UV and water: the two things you need to worry about when it comes to maintaining garden furniture. They are also the two things garden furniture oil protects the wood from. UV from the sun will quickly age furniture, robbing it of its rich warm colours and leaving it with …

One challenge with vacuuming wet leaves from the lawn or garden is that they tend to clump, requiring more suction power to pick them. Another even bigger challenge is that they can easily clog the mulching or shredding mechanism inside the vacuum. You need a garden vac that can handle …

Blackfly are the bane of many gardeners’ lives. They can decimate a broad bean crop, and even if they don’t completely destroy it they are unsightly and, well, a bit gross! You want to know how to get rid of blackfly on broad beans? Most of us do, so we …

Broad beans are a great, versatile vegetable, that have a great deal more that is good about them than memories you might have of them in a soggy pile on a plate at your Granny’s Sunday dinners. They are delicious, versatile, very good for our general health – and there …

Honeysuckle’s foliage is beautiful, trailing and attractive – but the flowers are something else. The delicate scent evokes spring and summer, and they are especially delightful in the early evening. So you have planted your honeysuckle and you are looking forward to the flowering season. But what to do when …

Compost in the garden is an incredibly useful addition, especially if you are growing vegetables that need a lot of nutrients. You can buy compost from a garden centre, of course – or you could save money and make your very own! How to make organic compost for gardening is …

Honeysuckle is a beautiful plant, that not only makes attractive foliage, but also the most deliciously scented blooms. Honeysuckle is a plant that, once you smell it, you won’t forget it soon! This is a good, hardy, strong plant, that can cope with all the different types of weather and …

When you replant Alstroemeria, it may be tempting to dig them up and check the progress – do not do this! You can also wait and see if they come up – but if you are seeing no growth at all then you might start to worry. Rather than sitting …

Some plants grow from seeds, others from tubers – also known as rhizomes. Alstroemeria is one of the latter, and this is actually a great way for plants to propagate themselves. By growing as tubers under the ground, the plant can not only produce flowers and seeds and grow that …

Although bamboo is a relatively hardy plant, it can suffer damage and disease as much as the next plant. When a plant’s leaves turn yellow, there is always a reason behind it, whether that reason is a specific plant illness or a nutrient deficiency. But how to revive bamboo leaves …