Hints & tips for fruit trees, composting and bedding

Protect fruit trees

Now is the time to apply grease bands around the trunks of fruit trees to prevent damage later on from wingless winter moths. Carefully rubbing off any loose bark will remove hiding places for other pests. To kill over-wintering pest eggs use Growing Success Winter Wash when all the leaves have dropped. Spray peaches and nectarines to help protect against peach leaf curl. Finally, always pick up all fallen diseased leaves and destroy them. If you need any more help on growing perfect fruit, come and see our plant staff.

Composting

Don’t throw away your spent bedding plants, kitchen waste and other material – turn them into valuable compost for improving your soil and mulching your beds and borders. Even those fallen tree leaves can be turned into leaf mould. Making good compost and leaf mould is easy with our wide range of compost bins, compost and leaf mould accelerators, leaf rakes and collectors. Just ask if you need any help with successful composting.

Spring bedding

Plug any gaps in the garden with spring bedding plants. Choose from wallflowers, bellis daisies, forget-me-nots, winter-flowering pansies, violas, hardy primulas and polyanthus. Remember to add some spring-flowering bulbs too. Pop in and ask if you need any help selecting the best types for your garden.

Summer bedding

For a splash of early summer colour next year, sow Californian poppies, annual poppies, godetia, larkspurs and a number of other hardy annuals now. Simply sow them where you want them to flower in soil that has been improved with compost or composted bark.