Garden Centre

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Knowing what you're doing

If you plan to garden outdoors and grow anything more than grass, you need to have a basic understanding of the conditions of your plot. This understanding includes:

1 The condition of the soil
2 The light, wind force and direction and temperature throughout the year
3 What grows well locally.

And ideally should also encompass what’s grown in the soil before you arrived. This last can be a tough one to find out and isn’t essential, but the other three are.

Let’s assume you want to grow potatoes, calla lilies and heathers. Well, you’re in trouble for a start because potatoes like loose, well-drained soil high in organic matter, as do callas, but your heathers will demand light, slightly acid soil and a cool, moist climate, so something has to give way! Trying to grow too many plants with varying and competing demands is one way to wear yourself out and achieve nothing – I’d either put those heathers in pots, where you can give them special ericaceous compost, or find something else that will harmonise with your overall garden planting.

To know your soil you have to look at it in more than one part of the garden, at more than one depth, and at different times of year. For example, at the bottom of my plot, the original owner had glasshouses and I’m forever digging up bits of her footings and foundations. Laying a lawn over that kind of rubble would result in bare patches, so I’ve chosen to pave it and put in perennial shrubs whose roots will cope with the occasional half-brick or bit of concrete. Once you know where your soil is rich and poor, waterlogged or free draining, you need to turn it. Turning the soil reveals what’s underneath, aerates it so that bacteria and worms can do their job of enriching it and breaks up clods that are anaerobic which means they don’t allow water or nutrients to penetrate easily and so are an inert on non-growing medium. I’m very fond of kit like this, which allows lightweight gardeners like myself to turn the soil without killing ourselves. And once the soil is turned, allow the weather a chance to break up those clods and lumps before you begin planting.

Labels: garden tasks, garden tips, garden vegetables, garden-tools

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:11 AM 2 Comments

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Problems with Bulbs

Some bulbs take over the world – as is shown in this photograph. These woods are noted for their bluebells, but even so, if this happened to your garden you’d probably be a bit peeved. The only thing that stops it happening – if you have bluebells – is the fact that their rampant spread does require clear soil (so they romp away under trees, for example) and dappled shade (which the trees are good at providing too) and most gardens don’t offer those conditions. You may find you have blue spikes emerging in your lawn or round your sundial, and the only thing to do is life the bulblets and hope the parent plant gets discouraged.

Digging up bulbs? This will help ...

On the other hand, some bulbs never seem to get going. In my garden, there is ‘The Mysterious Case of the Crocus that didn’t Flower’ – which isn’t actually that mysterious at all. Like many gardeners who try to encourage wildlife, I wrestle with the issue that the wildlife I want and the wildlife I get are two different things! What I get is grey squirrels, and what grey squirrels really enjoy, come winter, is digging up my precious crocus bulbs, all stuffed with starch and sugars to serve their flowering season, and having a good munch. The past seven years of Crocus Patrol have revealed some interesting results:

1. white, cream and lilac bulbs taste best to squirrels. Yellow and dark purple bulbs are usually left in the ground.


2. a squirrel can dig up a crocus bulb and run off with it in the time it takes me to open the back door and charge across the lawn.


3. squirrels like to sit on the fence and eat crocus bulbs, just to annoy the dogs who bark like frenzied lunatics and hurl themselves at the fence until (a) they get concussion, (b) the neighbours come out and complain, (c) I drag the dogs inside by their collars


4. a good shot with a garden hose can hit a squirrel amidships from about twenty feet away


5. if you manage to squirt the squirrels often enough, they just come back and dig up the bulbs at night

Labels: bulbs, garden tips, garden-tools

The All Seasons Gardener at 12:14 AM 0 Comments

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