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News - Page 103
Remove algae and pond weed from water features to keep them looking at their best. Algae turns water an unattractive green. Natural solutions which won’t harm fish or wildlife, such as floating barley pads on the surface of the water or using liquid additives and extracts in the water to subtly change the water’s pH, making it unattractive to algae. But the best way to prevent it is simply to grow more pond plants: aim to keep about a third of the w...
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Cut herbs to store for winter right now and keep that just-snipped, fresh-from-the-garden flavour in your cooking all winter long.
Storing Herbs
It might seem early to be thinking about winter storage, but herbs are at their absolute peak this month. Pick as large a bunch as you can from leafy herbs like basil, marjoram, mint, coriander, parsley, dill and chervil, preferably in the morning when they're full of essential oils and at t...
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Keep your roses blooming at their peak into autumn with a little extra attention now to keep them flowering and looking at their best through summer and beyond.
Rose bloom
Dead-heading is the single most important thing you can do to keep those flowers coming: removing spent flowers encourages more buds to form. Snip the flowered stem right back to the next healthy bud below.
If it’s been dry, give each plant a thorough soakin...
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Summertime… and the living is easy. The hard work drops away and you have time to relax and enjoy the beautiful garden you’ve created. There are a few small jobs you can be getting on with, though:
General tasks:
- Edge lawns with edging shears to keep them sharp and neat: lawn edges grow faster than surrounding grass so need trimming more regularly.
- Clip hedges now that the birds have f...
The world’s largest flower show opens its doors this week as the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show gets under way.
Hampton Court Flower Show
There’s a new category this year, ‘Gardens for a Changing World’, with designers taking as their theme how gardeners can meet the challenges we face in our ever-changing world. Among the big subjects they tackle are extreme rainfall, the healing power of plants, and the use of plants to regen...
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Look after your tomatoes well at this time of year and they’ll reward you with baskets of gorgeous sun-ripened fruits bursting with juice and flavour.
Tomato care
Go through your plants weekly nipping out any side shoots emerging between the main stem and the leaves. Let them grow and the plant produces lots of greenery at the expense of fruit, so snap them off between thumb and forefinger at no more than 10cm long.
Keep...
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Plant globe artichokes now to enjoy one of the gourmet highlights of the veg garden as well as adding a handsome, architectural plant to your back garden display.
Globe artichokes
Globe artichokes are among the most beautiful of vegetable plants, with jagged silvery leaves which grow a whopping 1.5m tall and wide. They make a striking feature plant, especially when topped with those tall flower spikes: leave a few on the plant to ope...
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Create an alpine trough to display the tiniest, most delicate beauties of the plant world to perfection, set off against sculptural stone and grit just as they would be in their mountainous homeland.
Alpine trough
You’ll find troughs for alpines at the garden centre here in Pickering made of stone, tufa or lightweight stone-effect plastic. Place a layer of gravel or broken terracotta pots in the bottom, then fill the trough with comp...
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Move houseplants outdoors for a summer holiday so they come back inside refreshed and ready to give you their usual superb display next winter.
Most houseplants enjoy a spell outside in the warmer weather, including cymbidium orchids, ficus, peace lilies, bromeliads, and Christmas cacti. Keep more delicate, water-sensitive plants like African violets and moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) indoors, though.
Move houseplants outdoors
Th...
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It’s British Flowers Week – your chance to celebrate the best of British grown, beautifully fresh cut flowers and foliage.
Pop into the garden centre here in Pickering and treat yourself to a gorgeous bouquet of in-season British-grown flowers to mark the occasion: right now you’re spoilt for choice, with roses, alstroemeria, lilacs, freesias, lavender, pinks and sweet williams all in season and flowering their socks off. Put together y...
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