After a summer of high temperatures and little rain, gardening magazines, blogs and posts are full of recommendations for drought-tolerant plants.  But are drought tolerant plants the answer? Looking around my garden, its clear that the classic drought-tolerant perennials have survived well  – my eryngiums, rubeckias, heleniums, euphorbias and salvias have fared well. And all they have had is the odd bucket of water. But then my soil, which is a heavy loamy clay and retains moisture, was heavily mulched to improve the water retention further.  As I have written many times, the k ..read more

Here are a few top tips to help get you through the current drought especially in those areas where you can’t use your hose pipe Prioritise the areas of the garden that need water – pots, newly planted trees, shrubs and other plants, the veg plot etc. The lawn is definitely at the bottom of the list as it is resilient and will recover. Don’t disturb the soil by weeding etc as this will cause more water to be lost. If you need to remove any weeds, cut them off at ground level and leave the roots in the ground and the soil undisturbed. Water in the morning or evening when its cooler so less wat ..read more

We have all seen flowers appearing earlier than ever – daffodils in December, magnolia in February – but now the extent of the change has been revealed by a new study. The research, carried out by a team at Cambridge University, found that plants in the UK are flowering as much as a month earlier than just 70 years ago. Its long been known that temperatures in urban areas are higher than the surrounding area due to more buildings, cars and people etc, something called the urban heat island effect. But these changes are more than can be expected from urbanisation – global warming is contri ..read more

Salvias are generally drought resistant, long flowering and many have scented foliage, plus they are great for attracting pollinators too. They are the perfect option for a hot, dry border with free draining soil.   There are annual, biennial and perennial salvias. Planted in the right spot, the shrubby and hardy herbaceous salvias can overwinter. There are a number of half hardy species that need protection from frost, so are either grown in pots or lifted and moved to a greenhouse, for example Salvia blepharophylla,  Salvia cacaliifolia, pineapple sage (Salvia rutulans), and Salvia ..read more

Kim Stoddart gets up and close and personal with this important enabler of veg patch life and explains how to keep it fertile and simply fantastic all year round… It may not look very glamorous but this earthy substance is the key to the success of your food growing efforts. Treat it well and make it as effective as can be with the addition of compost, mulching, and (if you have it) rotted manure. There will be no need for bought-in fertilisers or plant feeds at all. It’s no wonder then that in an organic growing system, soil is king as this nutrient-rich super loam can contain all the food yo ..read more

Its that time of year when we are all planning what to grow on our plots. Kim Stoddart outlines her favourite produce for effective buddy planting on the veg patch… To be perfectly honest with you, my gardens are one large mix and match, biodiverse affair. What started with experimentation into companion planting many years ago has ended with raised beds filled with many varieties of produce with barely any block planting in sight at all. I much prefer it this way. It’s harder for pests to seek out their favourite produce when it’s mingled in with less desirable others and I no longer need ..read more

A garden or allotment can look a complete mess after surging floodwaters have passed through.  It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just rainwater, but most flood water carries with it all sorts of contaminants – plastic, sewage, manure, slurry and chemicals, such as oil and pesticides, and much more besides. So, if you suspect that the water is contaminated, wear protective clothing and waterproof boots while in the garden and keep pets away. It best to avoid going into the garden until the flood waters have drained away. Before you do so, make sure the electricity supplying any outside sockets ..read more

Far too many people have experienced local flooding in recent months caused by extreme weather. One problem is surface water – with so many hard surfaces in urban areas, it doesn’t have anywhere to go and the result is localised flooding. The cause in part is the loss of green land in built up areas – as vegetated areas are built on or paved over, the typical urban street struggles to cope in periods of heavy rainfall.    A new report has found that Edinburgh is losing the equivalent of 15 football pitches of green land every year, more than half of which is due to urban creep – that’s the ..read more

Kim Stoddart explains why not meticulously tidying away every crop on your veg patch at the end of the season will reap you multiple marvellous rewards…. Traditional advice dictates that once your crop is ready, or your harvest spent, every remaining plant should be plucked immediately from the ground. It’s all part of this mindset of quick turnaround veg production. One in, one out while making room for the next crop, or later in the season, tidying the veg patch by bedding it down for winter. While it of course makes sense to make the best use of every available growing space, and to have ..read more

For those of you who are more experience seed savers, Sally has written a thought-provoking article on saving seed. To  save seed or not to save seed?  I can hear you all shouting ‘of course save seed’ and as generations of gardeners have done, I diligently save seed each year because locally-adapted seed is best – or is it? I have saved parsnip seed for the last 10 years, with the parent generation being the open pollinated Tender and True, a heritage variety chosen for its resistance to canker. The description of Tender and True on Suttons is: “Heritage Seed Variety, 1929 packet deta ..read more