Mark McNee

Category: Garden Articles

  • Autumn Tidy Up

    With the arrival of dark mornings thoughts turn to tidying the garden up for winter. The first frosts will soon finish off the annuals and tender perennials, while the hardy perennials die back for the winter and the deciduous trees and shrubs will take on their autumn colours before dropping their leaves. Any tiding up…

  • Cutting back – the call to arms

    Pruning is cutting back for the plants benefit while cutting back is pruning for the gardeners benefit so certain rules apply to both. First remove dead and diseased material, second remove crossing branches and finally shape the plant. Any dead or diseased parts of the plant are going to be no benefit to you or…

  • Cutting back – the plan

    Before reaching for the pruning tools you need a clear idea of what you are hoping to achieve and in the context of this post it is a healthy plant which fits both physically and aesthetically into its location in the garden. It must not overwhelm the area around it or in the end look…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Taking over an established garden – where to begin

    Most people when they buy a new house find they are taking over an existing garden and this will present certain challenges; you have after all bought their house not their tastes. It is therefore inevitable not everything in the garden you are going to like and/or want. It is reasonable to assume on first…

  • Cutting your new lawn

    Now you have got the garden down to grass you have time to get on with the other pressing jobs about the house while you think about what you are going to do with the garden. Obviously the new lawn will need some attention during the summer and not just cutting it – but we…

  • Turfing a lawn

    Turfing a lawn

    It’s often said that you don’t need to prepare the ground for turfing as well as if it is to be sow. I don’t believe this is the case as in both cases the better the area is prepared the smoother the finished lawn will be. Again the surface needs to be cultivated, raked and…

  • The Gardener’s Guide to Growing Ivies by Peter Q. Rose

    Anyone who dismisses ivies as just green climbers should take the time to look through this book by Peter Rose. The current 1996 edition is still in print and regarded as a standard work on the subject of garden Ivies. Peter Rose (1916 – 1997) gained a National Diploma in Horticulture at Wisley before working…