Mark McNee

Author: admin

  • Potassium (K)

    This has a range of vital roles in plants, thought the exact nature and extent of them is still not well understood. It is generally more likely to be in short supply in soils with little clay in them such as peat and sandy soils.

  • Potash

    A common name for potassium.

  • Clearing out

    Now we’ve given the garden a really good looking at it is time to get our hands dirt. Having studied the garden you may well have come to the conclusion some plants are just too big, in the wrong place or you just don’t like them. To start with the last first, because it’s the…

  • Nitrogen (N)

    One of the main plant nutrients and used by plants to make all proteins, and therefore as well enzymes, chlorophyll and many other essential parts of plants. The amount of nitrogen available to a plant is often the factor which limits it rate of growth and its behaviour within the soil is a very complex…

  • Nutrients

    These are chemicals plants use to grow and are often divided into macronutrients and trace elements. These terms are in themselves are of limited use as if the plant needs the chemical to grow, in however small a quality, its absence is going to cause problems. In practice the main ones are nitrogen (N), phosphorus…

  • Feed for health

    As I have said before, the vast majority of domestic lawn problems come down to its feeding. That is not to say you can’t over feed a lawn, most people will have seen a lawn scorch where a heap of fertilizer has been left on it killing it. I also remember reading a report many…

  • Keeping a lawn healthy

    Ideally a lawn should be cut three times a week and the height should be reduced by no more than a third at any one time. In practice the first is never going to happen in a private garden, but the later is a good rule of thumb. The grass cuttings, unless you are using…

  • Trace elements

    This is rather a catch all term for a very large group of chemical elements which plants need, but in very small amounts. It is very rare that adequate amounts of them are not naturally present in the soil.

  • Variety

    This is classification of plants below the level of species which share common characteristics but would freely interbreed with other varieties of the same species if the opportunity arose. For this reason different varieties are often separated geographically. When writing the name of a plant the variety name is written in italics or underlined, is…

  • Cultivar

    This is a plant which has been selected in cultivation because of specific characteristics it shows which separate it from its wild origins and other cultivars. The rules regarding what is a cultivar, how it is named and how the word is used are laid down in the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.…