Dig It

In this episode Bill and Peter suggest a visit to Toddington Open Gardens on the 4th and 5th July and also if you are passing they both like Poplars Garden Centre as a great place to visit or pop in for tea and cake if you are going past on the M1. In Northamptonshire we have Irthlingborough and Drayton Parslow in Milton Keynes.Hanging baskets are looking good now, but are food hungry so feed them with a high potash feed (K) like TomoriteThe Hertitage Seed library was at the NEC for Gardeners World live and at the show they were asking people to bring in seeds and plants that they think might be heirloom varieties. You can get seeds from them which you won’t find in most Garden Centres.Grass is on the telly a lot at the moment with the World Cup on. Bill shares some of the methods of commercial turf cultivation and growing. With our lawns at home in the summer experiencing less rainfall ideally they need to be watered but it’s best not to aerate in dry spells as this opens up the ground and will cause evaporation. Granular fertilizer as well can cause issues if it doesn’t rain after application, if you want to use a fertilizer then a liquid one is probably best.If you have bedding geraniums cut the flower stalks off once the flowers start going over, deadhead surfinias to encourage more flowers. If you are feeding your plants it’s best to do it in the morning, and if possible do it on a cloudy day so there is no chance of water droplet magnification which can cause leaf burn from the sunlight. Bill also tells us of other plants we can trim back to encourage more flowering next year and a great recipe for a winter fat ball for your birds. Make sure you keep your bird baths filled up with fresh clean water. If you have Strawberries try Slug gone pellets to help keep the slugs from eating them.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for the music.

25 Gardens are open in Stony Stratford over the weekend of the 27th and 28th and there are also gardens open in Stonefield where 11 gardens will be open. We also share the sad news of the passing of Matthew Biggs the old Gardener’s World presenter and life-long horticulturalist, and garden designer.Bill and Peter also chat about Roses, the different types and where to use them, how to grow them and a few uses for the hips. Pruning is important as is care, keeping them tidy, feeding and looking out for pests and diseases. As with so many prickly plants we always recommend wearing gloves when working with them.It’s also that time of year when Strawberries are very popular. Bill shares a tip on how to sweeten them and how many litres of cream Wimbledon goes through! We have a large selection available at the moment but you can propagate them from the runners or stolens they send out. The British season has been extended and extended with the use of selective breeding and sometimes the supplemental use of LED lighting. Often Strawberries are now grown off the ground making picking easier and fungal problems less likely. 

In this episode Peter and Bill chat about Bedding, Bokashi, and fertilizer. Bill suggests a few places to visit starting with Goring on Thames, Fritwell and Hanslope who have open garden weekends. We chat about bedding for flower beds and how the fashions have changed. We used to do 3 plantings a year but now we mainly do just summer bedding. Bill talks us through ways to plant, numbers to get a nice balance and some suggestions as to what will make a good display.

In this episode Bill and Peter chat about Hanging Baskets and Containers and the benefits of using Kindergarden's Pop Ins. We love the fact they are so simple and easy to plant and within a few weeks give you a great display which can last the whole summer. As one of our fastest moving products and only available for a short window you need to get your timing right to be able to buy them. All they need is a 40cm container or hanging basket, some compost to bring them up to the correct level, pop them in, water and feed them when needed and you can sit back, relax and have a great colourful display for months on end. Bill also gives us some pointers on how to create a good hanging basket with some suggestions on numbers and types of plants. We also discuss a Cornish commercial bedding supplier who can create you stunning floral displays featuring clock faces, names, logos or other images you might want.

In this Episode Peter Talks with Chris Hepburn, Senior Sales Manager of Hozelock.Chris has been with Hozelock for many years and worked his way up through the company and gained a fantastic knowledge of the Horticultural Watering Marketplace. We chat about where the company first started and why, and where the first ideas for the first products came from. Hozelock has a great reputation as a British manufacturer and we learn how this has happened and their drive to always be an attainable, reliable and ecological product in the garden watering sector. Without them we would still be putting our thumbs over the end of our hosepipe, some of our range can be found online or for the full range, come and visit the Garden CentreHozelock has brought to England some Market leading products and some ideas from further afield, we learn about how across the world the Male to Female ½ inch hose connector has become a standardised fitting, and also a brief history of hoses, their makeup and their fittings. We also get an insight into the amount of product testing and large number of different materials that go into their products.We also hear about how Hozelock is evolving as a manufacturer to keep pace with the changing marketplace and how it is growing and diversifying its range to stay abreast of new ideas and additions to the watering range and also how its range now encompasses products that don’t just fit on a hose and spray water, like its range of composters.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for providing the music.

Chelsea Gold medals decided. We like the new Hosta red ninja, the beautiful Red Greenhouse by Malvern Garden Buildings and various phallic houseplants on the sex toy manufacturer’s sponsored garden. The ‘Lady Garden’ was designed with fantastic sculptures, manicured bushes and beautiful coloured planting and will hopefully start conversations focused on female genitalia cancers and open up discussions on the subject. Peter liked the Contain the Rain Garden as it highlights the fact that water is a limited resource and we should do more to make our gardens more ecologically friendly. It’s that time of year to get planting hanging baskets and shortly we will have Kindergarden Pop Ins back in stock. We like their great selection of styles and colours and the simplicity of using them to create fantastic hanging baskets or planted containers, the only trouble we ever have with them is we can’t get enough and they sell out too fast!Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for creating the music.