Why is my rose dying back from the tips?
Distinguishing simple stub dieback from canker and from a plant failing at the roots, and the cutting-back-to-clean-wood method that stops it spreading.
beginner30 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
Why is there white mould, moss or green slime on my compost surface?
What is growing on the top of your pots, why almost none of it harms the plant, and what each kind is telling you about how you are watering.
beginner10 min4 min readWhy is there white powdery mould on my gooseberries?
American gooseberry mildew turns from white felt to a brown felted skin on the fruit — and airflow, pruning and variety choice control it far better than anything sprayable.
beginner30 min3 min readAre Epsom salts good for plants?
They correct magnesium deficiency, quickly and cheaply, and they do nothing whatever for anything else — which is the opposite of how they are usually recommended.
beginner10 min3 min readCan I mulch with grass clippings?
Free, high-nitrogen and genuinely useful — as long as it goes on thin, and as long as you know what has been sprayed on the lawn.
beginner15 min3 min readDo pot feet actually do anything?
What raising a pot off the ground genuinely changes, the two seasons it matters most, and the free alternatives that work as well as the ones sold in threes.
beginner5 min3 min readHow do I build a bug hotel insects will actually use?
Why most bought bug hotels stay empty, the tube sizes and materials solitary bees really want, and the maintenance without which they become disease traps.
beginner2 hr5 min readHow do I map the microclimates in my garden?
A year-long survey done in ten-minute instalments that tells you which parts of your garden are warm, cold, wet, dry, windy and shaded — and stops you killing plants by putting the right one in the wrong place.
beginner1 hr4 min readHow do I train and prune a blackberry?
Blackberries and hybrid berries fruit on last year's canes, so the whole method is keeping new and old canes physically separate on the wires — which turns a thicket into a manageable crop.
intermediate1 hr 30 min4 min readHow do I use a wormery?
Setting up and running a wormery for kitchen waste in a small garden or on a balcony, and diagnosing the four things that usually go wrong.
beginner30 min3 min readShould I use a rotavator on my garden?
What a rotavator is genuinely good for, the three things it does that you cannot undo, and why one pass on couch grass turns one weed into two hundred.
intermediate2 hr4 min readWhat are perlite and vermiculite actually for?
Two white things in bags that look interchangeable and do opposite jobs — one adds air, the other holds water.
beginner10 min3 min readWhat is canker on a tree or shrub, and can I cut it out?
Reading a canker — sunken bark, a callus roll, girdling — to judge whether the tree is containing it, and where a cut has to go if you make one.
advanced30 min4 min readWhy are there small maggots in my raspberries?
Raspberry beetle grubs, the dried-up patch at the stalk end that gives them away, and the soil cultivation and traps that reduce them without spraying an open flower.
beginner30 min3 min readWhy do my apples have brown spots under the skin?
Bitter pit is a calcium distribution disorder, not a disease — why watering, thinning and pruning restraint fix it and why adding calcium to the soil usually does not.
intermediate25 min4 min readWhy do my plants wilt in the afternoon and recover by evening?
How to tell temporary heat wilt, which needs nothing, from genuine drought, waterlogging and root damage — which look identical at three in the afternoon and need opposite responses.
beginner8 min4 min readWhy do plants grow badly in one part of my garden?
How to read a bad corner — light, wind, water, roots, buried ground and old contamination — and decide whether to fix the site or change the planting.
beginner25 min4 min readWhy has my evergreen gone brown on one side?
On an evergreen the position of the browning names the cause — wind on one flank, frost at the tips, salt low down on the road side.
beginner15 min5 min readWhy is my plum or cherry tree oozing gum from the bark?
Telling ordinary gummosis, which is a stress response, from bacterial canker, which kills branches — and the summer cutting and vigour that give a tree its best chance.
intermediate45 min4 min readWhy is there a dark green ring in my lawn?
Fairy rings — the three types, why the ring keeps expanding, why there is no domestic cure, and the honest options ranging from ignoring it to replacing the soil.
intermediate30 min5 min readAre my bluebells English or Spanish, and does it matter?
Four features that separate the native bluebell from the Spanish one and their hybrids, why the difference matters ecologically, and the legal position on native bluebells in the UK.
beginner20 min4 min readAre wood ashes good for the garden?
A useful free source of potassium that is also a fast-acting lime — which is why it belongs on the fruit and the brassicas and nowhere near the blueberries.
beginner15 min5 min readCan I use bath water or washing-up water on the garden?
Which household water is safe on which plants, what in detergents and soaps actually matters to soil, and the rules that keep greywater useful rather than a health risk.
beginner15 min5 min readCan you put too much compost on a garden?
Yes — and the way it goes wrong is not what people expect. Nutrient imbalance, phosphorus build-up and a bed that is no longer soil.
intermediate15 min4 min read