Hydrangea Miss Saori – RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year 2014. Available for sale now, buy yours here.
Terri works in the e-commerce marketing department assisting the busy web team. Terri manages our blog and social media pages here at Thompson & Morgan and is dedicated to providing useful advice to our gardeners. Terri is new to gardening and keen to develop her horticultural knowledge.
Due to the wet winter and mild spell in April my garden is thriving! The perennials and shrubs are looking so advanced in my borders and the lupins are trying to flower already. What is most unusual for this time of year; I have delphiniums in bud. Not that I am complaining!
Terri works in the e-commerce marketing department assisting the busy web team. Terri manages our blog and social media pages here at Thompson & Morgan and is dedicated to providing useful advice to our gardeners. Terri is new to gardening and keen to develop her horticultural knowledge.
The Big Allotment Challenge – what do you think? Now the series has come to an end we’d like to know what our gardeners thought. We have been watching week in week out and have really enjoyed it, and we have to give a massive congratulations to Alex and Ed who were crowned the best growers!! Since the first episode we have read opinions across social media and some have loved the series and some not so much; so we would like to know why you liked or disliked the series.
Terri works in the e-commerce marketing department assisting the busy web team. Terri manages our blog and social media pages here at Thompson & Morgan and is dedicated to providing useful advice to our gardeners. Terri is new to gardening and keen to develop her horticultural knowledge.
There is nothing more frustrating for a gardener than purchasing, growing and nurturing a plant for it to be destroyed by pests or disease. As gardeners we strive to protect our crops and this can be an enormous challenge especially when we have to try identify what has caused the damage. Even more frustrating, those shifty beasties are often hidden and not noticeable without a thorough search.
I have collated my top 5 tips to help you reduce the chance of infestation, and due to the overwhelming questions asked by our Facebook and Twitter followers, I will discuss the most common concerns which will hopefully solve your gardening concerns too.
Sometimes there is no right or single answer to getting rid of pest and diseases so these tips are intended to help reduce the risk of attack of any pest and disease in your garden;
Our facebookers and tweeters took to social media to ask their pesky queries; from slugs to mildew we had it all. It soon became clear that our gardeners need help with preventing and eliminating pests and diseases to save their garden.
Slugs and snails are probably the most common pests that will attack your crops, and by the time you notice their damage they are often long gone. No wonder gardeners resort to throwing them over fences – which is another discussion we had on Horticultural etiquette! So, how do you prevent snails and slugs from attacking your crop? You can use beer traps, or apply sharp scratchy mulch such as gravel to deter them. For a more targeted approach try using Nemaslug, which is completely safe around children, all animals, birds and wildlife – except for slugs and snails.
Ants can also be a nuisance although they don’t directly damage your plants. They often set up farms of sap sucking aphids, from which they gather sugary honeydew. You can try applications of ant deterrent around their nests and watch to see where they move to. If you keep applying it wherever they move, then sooner or later they will find somewhere to live which will be less of an inconvenience to you. It is also well worth encouraging insectivorous birds to your garden who will help to keep the ant population down.
Diseases such as Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew affect a wide range of plants. Many plants are now bred with Mildew resistance to help combat the disease. Good air circulation and watering
For more information view our full pests and diseases guide.
Terri works in the e-commerce marketing department assisting the busy web team. Terri manages our blog and social media pages here at Thompson & Morgan and is dedicated to providing useful advice to our gardeners. Terri is new to gardening and keen to develop her horticultural knowledge.
Is there a code of horticultural etiquette? Since the recent RHS poll which revealed that one-fifth of gardeners discard of their snails by putting them over their neighbours fence, we have been thinking of other rules and regulations in the gardening world. 78% of those polled by the RHS said they do not throw their snails over fences, but out of that 78% how many really do and won’t admit to it? We may never know but, I believe there will be some people in that percentage that certainly discard of their snails over fence. Sometimes we never like to admit to doing something that is considered wrong or of bad etiquette, i am one of them! Etiquette is a code of behaviour that depicts what is socially acceptable, a standard of what is considered the ‘norm’, if there is such a thing. Here is what we came up with;
Terri works in the e-commerce marketing department assisting the busy web team. Terri manages our blog and social media pages here at Thompson & Morgan and is dedicated to providing useful advice to our gardeners. Terri is new to gardening and keen to develop her horticultural knowledge.