One of the many joys of having a well-planned garden is that you can have ready access to freshly-cut flowers to add colour and scent to your home all year round. Your home-grown flowers will be less expensive than the florist/shop bought variety and also there’s the extra satisfaction and enjoyment from growing your own cut flowers in a sustainable manner that then decorate your home both inside and out.
Hints And Tips For June 2016
June is the peak of the gardening year in most gardens so your jobs this month should include:
1) Regular weeding. Nobody’s favourite job so make it less onerous by catching the weeds early and staying on top of them.
2) Mow your lawn at least once a week but never mow it too short. The middle setting on your mower is short enough to create a thick healthy sward. Feeding your lawn during June is also a good idea.
Ten Flowers & Shrubs That Will Thrive In Our Soil
GreenArt’s base in South Oxfordshire is an interesting and quite varied place to create and establish Gardens.
The starting point for all gardens is the soil. Along the Thames, the soils are silty, deep and fertile. On the slopes of the Chilterns and the downs, the soils are thinner with clay, flint and chalk and, as a result, are often high in pH. Contrary to popular belief that many garden plants demand lime-free soil, more species actually thrive on alkaline conditions rather than dislike them.
Hedgehogs are the gardener’s friend as they particularly enjoy eating beetles, earthworms and slugs and therefore should be a regular guest in most UK gardens. Whilst they do roam far and wide in search of food, they will naturally return to an area that provides richer pickings.
2016 sees the celebration of 300 years since the birth of possibly the greatest British landscape designer; Capability Brown. It also sees domestic garden design at a fascinating point.
Brown’s style came from two practical principals; comfort and elegance. Today, these principals still feature on many a garden wish list, often translated into “a nice place to sit with colour and interest”. However, these days low maintenance is increasingly cited, alongside supporting wildlife and the environment.
May is definitely the most dynamic month of the year as your garden springs into life; your job is to make the most of it!
Clean And Clear
Make sure all dead material from the winter, such as leaves, dead stems etc. are removed to prevent pests and diseases affecting the plant and to allow space and air for emerging growth. If you haven’t done so yet, thoroughly clean pond pumps and filters to ensure a good flow of water helps to aerate your water feature, encourage plant growth and minimise algae build-up as the sun starts to warm the water. Be careful not to disturb any fledglings in hedges and frog spawn in ponds.
Six great reasons for creating a wildflower meadow in your garden.
A Splash Of Colour!
Planned and planted correctly, a wildlife meadow will give you an ever-changing view from Spring to Summer of some of Britain’s most amazing species of native wildflowers.
Lawns And Grass Areas
The weather has finally sorted itself out and those pesky cold snaps should be over. After a few false starts, Spring has finally sprung properly with the daffodils out and a few days of consistent sunshine.
However, they don’t call them April showers for nothing so expect a couple of days of drenching rain too this month!
General Maintenance
Although Spring is in sight, we are still experiencing the occasional cold snap and risk of snow, so this month, we’re looking at areas of general maintenance to ensure your trees and shrubs stay in fine fettle until the weather warms up.
Although we’ve had one of the mildest winters, more cold weather is predicted. So, why not head indoors or to the greenhouse and get started sowing seeds now to create a mass of colour in the summer?
