Great gardens start with good quality soil. No plant, however healthy when planted, will produce good, strong growth in poor soil. Compost and organic matter conditions the soil breaking down particles to produce dark, crumbly soil full of goodness. Remember compost does not feed plants it provides a base for strong root structure. There are different products for feeding plants some of which you can make yourself.

Recyclable waste becomes a useable, valuable product for your garden whilst reducing the amount of food waste in landfill sites.

It’s easy to do; just a little patience is required.

The First Step, choose a Compost Bin.

You’re able to buy various compost bins from either your local council or your garden center. Typically they are made of plastic with a lid and trap door at the bottom for releasing the compost. These are fine but can be expensive and in my experience, not necessarily easy to use; the trap door is never large enough for removing the end product. You can make an effective , efficent one yourself; or recycle, my old rabbit run has made a fine contained compost heap. By far the easiest way is to use stakes in the ground with chicken wire wrapped around, it’s beneficial to cover the top with an old rug, jute is ideal. Old palettes with stakes driven through the middle and into the ground also work well. Because neither of these are totally enclosed be careful of rodents invading, sink the chicken wire under the ground for extra protection. For a larger garden build a more stable, secure structure from planks of wood with a removable lid. It’s ideal to have three, one that’s filling, one that’s ‘cooking’ and one to use.

Where to place your Compost Bin?

A warm place, easy to access – a long walk with your vegetable peelings on a dark winter’s night isn’t ideal! The bin needs to be placed directly on the ground to allow worms to find their way in and start their work breaking down waste to make compost.

What to put in your Compost Bin

You’ve made your ‘bin’, sited it well and now need to start filling it, but what can you put in?

Generally all kitchen waste can go in apart from meat and bones. That includes peelings, old vegetables (cooked or raw) and fruit, ground coffee, stale bread, egg shells (remove inside skin so they break down quicker), tea bags (split first), stale cheese, the list is endless. Other household waste includes paper, newspaper (scrunched) and soft card (shredded) – egg boxes are ideal. Old rabbit, hamster and guinea pig bedding is also ideal. Garden waste, lawn clippings, non perennial weeds, nettles, pruning waste cut up into small cuttings can be added too.

What not to put in to your Compost Bin

Meat and bones. Dog or cat excrement. Perennial weeds put those in and you’ll spread them all over your garden.

Ideally layer the food waste, paper and garden waste equally. This is not something to get too bogged down with, as long as you have a good mix of all three you’ll make great compost.

A little patience is now required, mine took about nine months to produce its first compost, but it’s a great feeling when you finally get that first wheelbarrow load.

A Traditional Compost Bin is not the only way of Producing Compost.

Leaf Mould

Leaf Mould makes a great soil conditioner full of micro organisms that will help break down the soil. It can be used as mulch around vegetables, shrubs, trees and herbaceous plants. Stakes in the ground covered in chicken wire is all you need to do to contain autumn leaves, put them in, add a sprinkle of water if dry, and leave them – easy! Leaves collected using an electric hoover are shredded speeding up the composting process, alternatively for the same effect mow over the leaves with a lawn mower before adding them to the compost bin. Leaves break down slowly; it may take upto two years. You’ll know when it’s ready it looks dark and feels soft crumbling easily through your fingers. Excellent!

If you are short of room, put leaves into black plastic bags, damp down, tie bags loosely and puncture some holes into the bag. Store in a cool place until cooked!

A word of warning when collecting leaves, large drifts could be home to hibernating creatures.

Perennial Weeds.

Perennial weeds can be composted but should be put in a separate, completely sealed bin placed on a hard surface complete with a tight fitting lid. They do take a long time to break down but produce their own great compost.

It’s time…

… time to compost, reduce the huge amounts of food waste in our landfill sites and make good compost to enhance our gardens soil structure and create strong healthy plants and vegetables for all to enjoy. Go on… you’ll be glad you did!!

April Plant of the Month
Fritillaria meleagris

Otherwise known as snakeshead fritillary. A beautiful, delicate, bell shaped, spring flower with speckled markings. Fritillaria meleagris has many uses; an ideal plant for naturalizing into a lawn and/or meadow (plant in groups for maximum effect), it is equally attractive planted in groups within a woodland scheme, it looks wonderful planted along the edge of a stream and will also do itself proud within the rockery. I have underplanted a magnolia with groups of Fritillaria meleagris along side my pond, they look gloriously wonderful bobbing in the breeze!

Carefully plant the small bulbs 4″ deep in fertile well drained soil in either sun or partial shade. They need to be kept damp during the summer (not a problem last year!!).

Fritillaria meleagris is protected in the wild.

Plant of the Month

Garrya Elliptica, the silver tassle bush, is a fabulous plant for this time of year, with it’s dark wavy leaves and long catkins it can grace any border or wall.

It will grow in sunshine or partial shade, even on a North Wall, in costal areas it will make an excellent wind break. G. ‘James Roof’ with its dark sea green leaves and eight inch catkins has a RHS merit award and is the one I would suggest you plant.

Recently I’ve planted two Garrya into very large, wooden containers against a north wall either side of patio doors. I’ve planted them with Sarcococca hookeriana for scent, Hellebores for winter blooms and Muscari (Grape Hyacinthus) for colour. Hopefully over the coming years the plants with thrive and grow large and happy. (That is if I can stop my Cocker Spaniel from sitting in the container!!)

A bright, beautiful collection of pots filled with co-ordinating plants can brighten a patio or terrace. To make a collection of pots work you need good shapes, colours and proportions in both the pots and plants. Attractive pots filled with herbs, placed in a sunny location, perhaps outside your kitchen door make a lovely, compact kitchen garden. With a little tender loving care they will thrive and produce added ingredients for your cooking pot.

Two pots either side of a front door or porch provide a dramatic,welcoming entrance to any home. If you’re selling your house it provides a glimpse of what lies within, enticing future buyers through the door.

Wall hung containers, add much needed space for plants in a small garden or brighten a big dull expanse of wall. Hay racks look fabulous planted, they not only take large plants due to their depth and size but trailing plants too.

No room for a pond? A sealed container makes a wonderful water garden feature, not only looking great but attracting good wildlife into the garden that act as natural pest controls. Add a small pump for extra impact and soothing noise.

Are you struggling for an ideal special present? Any of the above would make a lovely, long lasting present. Certain flowers take on different meanings…Gardenia-’You’re lovely’, Forget-me-nots-’Love’, Pansy-’I'm thinking of you’, Red Camellia-’You’re a flame in my heart’, Primrose-’I can’t live without you’, Yellow Irises-’For Passion’. A stunning pot filled with a favourite plant has much more longevity than a bouquet of flowers and mark a special birthday, wedding, anniversary for ever.

At ljgardens we offer a service to give your containers a designer edge. If you have a desire for some gorgeous containers we will visit you for a consultation and either take the containers away to plant or plant the containers on site if they are of a larger variety! We will also source and supply containers when necessary. If it’s a present a telephone consultation is normally sufficient, it may be that you would like us to visit your recipient if they have a special container to be planted or you may like us to find a suitable container and plant it with either favourite plants or plants of a special colour.

Our service is both professional and friendly and we endeavour to keep costs reasonable for containers,compost, plants and our time. No job is too small, we put the same amount of care into all our containers big or small, one or one hundred!

Success is all about the right container, the right place and the right plants.

My computer and hard disk were damaged and all my written work and photographs were deleted and lost forever.

Now everything is backed up!

My web-site is void of photographs for the moment until I can get my camera out and re-visit some of the gardens I’ve designed and had built and take some more.

Hopefully in the near future…..keep checking!

It is said in Irish Folklore that removing a Hawthorn Boundary Hedge is bad luck.

All the fairies that bring good fortune into your life live in the hedge, removing it replaces the good luck with bad luck.

Watch out! Remove Hawthorn at your peril!

Gardens have undoubtedly changed over the years, styles, fashions come and go. Societies change due to outside forces and with that requirements for their gardens alter. The biggest example, of course, during the wars when all gardens became vegetable patches minus their iron railings.

It wasn’t so long ago people worked their gardens and made the garden work for them. Their back garden provided food, vegetables and fruits, flowers for the house, a lawn for entertaining. Recycling and composting was a necessity, you re-used what you could.

I have lovely memories of my Grandfathers garden and him working in it, or sitting in his chair at the bottom of the garden when the day was finished. His 1930’s house was surrounded by what would be considered a large garden by today’s standards. The front garden was of good proportions screened by a hedge and full of roses. The long back garden was split into various areas, vegetable garden, fruit garden full of gooseberries, raspberries, plum trees, lawn area, compost area and shed. I would spend time picking fruits, digging potatoes, gathering sweet peas and eventually playing on the lawn when the work was done eating a fruit pie made from our pickings! Happy Days reflecting what a garden should be…..

With the importance of what we eat at the forefront of our thoughts lets go back to working our gardens, they can with commitment produce good organic food for us, flowers for the house. as well as looking good and providing us with that ‘outside room’ we crave. Growing vegetables and fruit, perhaps keeping a chicken or two can be a family hobby, children love ‘planting and picking’, learning as they go along becoming horticulturists of the future.

Whether you have a big or small garden you can grow vegetables and fruit, you don’t need a big vegetable patch remember you’re only trying to feed your family not the street. Fruit and vegetables can grow amongst shrubs and flowers in the border, in containers or customised vegetable boxes. Grow what you like to eat, and attracts youand start with small projects. Go on buy a packet of seeds and some good compost, grab the children and find an old container in the garden and give it a go.

This summer saw the worst floods for many years.

Disappearing front gardens are a contributing factor to overflowing drains, therefore flooding. Gone are the traditional front gardens with a lawn and flowers beds and in there place a concrete platform for car parking. Leading on from that, the council erect a dropped curb removing the grass verge and or any tree in the way. In summary, all green gone replaced by grey concrete.

The result rain pouring off your drive out into the main drain putting untold pressure on an already overloaded drainage system. Absent front gardens also have other negative effects on the environment

Did you know a concrete front garden;

Absorbs heat during the day and releases heat during the night into your bedroom causing you to use fans and air conditioning units increasing your carbon footprint.
Can cause structural problems, with no water going into the ground shrinkage occurs causing cracks in walls and even houses leading to expensive repairs or worse, walls collapsing.
House prices can drop if a street adopts paved front gardens, shrubs, flowers and trees disappear not only from gardens but from verges as councils install dropped curbs.
Can increase asthma, plants and trees absorb dust and fumes balancing the atmosphere.
Nature is affected without plants and trees, wildlife have no homes and food chains breakdown as well as natures way of controlling pests and diseases.

You do not need to concrete the whole of your front garden for one car – you don’t concrete your whole back garden for one shed. In fact you don’t need any concrete to park a car. The easiest solution is gravel, it is permeable allowing water to past through it and into the ground. Look for locally sourced or recycled products, shrubs and flowering plants can be planted through it softening the overall look adding scents and colour. If you have a drive on an incline use paved tracks for the wheels of your car, the rest of the garden can be treated as you wish, you can plant certain plants like thyme or creeping jenny underneath the car they will still thrive. Cellular paving , recycled plastic ‘honeycomb’ matrix cells filled with locally sourced gravel or recycled glass or by products of the ceramic industry make a good, strong parking area. You can also use a similar product for reinforcing grass in recycled plastic.

A traditional front garden with good planting can provide screening and privacy for your property and give you a green and/or colourful outlook from your sitting room. Planted with the appropriate plants it can also be good security, no burglar will want to climb through thorny shrubs. As well as adding value to your property a well planted front garden can soften and enhance your property and street. Plants and flowers make a good home for wildlife and encourage insects into your garden, providing a natural control for pests and diseases.

Above all a traditionally planted front garden will contribute to lessening the threat of flooding to your home and environment as well a adding some plus points to your property and street. We all have to contribute to change – and changing your front garden or thinking through different ideas before paving or concreting your parking space seems a fairly small sacrifice to make. But one that could start making a big difference to our lives and lifestyles.

It seems our gardens are shrinking, and or disappearing at an alarming rate, 30,000 gardens were concreted over last year ready for new houses to be built.

Small houses with large gardens are being sold over to developers to squeeze in as many houses as they can often with disproportionate sized gardens, all in the name of profit. Is it that home owners have forgotten the importance and pleasure of a garden or is it a case of all modern houses have the same sort of garden to offer therefore dumbing down the importance of external space?

Gardening is reported to be the UK’s number one hobby, if that’s the case then why are we accepting smaller gardens with less plants and more hard landscaping?

Gardens and gardening have huge plus points for everyone. They can provide a great social area, inviting friends, neighbours round for cooking, chatting and entertaining. Spend the weekend de-stressing in the garden, pottering around losing yourself in the garden is the best free therapy I know. The whole family can get involved, children learn all aspects of science, oxygenating ponds, germination,pollination, composting and wildlife habitats, they will also know where vegetables and fruits come from if you choose to grow them. The whole family can get all the physical exercise they need whilst breathing in fresh air – better than any gym I know!

Our gardens, our ‘outside living room’ have to grow, giving us all a green space to view and use, providing habitats for wildlife and improving our surrounding environment. An all important environment for future generations, think 25 years ahead, we will be living in an urban jungle without trees, birds singing or colour to lift our moods.

Above all gardens are part of our English Heritage, a heritage we should be holding on too encouraging our younger generation to embrace and enhance.

Lisa is known for her cottage garden designs and planting but this is by no means her only strength. She has commercial, private and show gardens in her portfolio. She has also been involved with Channel 4 and BBC Radio.

Lisa believes that good design should be carried from inside to outside, your garden should be reflective of your personality, your home and your needs.

Applying the principals of design and planting to your outdoor space while incorporating your own tastes and requirements creates a long-term plan to work to. Ensuring the end result is both pleasing and practical. Lisa firmly believes that a good garden design should only be the start to a continually evolving outdoor space.

Ultimately a garden should be a place where all the family can work, relax and play together. It should be a place for fun and entertaining, giving a sense of well-being and inspiration to all that use it. It should be a place constantly changing and growing with the seasons of the year. Not forgetting, at the end of the day, a place to sit back, enjoy and reap the rewards of all your hard work!

You can contact Lisa by:

E: lisa@ljgardens.room57.com

T: 01386 861 922

M: 07891 511 598

W: http://www.ljgardens.room57.com