Why does my peony not flower?
Planting depth is the answer in most cases and it is the one people find hardest to believe, plus the other five causes and the buds that brown off just before opening.
beginner30 min5 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
Why does my strimmer line keep breaking, and how do I reload it?
Why line snaps at the eyelet, choosing the right diameter and shape, and the winding method that stops it welding together in the spool.
beginner30 min5 min readWhy does one part of my lawn stay dry however much I water it?
Hydrophobic soil — why dried-out organic matter starts repelling water, how to prove it with a spade, and the aeration and wetting routine that actually rewets it.
intermediate1 hr4 min readWhy has my gooseberry bush been stripped of its leaves?
Gooseberry sawfly can defoliate a bush in days, always starting low in the centre — which is exactly where to look, and why checking from mid-spring is the whole technique.
beginner30 min3 min readWhy have my onions bolted and gone to seed?
What triggers bolting in onions, whether a bolted bulb is still usable, and the planting choices that avoid it next year.
beginner20 min3 min readWhy have the leaves on my plum tree gone silver?
The test that separates real silver leaf from harmless false silvering, how far the infection has usually travelled by the time you see it, and when a tree is worth saving.
intermediate45 min5 min readWhy is my plant dropping its buds before they open?
Bud drop is nearly always a water supply that faltered while the buds were forming — plus the specific cases of moving, frost and pests.
beginner15 min4 min readWhy is my tree sending up shoots from the roots and base?
Suckers from a rootstock, water shoots after hard pruning, and root suckering species — three different causes with three different responses, and why cutting them makes it worse.
beginner30 min6 min readWill a climbing plant damage my walls?
What self-clinging climbers actually do to masonry, the difference between exploiting existing damage and causing it, and the situations where the answer genuinely is no, do not plant that there.
beginner15 min5 min readCan I tell whether my soil is acid or alkaline without a test kit?
The plants, stones and local evidence that give you a reliable answer for free — and the two folk tests that do not work.
beginner15 min3 min readDo vertical planters and wall gardens actually work?
Which vertical growing systems genuinely produce a crop and which are a watering trap — the pocket planters, stacking towers, gutter systems and living walls, honestly assessed.
intermediate20 min4 min readHow do I mix my own potting compost?
What a potting mix has to do, workable recipes for seed, potting and long-term container use, and why garden compost alone fails in a pot.
intermediate45 min3 min readHow do I move a really heavy pot on my own?
The techniques that move a large planted container without lifting it or breaking it — pot trolleys, walking, the plank and pipe method, and knowing when to empty it instead.
intermediate30 min3 min readHow do I recover a garden after a storm?
The order to work in after a storm — power lines, unstable overhead, blocked drains and exits, then the plants — and what genuinely saves a blown-over plant.
intermediate2 hr5 min readHow do I stop a wooden raised bed rotting?
Which timbers last, why beds fail at the corners and the ground line first, and the details that take a bed from five years to twenty.
beginner1 hr 30 min3 min readHow do I train an espalier fruit tree?
Building an espalier one tier a year from a single maiden tree — where to make the first cut, why the arms are held at 45 degrees before being lowered, and how to even up a lopsided pair.
advanced4 hr5 min readTerracotta or plastic pots — which is better?
How each material behaves for water, warmth, weight and frost, and which plants are genuinely better off in each.
beginner15 min4 min readWhat can I grow in a coastal garden with salt spray?
What salt-laden wind does to leaves and soil, the plants that shrug it off, and how to build shelter in stages so a garden can develop behind it.
beginner25 min4 min readWhat does bracket fungus on a tree trunk mean?
What a bracket is actually telling you, why its position on the tree matters more than its species to a non-expert, and why removing it achieves nothing at all.
intermediate25 min4 min readWhat has cut neat notches round the edges of my leaves?
Telling a leafcutter bee's smooth semicircle from a vine weevil's ragged notches — one needs nothing done, the other is a warning about the roots.
beginner12 min4 min readWhat is honey fungus and can I save my plants?
Confirming honey fungus rather than assuming it, why there is no chemical control, and the management and replanting choices that actually help.
intermediate40 min3 min readWhat is the difference between a fertiliser and a soil improver?
One feeds the plant this season, the other builds the ground for the next decade — and the products sold as both usually do one of them badly.
beginner12 min4 min readWhat is the difference between an air frost and a ground frost?
The two frosts a forecast reports, why ground frost happens far more often and matters more to seedlings, and how to read a forecast that mentions one but not the other.
beginner8 min3 min readWhat is the white fluffy stuff on my plant's stems and leaf joints?
Mealybug indoors and woolly aphid outdoors both hide under white wax — how to tell them apart from mould and from cuckoo spit, and how to clear them.
beginner18 min4 min read