topgardensuk.com :: Gardens and Garden Tips Articles
Hi everyone
Rusty, our crazy dog is sporting yet another new bandanna, that he wears all the time in the garden and people are always stopping us out on our walks, saying how cool and cute he looks. Must take after me, hey.
This began as a joke as none of us knew what to bring him back as a gift from holiday. Now every time a family member or friend goes away, back comes another bandanna, with everyone trying to out do each other, so much so that it has become very competitive! Our daughter spent time in India last year and found some very exotic ones. He now has every colour under the sun, but red is his favourite colour, and proudly parades up and down the garden.
We had to smile the other day when we were out walking, a little boy came running up to us and asked if Rusty was a pirate dog, and wondered if he could borrow him to go to a pirate themed fancy dress party that weekend. The little lads mother was in hysterics over this as her son said he was never going to be able to find a parrot, and that no one else would have a pirate dog. Rusty just sat with a big smile on his face loving all the extra attention.
June is half way through now and most people are thinking about lazy summer days in the garden, but June has become such a strange month over the past few years. As I recall from my younger days it used be always known as 'flaming June'. I find this new trend is quite worrying with the shortest day of the year just next week, but take a look at your gardens - they are green and luscious, that is great, it just would be nice to be out there and not peering out through the window.
I bet like us you have been dressed one day in shorts and tee shirts only to find the next day a complete deluge, wrapped up in wet weather gear and water streaming down your face and other places you do not want to mention.
I must admit in this type of weather I could do with someone inventing little window wipers so I can keep my glasses clear, boy do I hate that, you are trying to do something in the garden and the water is running down your face and onto the lenses giving you double vision, causing things to go out of focus.
I am seriously looking into get my eyes lasered, therefore not needing glasses at all, but my wife Sandra is not happy about this as I said that I would have both eyes done at the same time, because there is a small risk, but I believe life is one big risk!
Garden tips for the garden.
With all this rain, warmth and sunshine, it means only one thing in your gardens - growth. It makes no difference whether its flowers, vegetables, shrubs, hedges or even weeds, under these weather conditions they grow like mad.
Take hedges for example, a good tip in keeping them under control and looking better also making them easier to maintain is to trim them back more often, more than just the once a year routine when they are really over grown. Give them a quick trim when you see the new growth springing out, this will give a lot less waste to get rid of and make your hedges stronger as the trimming encourages new growth, making them thicker and more luscious.
To get rid of all your waste hedge and other cuttings that are not compostable, using a builders bag is an excellent way to pop them into your car and take them to your local amenity site, as these are strong and can be used over and over. Please do not burn the waste as this usually upsets the neighbours and just adds to the green house gasses. Your local amenity site will recycle all your green waste.
As a side note, even though hedges do need regular maintenance, keeping your shrubs and hedges is one way of helping the environment as they do pull a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere.
And as the advert says "every little helps".
Do not forget to keep up with your dead heading and weeding in the garden .The weeding should be really easy going at the moment as the ground is very soft due to all this rain. Roses need to be dead headed regularly to maintain a good show, unfortunately the rain has made more work for us all as it has been so heavy, a lot of plants have been damaged and need some tender care, but it is worth it.
Lawns. At the moment all you should be doing is cutting them regularly and preferably in the dry. Try and pick your days as you can make a better job when its dry although there is no reason why you can not cut the lawns in the wet, unless you have an electric lawn mower then it is not advisable.
Hope you are enjoying your garden tips for the garden
Ted & Sandra