What staging should I put in a greenhouse, and where?
Slatted versus solid, fixed versus removable, and the layout that lets you grow tomatoes in summer and raise seedlings in spring without fighting your own benches.
beginner20 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
Which manure is best for a garden — horse, cow, chicken or sheep?
What each animal's manure is actually good at, the bedding that changes the answer more than the animal does, and the contamination risk that varies between them.
beginner15 min4 min readWhy do my pear leaves have bright orange spots?
European pear rust needs both a pear and a juniper to complete its life cycle — which is why it has spread through UK gardens, and what can and cannot be done about it.
beginner25 min3 min readWhy do my plants die after heavy rain, and how do I tell drowning from drought?
Waterlogging kills by removing air, not by adding water — the symptoms it shares with drought, the ones that separate them, and what to do while the ground is still wet.
intermediate20 min5 min readWhy do my plums and cherries split after rain?
Splitting is a water problem with two halves — rain absorbed through the skin, and soil that swung from dry to wet — and only one of them is under your control.
beginner20 min3 min readWhy will nothing grow where a conifer hedge used to be?
Four things happen under a conifer hedge at once — total dryness, exhausted soil, a mat of surface roots and a thick needle litter — and they need dealing with in that order.
intermediate3 hr4 min readCould there be bats in my tree, and what does that mean?
Which trees are likely to hold roosts, the features to look for from the ground, and what happens to your tree work if bats are found — which is usually less than people fear.
intermediate25 min5 min readDo I need a heated propagator?
What bottom heat genuinely changes, the small number of crops it matters for, and why it makes leggy seedlings worse unless you fix the light too.
beginner15 min4 min readDo self-watering pots and planters actually work?
How the wick and reservoir system really behaves, the plants it suits and the ones it kills, and the winter problem nobody mentions.
beginner15 min4 min readHow do I cut back ornamental grasses without killing them?
The one test that separates the grasses you cut to the ground from the ones you comb through, when to do each, and why cutting an evergreen grass down often kills it.
beginner40 min5 min readHow do I deal with lily beetle?
Recognising the beetle and its disguised grubs, why hand picking beats spraying, and the timing that keeps lilies and fritillaries intact.
beginner20 min3 min readHow do I measure soil temperature and why does it matter more than air temperature?
Where and when to take a soil reading so it means something, why cold soil rather than cold air is what stops seeds germinating, and how to warm a bed before you sow into it.
beginner10 min4 min readHow do I naturalise bulbs in grass?
Which bulbs actually spread in turf, the scattering method that avoids a planted look, and the mowing calendar that decides whether the display improves or dwindles.
beginner1 hr 30 min4 min readHow do I root prune a plant to keep it in the same pot?
The dormant-season operation that keeps a mature shrub, bay or acer in the same container for decades — how much root to take, how much top growth to match it, and the aftercare that decides whether it works.
intermediate45 min4 min readHow do I stake perennials so they do not flop?
Four supports and what each one suits, why every one of them goes in during spring, and the alternatives to staking that remove the problem altogether.
beginner1 hr4 min readHow do I stop raspberries spreading across the garden?
Raspberries spread by suckers from shallow roots, so mowing, edging and a barrier work and digging usually makes it worse.
beginner45 min3 min readHow do I wrap a tree fern or banana for winter?
Protecting the growing point rather than the whole plant, the wrapping order that keeps water out, and when to take it all off again.
intermediate1 hr 30 min4 min readShould I plant in autumn or spring?
The genuine trade-off between the two planting seasons, which plants and which soils clearly favour one over the other, and the four questions that settle it for your garden.
beginner12 min5 min readWhat can I plant instead of box?
Six genuine substitutes for low clipped box hedging and topiary, what each does better and worse, and the honest trade-offs on speed, hardiness and cost.
beginner20 min4 min readWhich climbers actually flower on a north-facing wall?
The difference between a cool shaded wall and a genuinely dark one, the climbers that flower well with no direct sun, and why a north wall is often kinder to a plant than an east-facing one.
beginner15 min4 min readWhy are there ants all over my plant?
Ants on a plant are almost always a symptom rather than the problem — what they are farming, when the nest itself does damage, and how to break the relationship.
beginner15 min4 min readWhy do my baby pears turn black and drop off?
The pest that removes an entire pear crop in May every year, how to confirm it by cutting a fruitlet open, and the picking-off and soil cultivation that break its one-generation cycle.
beginner40 min4 min readWhy does the soil in my raised bed drop every year?
Some of the drop is normal and healthy, some of it means the bed was filled wrong — how to tell which you have, and what to top it up with.
beginner30 min4 min readWhy has my compost heap stopped working in hot weather?
Composting is done by organisms that need water, and a heap in a dry summer stops for lack of moisture rather than lack of heat. How to tell, and how to restart it.
beginner20 min5 min read