Pruning roses. The right cut

It is important to use sharp secateures to make a clean cut. A blunt blade will make a bruised cut where disease can enter.

Cut at an angle in the same direction as the outward facing bud is pointing.

The cut should be close to an outward facing but with the cut not too close or distant from the bud.

Here are some examples of the right way and wrong way to prune your roses.

 This branch was cut in autumn to reduce wind rock. The brach needs to be cut back harder.

  This cut is too far from a bud and at the wong angle. The red line indicates the correct andgle and distance from an outward facing bud.

  This cut is just a bit too close to the bud.

 This cut was made with a blunt blade and disease has set in. Although the shoot looks healthy it will be fighting disease rather than healthy new growth.

David Austin suggest using shears to trim your roses in to an attractive dome.

Pruning roses is not difficult or complicated as some like to make out. In the wild, herbivoures nibble off branches and the plants have evolved to cope with this ‘pruning’. Pruning encourages new healthy growth.

 Remove all dead and damaged branched. This branch was rubbing against another, damaging the stem and allowing disease to enter. Cut these branches back to healthy new growth.

The Complete Gardens Plant Finder and Pruning Guide covers a wide range of UK plants and accompanied with illustrated pruning advice.

Propagation Snowdrops and planting bulbs

Propagating Snowdrops after flowering and whilst the leaves are ‘in green’.

Don’t cut the leaves off.
Carefully dig up the clump without bruising the bulbs.
Gently prise apart the bulbs and replant as soon as possible.
Water in to allow good contact between soil and roots.
The leaves will die back – This process allows to the bulb to store food in order to survive through until next year when the flowers will appear.

 Bulb planting times and depth.

The interactive plant selector and pruning guide CD-ROM s has hundreds of bulbs and all accompanied with plant care and images.

Garden Design

Gardening is an enjoyable hobby that can keep you fit, tap into your creative skills, is a rewarding experience and can even make you money by adding value to your property. Attractive gardens can add 20% to the value of a property according to the Estate Agent Society. 

You don’t have to be a Garden Designer to create an attractive garden. What you need to know are a few basics and some gardening advice such as;

·        Which garden plants will suit your garden conditions?

·        Which plant will grow in your soil?

·        Which plants will grow in full sun, partial shade and full shade?

·        When are the plants in flower or looking their best?

·        How to look after them? Planning and designing a garden with seasonal colour, texture and interest is the fun creative part and you can pay a lot of money to garden designers for their expert advice.

However, finding out which plants will suit your garden are available in books and magazines and by searching the Internet. Some people could consider these to be quite time-consuming and laborious, but it can also be fun researching your ideal plants.  Alternatively, if you have a computer, save time and effort by using an interactive garden plant finder and pruning guide CD-ROM which selects from your choice of colour, month, season, aspect, soil type, height and plant name, then a simple click of the mouse displays the plants to suit your needs. 

Only choose plants that will suit your garden. If you have a small garden, select those plants that won’t out-grow your limited space.

If you want a low maintenance garden select plants that don’t need a lot of pruning or feeding.

There are about 73,000 plants to choose from so there is no end to the fun you can have creating the garden design of your dreams. It’s quite a good idea to start your design by selecting plants to give your garden some structure.

Shrubs are good plants for this and come in a multitude of colours, shapes and sizes. Check the height and spread of the shrubs before planting so that you don’t position them too close together.  

Climbers will add height and colour to your garden. You can select climbers that will flower early in the season and then select others to flower later in the year and maybe select some to have attractive autumn foliage. 

Annuals will grow and flower in the same year and provide almost instant colour whilst the plants in your borders have time to grow and mature. Annuals can be bought as seedlings or easily grown from seed.  

Grasses provide texture and movement in a garden and most can be cut back to ground level the following spring.

Don’t only choose a garden plant because it has an attractive flower. There are fabulous foliage plants to consider like ferns and hostas that love the shade areas of your garden and will reward you with luscious colour and texture. A garden doesn’t just have to look attractive in the summer months, it is also important to select plants for spring, summer, autumn and winter.

You will be surprised at how many plants there are that have attractive flowers, berries and bark to liven up any cold grey winter days. 

Pruning is important as it keeps the plants in shape and encourages healthy new growth. You will need pruning advice for each plant in your garden and a plant calendar list which reminds you when and how to prune them.  

Propagation of your plants and growing from seeds are very rewarding and satisfying because not only are you creating new plants but you’re also saving money. Gardening will keep you fit. Any gardener will tell you that digging and weeding can provide you with a very good work-out.    

 

Neil Bromhall is an award winning wildlife Cameraman / Photographer who was awarded an Emmy for his camera work on David Attenborough’s “The Private Life of Plants” BBC series. Neil has since founded www.complete-gardens.co.uk

 

Streaming was a failure due to Host

We’ve decided to stop offering our garden software by streaming at the present time.

This is because we’ve been let down by the Host who service the Streaming of our garden software. This could damage our reputation for quality and service which we’ve gained after six years hard work and don’t want to loose it due to the Hosts inefficiency to provide a reliable service.

We wanted the Streaming to provide users anywhere in the World the ability to test our software and plant database for 24rhs. If the plants on the database suited their needs they could extend the licence year on year.The Streaming worked beautifully and allowed the user to find plants by any combination of colour, height, aspect, soil type and name. The Streamed database with 2,700 garden plants and 7,200 plant photographs would find, select and display the best plants to suit the individuals search requirements.The beauty of Streaming for us was to be transparent. You know what you’re getting.So often Publishers put a famous personality on the cover to make out the authoring was by them. The buyer only discovers that it isn’t when they run the software. This seriously dents the confidence of the buyer and puts them off buying CD-ROMs in the future – Fooling the public is a con and should be stopped.

People as far a field from America, Canada, Norway, Russia, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia signed up to access our plant database. Some regions of the World weren’t suitable and so the user did not waste money buying the licence to the database whereas other did find our database of plants useful.

We’re very disappointed that after all the time, money and effort put in to Streaming that the Host lets us down. We hope that we will get the situation resolved quickly.

Streaming is the way forward as it allows customers around the world to access the data without the carbon costs involved burning CD-ROMs and delivery charges.

The most reliable solution we offer are our interactive plant advice CD-ROMs. Our latest version has 3,500 plants with 9,000 photographs. Which does not rely on hosting or any other third party. Just load the PC & MAC compatible CD-ROM in you computer drive. It auto loads and away you go. Very simple and reliable.