To allow me continue gardening and getting pleasure out of it, being grounded and in touch with nature, I have made a battle plan. Below are the main points (subject to modification as events unfold):
- Be more flexible, sowing and planting veg and flowers little and often to avoid the worst of any extremes. I need both to eat fresh and to have colour in my life.
- Plant more weather-proof plants – including ferns and begonias and ornamental grasses, and flowering perennials, and think right plant right place.
- Include more slug-proof plants like roses and crocosmias, and hardy geraniums, and slug barriers and chemical free slug bait, and stop getting paranoid about them…and throw away the flashlight and sweaty nightcap used as part of the nocturnal hunt for slugs and snails.
- Do more mixed planting and avoid mono crop including lawn grass and hedges of one plant variety cut back symmetrically twice a year. Informal is better and less hassle.
- Plant varieties that will support wildlife especially pollinating insects like bees and butterflies, and hoverflies which are one of my main allies in controlling insect pests. I have included in this ornamental crab apple trees and hazelnut trees to support red squirrels. And I’m going to make more mini wildflower meadows.
- Make gardening decisions according to the weather and ground conditions, and throw out the calendar.
Mike McKenna writes from Blackwater Garden Centre, a member of the Waterford Garden Trail.
