Gardening Articles

Do you love your garden but not sure of the best way to prune your clematis, propagate plants for next year, make the best of your lawn or produce good quality compost?

If so then take a look at our gardening articles which we are sure will be useful to you. These articles are aimed at beginners and are written in the most simplistic way possible but if you require personal advice you can complete our Advice Form and we will email our response as quickly as possible.

• Aquatic Gardening, Ponds and Aquatic Plants
• Building Projects in the Garden
• Butterflies
• Composting in the Garden and the Kitchen
• Cut Flowers; Growing and Care
• Flowers and Plants
• Fruit and Vegetables
• Garden Birds and Wildlife
• Garden Maintenance Tasks
• Gardening for Children
• Green Gardening
• Greenhouse Gardening
• Lawn Care and Maintenance
• Outdoor Living
• Pests and Diseases
• Poisonous Plants
• Pruning
• Safety in the Garden
• Soil and Soil Improvement
• Types of Plants
• Weeds

Butterflies in your Garden

A well designed and maintained garden is a joy but what make a garden complete is to have it full of bird song and the fluttering of butterflies.

There are 58 butterfly species in Britain and by carefully planning your garden you may be lucky enough to see a good number of these in your own garden. There are some essentials to ensure that butterflies will stop to take nectar from your garden, just follow the guidelines below.

Sunshine

You must position your butterfly plants in a warm, sheltered, sunny spot in your garden. Spend some time observing which parts of your garden get the most sunshine for most of the day. Butterflies will rarely feed in a shady area but part shade may suffice

Shelter

As mention above a sheltered spot is preferable as butterflies do not like to be buffeted by the wind.

Overnight Roosts

Grow some climbers and tall shrubs to enable the butterflies to roost overnight well off the ground. Hanging baskets also work well.

Food for Caterpillars

Most butterflies will only lay their eggs on specific plants in order to provide the right food for their caterpillars. Leave a patch of your garden “wild” with some long grass and nettles. Nettles are very popular with Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Red Admiral and Comma butterflies. If you don’t have room in your garden to leave an area “wild” try planting some nettles in a large pot and hide it away in the shrubs

The Right Plant for your Garden

Although there are quite a number of plants which butterflies love, do remember that the plant must also be suitable for your soil type and the aspect of your garden. See our Soil & Compost page for more information on soil types.

Visit our Plants for Butterflies page for a full list of the plants loved by our British Butterflies and the Butterfly Year to see which butterflies will visit your garden each month of the season.

Plants for Butterflies

	Shrubs Shrubs are used to add structure to a garden and can provide interest all year round. The shrub most loved by butterflies is Buddleia but they also like Choisya, Ceanothus, Ceratostigma, Hebe and Lavender. For acid soil try Hydrangea.
	Herbs Butterflies love lots of herbs including Hyssop, Chives, Thyme, Marjoram and Mint.
	Fruit In the Autumn leave a few fallen fruits for the late butterflies to feed on. They also like autumn-fruiting raspberries and blackberries.
	Annuals Annuals are a great source of food for butterflies. They particularly like Candytuft and Virginia Stock. Sow annual seeds directly in the ground every few weeks from March to May to ensure a succession of flowers throughout the summer. Half hardy annuals will have to be sown indoors and planted out once the risk of frost has passed. If you don’t have the time or space to sow seeds, plant plug-plants when the weather warms up. These are now readily available from most garden centres and larger DIY stores.
	Perennials Perennials can live happily in your garden for many years and require very little maintenance. Most will die down during the winter and re-emerge in the spring with an abundance of new growth. Many of these are loved by butterflies, some of their favourites are; Sedum, Verbena Bonariensis, Red Valerian and Aubretia.
	Biennials Biennials are sown one year and flower the following year but you tend to find that they will continually self-seed so once you have them they are there forever! An excellent source of food is Forget-me-not and Sweet William.
	Wildflowers Butterflies, in general, tend to prefer wildflowers to cultivated ones. If you have the space provide a small wildflower meadow. Once sown it only requires to but cut down at the end of the year. The flowers will self-seed and produce more the following year.

To find out more about Butterflies visit our articles The Butterfly Year and Butterflies in your Garden.

The Butterfly Year

In most parts of the country the butterfly season runs from March to November.

However, regardless of the time of year butterflies tend to be seen on sunny days; not on overcast ones.

The peak month is August when you can expect a number of butterflies in your garden every day provided that it’s sunny.

Below are some examples of butterflies you can expect to visit in each month between March and November and to find out more about Butterflies visit our articles Butterflies in your Garden and Plants for Butterflies:

March	Small Tortoiseshell Red Admiral Peacock Comma Brimstone Large White Orange Tip	Holly Blue Painted Lady Small White Speckled Wood Clouded Yellow Green-veined White Small Copper
April	Brimstone Comma Green-veined White Holly Blue Orange Tip Peacock Small Tortoiseshell Speckled Wood	Small White Large White Painted Lady Red Admiral Brown Argus Clouded Yellow Common Blue Small Copper
May	Brimstone Comma Green-veined White Holly Blue Large White Orange Tip Small White	Speckled Wood Common Blue Painted Lady Peacock Red Admiral Small Tortoiseshell Brown Argus Clouded Yellow Large Skipper Small Copper
June	Large Skipper Large White Small White Meadow Brown Speckled Wood Painted Lady Red Admiral Peacock	Small Tortoiseshell Green-veined White Orange Tip Holly Blue Common Blue Small Copper Comma
July	Small Skipper Essex Skipper Large Skipper Gatekeeper Meadow Brown Small Tortoiseshells Red Admiral Painted Lady Marbled White	Ringlet Comma Peacocks Small White Large White Green-veined White Brimstone Holly Blue Speckled Wood
August	Peacock Small Tortoiseshell Red Admiral Painted Lady Comma Gatekeeper Meadow Brown Speckled Wood Large White	Small White Green-veined White Brimstone Common Blue Holly Blue Brown Argus Small Copper Small Skipper Essex Skipper
September	Small Tortoiseshell Comma Red Admiral Speckled Wood Large White Small Copper	Small White Green-veined White Painted Lady Peacock Clouded Yellow
October	Small Tortoiseshell Red Admiral Comma Peacock	Painted Lady Large White Small Copper
November	Red Admiral Small Tortoiseshell Brimstone	Comma Peacock

Butterflies and Nettles

Question:

I want to encourage butterflies in my garden and have a patch of nettles. At which time of the year is it best to trim the nettles as they do spread about a bit and I don’t want to ruin the butterflies by chopping the nettles down at the wrong time of year for them?

Answer:

The best time to cut back the nettles is March and again in October. Visitors to nettles are the Red Admiral, Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock and Comma butterflies. The eggs and larvae of these butterflies are present on nettles between April and June, with adults emerging between May and October. Adults either hibernate in sheds, attics or shrubs and hedgerows through the winter.

I don’t know if you are aware that nettle leaves can be used to make liquid manure which is great for your garden. The best time to start is in the Spring so that you can use the feed throughout the summer period.

You will need four things:
• nettles
• watertight container such as a large bucket
• water
• a weight

Here’s what to do:
• Cut down the nettles bruise them slightly then chop or tear them into pieces
• Fill your container with water and immerse the nettles
• Place the weight on top of the stems to keep the nettles under the water
• Leave to brew for three to four weeks
• The brew will get quite smelly so you may want to place it away from the house
• Before using, the brew should be diluted around one part liquid to ten parts water
• Just water it around the base of your plants throughout summer
• Continue to top up your container with more nettles and water throughout the year
• In autumn put the remainder of the feed and the sludge in your compost heap and start again next spring

What’s looking good in August

I went out into the garden this morning not expecting to see much to photograph and was surprised at the number of plants looking really good.

Often August is a quiet time in the garden but with plants such as Japanese anemone, Rudbeckia, Buddleja and Hibiscus you can guarantee a good display of colour. Take a look below:

Rose mallow Hibiscus syriacus ‘Oiseau Bleu’	Anemone ‘September Charm’ Japanese anemone
Rudbeckia laciniata ‘Herbstsonne’ coneflower	Lysimachia clethroides – Loostrife
Rose campion (Lychnis coronaria)	Hypericum ‘magical red star’
Buddleja  ‘Pink Delight’ butterfly bush	Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’ Japanese anemone

All photographs were taken and are owned by Linda Peppin if you wish to use these photographs in your own work please drop her a line using the contact us link below.

Low Maintenance Flower Beds

Question:

Our local council have decided to grass over four of the flower beds along our road due to cost cutting. They have said that they will consider alternative use of the beds i.e. monument or alternate designs. It has to be low maintenance and be appropriate for the seaside setting as the cliffs are about 200yards away. Can you offer any design ideas or websites that I can use to get advice.

Answer:

Hello, thank you for your email. What a shame you council have decided to remove the flower beds. However, I think one solution that would work well in terms of location and minimal maintenance is to produce gravel gardens. Basically they can remove existing planting and check that the soil is sandy and free draining, if not they can mix in a good quantity of gravel. Add sheets of weed suppressing membrane then top off with gravel and some decorative boulders, stones, driftwood etc. For planting they should use grasses as they will look good for most of the year and only need cutting back once a year, usually in the spring.

I suppose if this is thought to be too much maintenance they can just plant one or two (depending on the size of the beds) pampas grasses in each bed. They require little or no maintenance and can be quite impressive when in full flower.

Another idea, although not exactly coastal in design is to use prostrate woody plants such as Cotoneaster horizontalis, Cotoneaster dammeri, Pyracantha (instead of training it against a wall let it spread along the ground). These plants will soon cover a large area and once establish require no maintenance at all. If a weed suppressing membrane is laid before planting then the weeds should be kept away until the plants establish. An added bonus is that the berries in autumn will feed the local garden birds and the flowers in spring attract butterflies and bees. The links are to Crocus.co.uk to show you what the plants look like.