by Martin Burt

If starting on a new or fresh garden, do concentrate on TREES.   Look very hard at any you have now and imagine them in twenty years.  Now think of the trees you want:- what, where, how big, what flowers, what fruit, which season, what soil, light, or moisture do they need?  Otherwise you may be like us, twenty years we have lived in this house but the apple & plum trees are only two years old!

When moving the fruit cage I discarded the plastic twine netting, hateful stuff that catches on everything and was already ageing.  I decided to use wire netting and choose something with about a one-inch mesh, often sold as “chicken wire”.  Now I keep a peanut-feeder going all the year round inside the cage, which attracts the Tits, Robins, Chaffinches, etc. which are insect-eaters small enough to get through the wire safely. while the fruit-eating Blackbirds & Thrushes cannot get in.  My idea that while awaiting their turn on the peanuts the birds would check the bushes for bugs and caterpillars seems to work, as I find virtually none at harvest time.  Don’t forget to bury or peg down the wire at the edges or the blackbirds may dig a way in.  And add a dish of water as well.

Are you one of the lucky few without Ground Elder?  Then I beg you, be vigilant!  The great asset of GE is that it is green.  It blends in with almost anything else – until it has established enough roots to produce a flower spike. Then by golly, you are already well behind in the race.   Once GE is established in any sizable area there seems little that will stop it.  Black plastic held down for many months will clear that area but all around the edges the massed troops will be waiting.  Paraquat kills what it touches but there are so many overlapping roots.  So. be vigilant!  Check every plant that comes into your garden, whatever the source – neighbour, friend or shop – tease out the roots looking thoroughly for thin white roots or green root nodes, anything that is not attached to a root of the plant. Quarantine plants or anyone else’s compost.There is something to try.

Written for Meavy Garden Society by Martin Burt, April 2014