out of the asparagus patch,” pleaded one frustrated gardener.

“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.” Read the rest of this entry »