How to Prepare Your Garden for Autumn

Now that we’re nearing the end of August, we’re starting to get the summer blues and will need to think about preparing our gardens for the autumn season. It’s time to clear away the annual bloomers and prepare for colder weather. To help you, we have some tips from a topsoil seller in London.

Garden time with kids - vegetable growing

Both of the boys love being outdoors. They especially love spending time in the garden. Not only do they love playing in the garden but they also adore helping to care for the garden.

From a young age they’ve both been little green fingered gardeners who love nothing more than helping tend to the garden. They love planting seeds and caring for plants and flowers, watching them grow and bloom. They also find it lots of fun to get stuck in and muddy digging up holes to plant beautiful plants and flowers. 

Picking the best type of grass for your lawn needs

The grass is greener, but only when the right grass is used for the right purpose! If you don’t have much of a green thumb, then you might not realise just how varied grass types can be. There are certain grasses that are better than other for you children to play on, for instance. Take a look through out guide below to find which grass would be best for your garden, whatever you use it for.

How your garden can help tackle air pollution

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Rising air pollution is a big problem. Air pollution can cause both short term and long term effects on health. In fact 40,000 deaths each year in the UK are linked to toxic air levels. The severity of this invisible killer is highlighted in the fact that one girl's tragic death could mark the first death certificate to have 'toxic air' cited as the primary cause of death.

With toxic air impacting on our health it is no surprise that people are considering what they can do to tackle air pollution.

Looking at our carbon footprint and making positive changes to lower our carbon footprint can help fight against rising air pollution.

Another way to change toxin levels in the air is to look at things that will clean the air – PLANTS! Thankfully there are a number of plants that can be grown in your garden and community areas that are ideal for fighting air pollution as they help purify and clean the air. Let's venture outdoors and look at the best plants to help purify, filter and clean the air.

Garden care during autumn and winter

To have a healthy, flourishing and beautiful garden it is important to remember that caring for your garden is an all year task. Whilst gardening in the spring and summer may be more appealing, to keep your garden looking its best it needs to looked after during the autumn and winter too.

Gardening during the different seasons requires you to tackle different gardening tasks as the garden will have different care requirements. Not only do the different seasons have their own season specific maintenance tasks but different flowers, veg and fruit need to be planted during specific time periods to grow during different seasons.

How to Encourage Eco-Friendly Practices in Your Home

As people we are becoming more and more aware of how important it is to take good care of this world around us. This means looking at our everyday lives and seeing if there are things that we could to better to protect the environment, use less resources and just generally be much more eco-friendly.

One great place to start on your eco-aware journey is at home. Whilst you may think that this only has a small impact, if everyone made this small impact, then it would come together to make a pretty big, pretty impressive result.

Top gardening gadgets for every keen gardener in 2018

Technology is always developing, and this year, there is a selection of innovative devices and machines to help avid gardeners get ahead.

If you want to know what the best new technology is in gardening, check out this tech guide to discover the top must-have gadgets for gardeners in 2018…

Getting to Grips with Your Garden

Your garden is full of life and colour but if it feels like it can sometimes run away with you, you need these top gardening hacks. Save time on weeding and pruning, and more time relaxing and enjoying your garden.

The beauty of fake grass

The garden is an extension of a home. Play and pleasure can be had there. Kids can play, garden parties and BBQ’s can be hosted al fresco, it can be a tranquil haven for relaxation and a beautifully cared for garden can evoke pride and joy.

Gardening is something that can be enjoyed by both adults and children alike. Adults often find gardening relaxing and the pride of seeing a garden transform and hard work come to flourish is very worthwhile. Children can learn about nature, be instilled with an ethic of working hard and gain a sense of achievement.

Whilst gardening is an all year round job, with there being different chores at various time of the year, this time of year induces an extra spark of interest in gardening and desire to give the garden some extra TLC.

Natural grass - high maintenance garden (patchy, muddy and discoloured)

Spring is the perfect time to transform the garden. Whether it is planting new plants, freshening up garden furniture, laying some decking, creating a special garden feature such as a water feature or relaxation area or redesigning your garden inspired by garden trends; now is the time to put in a little bit of effort to make your garden look amazing for the spring and summer months ahead. 

This years must have garden product is fake grass.

Caring for your garden all year round

Whilst it can be an easy mistake to think of gardening as a spring and summer job the truth is that gardening is an all year task.

To have a flourishing and healthy garden it is important to care for it all year round. The different seasons require different care requirements and gardening tasks. As well as season specific maintenance each season has different flowers, veg and fruit that flourish and the different seasons welcome its own variety of wildlife.

Top 5 gardening mishaps you may be making

Some people have green fingers, everything seems to bloom and grow healthily. It may be they have a special talent, but it’s not impossible for anyone to achieve good results. It takes time, care and a degree of knowledge gained by experience, or listening to sound advice.

Caring for our lawn is worthwhile so you have a healthy, good looking garden. If you need specific, expert help on lawn care check out https://www.lawncare.net/service-areas/virginia/ who can help you keep your lawn in tip top condition. Here they give five common problems that befall us in our gardening exploits.

5 of the UK’s best gardening events for 2016

Summer is approaching fast and if you, like many other homeowners, are looking for a little inspiration to spruce up your garden, it’s well worth going beyond the conventional, annual trip to the local garden centre and trying something new.

Stove Site a leading retailer of outdoor ovens, firepits and BBQs understand perfectly the desire to create something unique in an outdoor space and have shared this list of the five best gardening events coming up in 2016:

Royal Horticultural Society

Source: RHS 

Garden features for kids - green fingered, outdoor loving kids!

As we love being outdoors our garden is somewhere we spend lots of time when we are not out and about having adventures in the woods, beaches, castles and beautiful countryside which are a stones throw away from our home.

Being a family who spends most of their time outside in the garden especially during the spring and summer months I have plans to make the garden more fun and appealing for the kids than it already is.

Mud kitchen

Inspired by memories of my childhood I am building the kids a mud kitchen in the corner of the garden where they can have fun getting muddy and creating me tasty mud-filled pies and cakes which if anything like I was as a child will be decorated with leaves and flowers.

Garden toys

Taking inspiration from Bug's recent drawing and wish list of his perfect Easter birthday garden party that was filled with outdoor toys I hope to get a few more outdoor toys for the garden. I would love a garden with outdoor that are perfect for both the boys with toys that they can play with together and toys they can play with individually with the toys being suited to their ages and interests.

Gardening - spring plans of growing fresh produce for my green fingered family.

As I watched Jelly Bean excitedly devour fresh fruit and veg finger foods today my thoughts turned to growing our own fruit and veg this year.

Whilst I am far from being an expert at gardening, I would call myself green fingered and enjoy being out in the garden and find gardening to be rather therapeutic. Over the years my love of being in the garden and getting my hands dirty sprucing up the garden, tending to plants and planting flowers, and growing fruit, veg and salad has influenced Bug who loves to help me garden and sow seeds.

A new year, a new hobby – green fingered gardening.

As the year nears closer to coming to an end and New Year is on the horizon many people’s thoughts turn to resolutions and new beginnings.

If you are looking to take up a new hobby in 2016 why not consider gardening. According to a infographic produced by the leading retailer of top-quality compost and topsoil, Compost Direct gardening is good for you. As studies have shown that gardening reduces stress, lowers instances of depression and contributes to overall better health, gardening is a good hobby to take up to make life in 2016 better and healthier.

However many people who would like to begin gardening and enjoy the benefits of doing so have a lack of space and are put off attempting gardening due to living in an urban space. Don’t be put off gardening due to lack of space though, even if you have a small space you can still enjoy gardening. Thankfully there are many ways to grow crops even in small spaces such as having potted plants indoors, using grow bags and small veg patches.

If you want to know how to garden without a full size garden why not take a look at the infographic below to learn ‘How to be a Compact Gardener’ where you can find out how to grow tomatoes, potatoes, and more as well as learn how to maximise your growing space with vertical gardens and window boxes. Thanks to these handy tips regardless of what space you have there really is no excuse not to garden!

Caring for your garden during Autumn.

Autumn is the time that the trees lose their beautiful array of gold, red and orange coloured leaves.

Autumn is the time when the foliage and trees are brimming with berries, nuts and seeds.  

Autumn is the time when we see say hello to new wildlife and goodbye to others as birds and animals migrate and hibernate.

Autumn is a time of change.

As Autumn brings change caring for your garden requires attention to keep your garden looking its best during this season of change and prepare it ready for the upcoming winter months.

To help keep your garden looking its best here are a few Autumnal gardening tips –

* Lawn TLC 

Rake up fallen leaves to prevent leaves rotting on your lawn and blocking sunlight causing damage to your lawn’s health. Top Tip – keep the leaves in a compost sack/bin to let them rot down over winter into a beautiful leaf mould that can be used in the spring as an enriching, natural and soil conditioning compost.

Sprucing up our garden without breaking the bank.

As I have previously mentioned the garden in our new home needs a lot of TLC after being unloved and not tended to for a long time.   Even though we have slowly been trying to spruce up our garden by giving the grass some much needed TLC and ridding the garden of weeds unfortunately a lack of funds means it is a slow process to completely transform our garden from a unused barren space into a beautiful haven filled with lots of flowers, garden ornaments and garden furniture.

Being on a low income and watching our spending with a #SpendingDiary in the hope of saving money and improving our financial situation, I have decided to look upon turning our garden into a beautiful and blooming space as a long term project rather than splurging to transform the garden all in one go, spending money we can’t afford to spend to get everything we want for our garden.

As we can’t afford to spend a lot on our garden, with a lot of hard work I have been making the garden look a little better by getting rid of the weeds and clearing the garden debris left behind by the previous tenants.  The work we have done in the garden so far has improved how the garden looks without breaking the bank.

When we moved into our new home we had no garden tools, plant pots or garden furniture at all, so starting from scratch to kit our new garden could potentially be very expensive.  One of the big expenses that we needed to get for our garden was a lawnmower so that we could tend to the garden and keep it trimmed and tidy.  Dreading having to fork out the expense of buying a lawnmower I had been keeping an eye on ebay and local selling sites in the hope of picking up a second-hand lawnmower at a fraction of the cost of a new one.  Thankfully a couple of months ago my wishes for a cheap second-hand lawnmower were granted when I managed to snap up a working Flymo lawnmower on ebay for the bargain price of 99p!!!

Sprucing up our garden - review.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been attempting to spruce up our garden with a little help from a number of garden products sent to us courtesy of Westland Garden Health.

So how did I get on?  Did the 3 products live up to their claims?

Whilst our garden is still far from being a beautiful utopia the products have helped improve the condition of our garden as well as motivate me to keep being green fingered to get even more positive results.

Garden products to spruce up our garden.

When we moved in to our new home at the end of last year the garden was unloved and very unkempt, and in spite of lots of plans to spruce up the garden ready for summer it remained untouched for a good few months after we moved in.  The terrible weather we suffered at the beginning of the year, a lack of funds to buy gardening tools and plants plus a lack of time to dedicate to outside as we were busy sorting out inside meant that my hopes of having a lovely, blooming garden did not become a reality.

Deciding that the garden would be a slow work in progress I have been slowly working on sprucing up our outdoor space by removing the junk left from the previous tenants, snapping up a bargain electric mower on ebay for 99p to be able to keep the patchy grass trim and neat-ish and buying a flower plant every now and again for the garden to add a bit of bloom and colour to our little outdoor space.

Even though I have been slowly working on making the garden look a little better and giving it some much needed love and attention there is still lots left to do to make it look like my dream garden.  Thankfully Westland Garden Health have come to my aid by sending me a selection of garden products to help get my garden looking its best.

Little green fingers.....little green watering can (Project 365 - 177/365).