Summer Gardening

Dahlias are the showstoppers of the late summer garden, delivering an explosion of colour just when everything else is starting to look tired. If you’ve ever wandered through a garden centre in spring and been tempted by those gnarly tubers promising dinner-plate-sized blooms, or felt slightly overwhelmed by the hundreds of varieties available, this guide […]

Right, let’s be completely honest about this from the start. Beekeeping is not what you think it’s going to be. I’ve been keeping bees for four years now, and I can tell you that every romantic notion I had about gentle summer days extracting golden honey while wearing a fetching straw hat has been thoroughly […]

You’ve chosen beautiful plants, spent good money on quality specimens, and carefully planned your garden design. Yet something’s not quite right. The garden looks off. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone! Even experienced gardeners can fall into plant placement traps that sabotage their best intentions. Let me, the Garden Ninja, walk you through the […]

You may have noticed tall, thin, segmented green spikes emerging in your flower beds, driveway, cracks in paving or behind the shed and then realised it’s a mare’s tail. This weed is remarkably resilient and can survive in nearly all conditions and environments. But if mares’ tail or horsetail weeds are causing mayhem in your […]

If you spend most of your time trying to stop slugs and snails from decimating your garden’s plants, then its time you think about using slug-proof plants themselves as the deterrent! These slug-proof plants will have those slimy creatures crawling elsewhere! Slug proof plants doesn’t just mean boring evergreen blobs, shrubs or trees, there are […]

Lawn edging and flower border edge stips are a really effective way of keeping your garden flower beds and lawn looking sharp all year round. In fact, it’s one of my garden design secret weapons! I use lawn and border edging in most of my designs to help reduce garden maintenance and increase the amount […]

A lush, green lawn might seem like the ultimate goal for many gardeners, but maintaining turf can become a constant battle, especially if you want that bowling green lawn all year round. You’ll be left juggling with mowing, feeding, aerating, and watering your lawn on a near-endless rotation! Lawns demand time, energy, and resources from […]

Sometimes gardeners can get a bit triggert happy when ti comes to pruning trees, especially in winter when ther true shape of the tree is laid bare. However, did you know that cherry, plum and apricot trees, (any in the prunus genus) shouldn’t be pruned in winter due to them contracting a fungus called silver […]

Whilst the weather here in the UK can be a bit temperamental, as in summer, it feels like it’s a 2-week affair, then over, you would be surprised just how favourable our weather is for growing awesome plants. If your garden is lucky enough to be in full sun, then this list of full sun […]

Working out which direction a garden faces is one of the first things I do when I’m working on new garden designs. The garden aspect is a crucial part of garden planning. If you ignore the position of the sun in the garden you will struggle to find the correct plants. It also means you […]