How can I make the most of my small garden?

Spring gardening tips

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 12:42:13 GMT

Spring gardening tips

The cold and wet weather have delayed the joys of spring for several weeks; however, we finally have had a couple of warm, dry sunny days at the start of April stimulating a late burst of spring colour. This splash of colour has seemed to come all at once, with a grand showing of crocus, daffodils, tulips, cherry blossom and forsythia putting on a glorious show. As for the lawns, grass growth has been particularly slow, I have only just managed to complete my second round of mowing of the year. This onset of a late spring may have also delayed any opportunity to carry out your spring lawn renovations, however, there is still time to undertake this work. The benefits of a spring lawn renovation are numerous giving you the opportunity to:

· Clean out surface moss and fibre

· Aerate/de-compact the soil

· Topdressing with a sand/soil dressing to maintain surface levels

· Overseed with some new grass seed to repopulate the lawn, sowing at a rate of 35grams M2

· Apply a spring NPK base fertiliser

The benefits of this work will be seen later in the summer, especially if you continue to look after the lawn by carrying out regular mowing , feeding and watering.

Mowing should be carried out at least weekly, using either a cylinder/rotary cutting mower, cutting at a mowing height set at between 30 – 40 mm.

Ideally if you want a respectable manicured lawn, you should be looking to cut between two and three times a week and feeding every 4 - 6 weeks with a spring and summer fertiliser.

As for the rest of the garden it is just a case of keeping it tidy and weed free. Spring pruning will help reshape and induce flowering on certain shrubs and trees, made easy with access to a lot of new pruning tools on offer in most decent garden centres. I quite like the new battery powered loppers and hand pruning tools they are very effective and simple to use.

Talking of battery powered equipment, most well-known manufacturers are now increasing the range of battery powered equipment they have on offer. The ongoing reliability of these tools and the longer battery life is driving a surge in the production of battery powered tools for both the professional and domestic gardening markets.

A recent visit to the Mowershop in West Haddon Warwickshire enabled me the chance to see several new battery powered mowers such as the Mountfield Princess 34li and 38li mowers that cost in the region of £350 and £450. Good value and quite comparable with the cost of petrol engine powered mowers.

I also like the concept of robotic mowers, again a number of manufacturers are now offering a range of robotic mowers to suit different size lawns ranging from 300m2 - 4000m2.

They are now very reliable and clever, having on board GPS technology to monitor their performance and refrain them from wandering off site. Most current models do use a perimeter wire to keep the mower working in its designated lawn area. However, it will not be long before these mowers can detect their working environment using sensors and GPS technology.

In Scotland, Edinburgh Council have been trialling a number of robotic mowers to cut some of their local parks and open spaces, the results have been very encouraging with both the public and council officers pleased with the performance and reliability of these mowers.

The cost of these Robotic mowers varies, based on their size and range of cutting capacity. They generally start at around £500 and move swiftly up to £2500.

For example, the Stihl IMO MI 422 model can cut lawns up to 500m2 and will cost around £1,000 whereas their top of the range IMO MI 6 32 PC that can cut lawns up to 4000m2 will cost around £2300.

The Mowershop sold over thirty robotic mowers last year and is expected to see a rise in their popularity during 2018. I was certainly impressed with the quality of cut I saw on their demo area and for most lawn owners the investment in a Robotic lawn mower will take a lot of the hard work of mowing your lawn and at the same time save you a lot of time and money.

Small Garden?

cuttingedgestore@aol.com (Dee Bhogal) — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 13:32:32 GMT

How can I make the most of my small garden?

Well apart from telling you that you can still grow a very wide range of plants, flowers, fruit, vegetables, herbs and even trees in a small garden we thought it might be handy to give you a few ideas if you’re feeling a bit lacking in enthusiasm with your smaller than average garden.

Firstly pots, containers and hanging baskets can really brighten up a small garden and although they won’t forgive you for neglecting them they can be fairly cheap and easy to make up too. If you visit your local market you will find a wide range of pots. One thing to make sure is that the pots have a drainage hole at the bottom, without this the soil will become waterlogged and your plants won’t like that very much and are unlikely to last very long. If you have absolutely no soil then pots, containers and hanging baskets are your only choice.

Don’t be put off by the prices in your local garden centre, remember that these places have to offer a wide range of things and they often have huge overheads. You are better off going to a car boot sale or buying from the side of the road. If you don’t know much about gardening, trust your instincts – you don’t always want to buy the most colourful plants, chances are they have flowered and may be “over”, so buy something with plenty of buds on, and always make sure the leaves look healthy. The person selling will usually be only too happy to impart some advice on how to look after the plant and where to plant it.

If you have a small bed you are probably best to give this to colourful shrubs and perhaps a few herbs. Be careful of mint, it’s like a weed really – don’t be afraid to keep pulling it up otherwise it will just take over. If you think outdoor pots are expensive look for the terracotta kind, they usually cost between £1.50 and about £5 for the really big ones. In all other cases, choose “frost free”. Pots and containers work well in a low maintenance garden because there is very little digging and weeding, just a lot of watering!

If you have a patio chances are at some point you are going to want to give it a good wash, and take it from us water a scrubbing brush is hard work A pressure washer is an ideal piece of kit to get rid of the buildup of grass and dirt and whatever else is lurking in the corners of your patio. Here at Just Lawnmowers we offer a wide range of pressure washers. The Bosch AQT 33-10 Pressure Washer is probably ideal for where you have a small patio or path to keep clean. It is also small enough not to take up too much storage space, either. It features a powerful 1300w motor and a 3 meter pressured hose and priced at just £70.00 inc VAT with free delivery. A great investment which will easily make your patio or pathway looking good in no time at all. It’s electric so you will need a power supply but it’s easy to use and lightweight. If you think you need something with a bit more “oomph” then take a look at our range of pressure washers . And don’t forget a pressure washer will soon get your car clean as well, so it has a dual purpose!

If your garden is small and you are planting from scratch, you could go for a theme. Either choose a colour to work with or perhaps plant only tropical plants, this is especially good for shady gardens as tropical plants mostly thrive in shaded areas. Exotic flowers that would work well in a tropical themed garden would be orchids, hibiscus and jasmine. A coderline or two planted in the middle of some gravel always looks good, but making sure you purchase a mature one will ensure it will be hardy enough to withstand a typical British winter. Planting flowers that attract bees and other pollinating insects to your garden is important too, they will help to ensure your plants and flowers are healthy and you are doing your bit for the environment too! If you are keeping shrubs and containers you are likely to need to prune them once in awhile. Important aspects of successful gardens often feature bird, butterfly and bee friendly plants and objects. A water table and some bird seed hangers are a magnet for birds, and now you can buy specific bird food for different types of birds.

If flowers and plants are not really your thing then how about a bee hive? These are becoming more popular in urban areas and are fairly simply to set up, providing you get the right equipment and follow the advice of the British Beekeepers Association ( www.bbka.org.uk ) they even offer training courses. You will at least get some honey from this.

Some great fragrant plants for smaller gardens are varied and many but a few of our particular favourites are: Roses, lavender, penstemon, star jasmine, and clematis. Choosing plants that grow up a trellis is always a winner in a small garden, but always consider if you need a sunny or shady spot. Honeysuckle, passion flower, clematis, climbing hydrangeas, wisteria to name just a few. A hardy fushia by your front door looks good too.

If space is really at a premium remember that your local DIY store will stock extra small sheds, greenhouses and shelving systems. Here you can also find some great ideas about growing vegetables. Things like potatoes can be grown in bags and don’t require a lot of floor space. And the following vegetables can be grown in containers with the right care and preparation: Beetroot, Broad beans, Carrots, Dwarf French beans, Herbs, Peas, Potatoes, Radishes, Rocket, Runner beans, Chillies & Peppers, Salad leaves, Salad onions, Salad turnips, Tomatoes.

We hope you found this information helpful – and with land at a premium and large gardens becoming rarer as the need to build more houses increases – making the most of smaller gardens will be an invaluable asset as time goes on.

LAWNS

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 14:32:37 GMT

General Maintenance

January might be the middle of winter but as the days lengthen the garden starts to grow. Now is a great time to plan for the coming gardening year and to order seeds and plants. Enjoy the fresh air, on dry sunny days, and check your winter protection, stakes, ties and supports are still working after any severe weather. Also put out food for birds and leave some garden areas uncut, a little longer, to provide shelter for wildlife in your garden.

If the weather is mild you can lay a new turf or repair hollows and bumps in an existing lawn. To repair the lawn, make a ‘H’ shaped cut in the turf, peel back the grass and either fill the hollow with loam, or scraping away the soil from a bump. Re-lay the turf, press it into place and pinch the cut edges together.

Repair lawn edges, especially around flower and shrub beds, with turves cut from other areas of the garden.

If your lawn suffers dieback from treading during the wet, muddy season, then consider laying stepping-stones through it to allow easy access across it without causing damage.