Fran's Guide to Gardening

Read these extracts from Fran's eBook

The Ultimate Guide to Gardening for Beginners

Chapter 1 - What You Need to Know gives you information about how to get started, including:

... There is some technical ‘stuff’ that garden experts usually tell you is essential before you can create a successful garden. One of these is …

Soil Type

The type of soil you have is important as it determines which plants will do well and which will struggle to grow. In case you’re interested, this soil type is a result of the underlying bedrock and its constituents in your area!

How to identify some of these differences:

· clay soil – when it rains, clay soil becomes heavy, sticky mud, slow to drain away, but when dry, the soil becomes hard and forms cracks. In your hands, this soil is easily formed into a smooth solid ball.

· chalky soil – you will often see small pieces of white chalk within the soil, which is usually fairly light in colour. It drains very quickly.

· sandy soil – this type of soil feels gritty and is difficult to form a solid lump in your hands, and water will drain away very quickly.

· loamy soil – this is the ideal soil for gardeners, dark brown, crumbly but can be formed into a ball. It holds water well but excess will drain away quickly....

This is from Chapter 2 - Plants: giving you information about the types of plants, planting styles and how to plant:

... To help the plant get the best start in its new home, soak the pot in water until the compost is thoroughly moist immediately before you plant it out – this will make it easier for the roots to establish.

Here are just a few points to remember:

· make sure the soil is prepared (see chapter 1) and weed free

· if you are planting a shrub or tree that will become a permanent feature of your garden, dig a hole at least one and a half times the size of the pot, sprinkle some general fertiliser into the hole and fork in (follow instructions on the pack for quantity), make sure the soil is not compacted

· check which way the plant looks best – put it in the hole and stand back and take a look, and make sure that the plant is upright and not leaning

· keep the root ball level with the surface of the soil

· fill in the soil around the root ball (this is called back filling) and firm in gently to ensure there are no air pockets

· and then water in well, thoroughly soaking the soil....

Chapter 3 covers The Gardening Year to help you have year-round interest in your garden:

... Yes, there are flowers for winter, though admittedly not a great number. Amongst the most beautiful are the hellebore family, including the Christmas rose (helleborus niger) with white flowers and helleborus orientalis that have green or pink or purple flowers. These plants are trouble free and self-seed easily giving you new plants for free.

Other possibilities are winter-flowering pansies – what a versatile plant this is – and ornamental cabbages (brassica oleracea), in striking colours of red, pink or cream. They have been used extensively by public parks departments in the last few years, so they may not be to your taste!

Evergreen plants provide continuing interest in the garden during winter, and conifers come into their own at this time of year. They don’t have to be large and fast growing – you can get dwarf, slow-growing conifers. One of my favourites is juniper, and though also available in green, grey or yellow, the one I have, juniperus squamata ‘Blue Carpet’ is a beautiful steel blue-grey colour. Combine these with the coloured-stems of dogwoods, cornus alba for red stems and cornus stolonifera for yellow, and you really can have a colourful garden.

Another way to keep interest in the winter garden is to leave the seed heads on perennial plants such as grasses; leave the skeletons of bronze fennel (foeniculum ‘purpureum’) or the old flower heads of sedum spectabile – they can look really beautiful on a frosty morning. So don’t be too quick to cut down these dead-looking stems, as they also help to protect the crown of the plant during cold weather....

Chapter 4 is on Friends and Enemies in the Garden, with hints and tips on how to deal with the enemies and encourage the friends:

... I also have brambles (rubus fruticosus). Again, I try and keep them in one corner of the garden as, although it takes a lot work to keep them from spreading, I do enjoy the blackberries they provide each autumn!

Wild ivy (hedera helix) is another plant I happily live with, as it is a great habitat for wildlife. Although it won’t harm trees or shrubs, it can damage walls, so just be aware of that.

So how do you get rid of these persistent weeds? Don’t be tempted to rotavate the ground, as this will simply chop up the roots and encourage even more growth. If you have a large patch to deal with, use a glyphosate-based weed killer, which is safe for pets and wildlife once it is dry, and the ground is ready for planting once you have cleared the ground. The best time to do this is in spring when the plants are growing strongly.

Alternatively, you can chop the plants down to the ground, and if you don’t want to dig the roots out, then a flame gun is very useful to kill the new shoots as they appear (do make sure to take care in the vicinity of other plants, and follow the safety instructions). This won’t be instant death for these weeds, and you may need to do this several times, but if you combine this with digging the roots out then you will get rid of them much sooner....

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