How do I shade and cool a polytunnel?
A polytunnel heats faster than a glasshouse and shades differently, because you cannot paint the polythene and the ends do most of the ventilating.
beginner25 min4 min read
Garden
Seasonal, practical gardening for people with a normal garden and a normal amount of time. Timings are given for a temperate northern-hemisphere climate — adjust for yours.
687 guides
How do I stop condensation and damp in a greenhouse?
Why greenhouse damp is a winter problem rather than a summer one, and the ventilation, watering and hygiene changes that prevent grey mould.
beginner30 min3 min readHow do I stop mint taking over the garden?
How mint spreads, the containment that actually works, and how to remove it from a bed it has already colonised.
beginner45 min3 min readHow do I stop my clematis being bare at the bottom?
Why clematis naturally strip themselves bare from the base upwards, the support and training that prevents it, and the recovery routes for a plant that is already a bare stalk with a hat.
beginner45 min5 min readHow do I stop squirrels digging up my bulbs?
Physical barriers that work, the bulbs squirrels leave alone, and why every scent-based deterrent stops working within a fortnight.
beginner45 min3 min readHow do I stop the sun ruining my garden furniture?
Ultraviolet light, not heat, is what fades fabric, chalks plastic and greys timber. What each material actually needs, and the small number of jobs that genuinely extend its life.
beginner25 min5 min readHow do I stop wasps ruining my fruit?
Wasps rarely start the damage — they enlarge holes made by birds, codling moth and splitting — so the practical answer is removing the first wound, the fallen fruit and the sugar sources.
beginner40 min4 min readHow do I take hardwood cuttings?
The easiest form of propagation there is — dormant winter cuttings stuck in a slit trench outdoors, left alone for a year, and mostly free.
beginner45 min3 min readHow do I top-dress a large pot instead of repotting it?
The twenty-minute spring job that keeps a large container plant going between repottings — how much compost to take out, what to put back, and where the plant's collar has to end up.
beginner20 min3 min readHow much water does a garden actually need in a dry spell?
How to turn rainfall in millimetres into watering-can loads, why the answer depends on soil and root depth rather than on plant type, and how to work out what you can realistically deliver.
beginner12 min4 min readMy bag of compost smells sour or looks mouldy — can I still use it?
Three different things people report from a bag — sour smell, white threads and green growth — and only one of them means the compost is actually a problem.
beginner20 min4 min readShould I clear up fallen leaves or leave them?
Where fallen leaves do harm and must come off, where they do good and should stay, and the surfaces where they are purely a safety problem.
beginner1 hr4 min readShould I lime my soil, and when should I not?
Lime is a specific correction for a measured problem, not a routine autumn job — when it is genuinely needed, how much moves the number, and the four situations where it does harm.
intermediate40 min4 min readWhat is a frost pocket and is my garden in one?
How cold air drains downhill on still nights and pools where it cannot escape, the signs that your garden collects it, and the two things you can do about it.
beginner20 min4 min readWhat is bokashi, and does it actually work?
What bokashi does that a compost heap cannot, what comes out of the bucket, and the step people forget that makes them think it has failed.
beginner20 min4 min readWhat is the Chelsea chop and should I do it?
Cutting perennials back in late May to make them shorter, sturdier and later flowering, the half-and-half variation that extends the season instead, and the plants that must never be chopped.
intermediate30 min4 min readWhat is the difference between frost-proof and frost-resistant pots?
Why terracotta pots flake and split over winter, what the two labels actually promise, and the test that predicts whether a pot will survive before you buy it.
beginner8 min3 min readWhat is the sunken cracked bark on my apple tree branches?
Identifying apple and pear canker, why it takes hold on wet heavy soil and around wounds, and the cutting-out and hygiene that stop it spreading through a tree.
intermediate1 hr4 min readWhen should I prune evergreen shrubs?
Why evergreens follow different rules from deciduous shrubs, the spring-to-early-summer window that suits nearly all of them, and the group that will not regrow from bare wood at all.
intermediate30 min4 min readWhy are my carrots forked and stunted?
The three causes of misshapen roots — stones, fresh manure and transplanting — and the soil preparation that produces straight carrots.
beginner25 min3 min readWhy did feeding my plant make it worse?
Why fertiliser damages a stressed plant, what scorched roots and leaf-tip burn look like, and how to flush a pot that has had too much.
beginner20 min5 min readWhy do my leaves look dull, silvery and finely speckled?
Stippling, silvering and bronzing are the signature of sap-suckers feeding cell by cell — how to tell red spider mite, thrips and leafhopper apart, and what each needs.
intermediate20 min5 min readWhy do my pears go from rock hard to mushy overnight?
Pears are the one tree fruit that must be picked unripe and ripened off the tree — how to know when to pick, how to control the ripening, and the neck test that catches the right day.
beginner20 min4 min readWhy do my seedlings wilt or collapse inside a propagator?
The lid that helps seeds germinate is the same lid that cooks and rots seedlings — when to take it off, and what the different collapses mean.
beginner15 min4 min read