When I was in Scotland a few weeks ago, I made a video of my brother Bruce showing me how to create instant colour in his front garden (although he made me do most of the work!) If you haven’t seen the video, have a look at it now here, and then check out these [...]

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Barbara has some lovely heirloom plants in her garden, including this peony. However, this year it has developed mildew. Barbara talks about what to do about it — if anything.

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Here, Bruce shows Helen how to revive a flagging flowerbed by removing old plants and replacing them with new ones he has started in his greenhouse. We also talk about a special pest issue around marigolds and how to deal with it.
Sorry about the noise on parts of this video — it’s the wind blowing [...]

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This a.m. I discovered there were far too many Japanese Beetles in the garden doing what Japanese Beetles are here to do:  Making more Japanese Beetles; and eating my leaves.  So it was time for the “Bucket of Death” - a safe and effective way to rid the garden of these dastardly creatures.
I assembled my [...]

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Yesterday I discovered the Monarchs have started to return to the garden and unfortunately, so have the Japanese Beetles.  It seems that their plant of choice is a milkweed plant that found its way into my garden three years ago. 
While I’m over the moon at the return of the butterflies, I’m not as pleased about [...]

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Yesterday, I didn’t notice a thing was wrong with this Aquilegia.  Today it looks like this.  This is classic leafminer damage.  Weeks ago, a very small insect laid eggs between the leaf layers.  Now, the larva have hatched and are chewing as they crawl. 
I will remove these leaves and put them in the compost for [...]

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