Healing Plants and Treatments

New Trees: Recent Introductions to Cultivation by John Grimshaw, Ross Bayton and illustrated by Hazel Wilks. Amazon

Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.

You don’t need global warming to get a warm glow in your garden if you plant some Canna. The fiery hot flowers and leaves on some Cannas are hard to beat and are worth a place in any passionate garden.

Slugs and Snails

Red, White and Blue the patriotic colours of the Hydrangea are augmented by pinks and purples like H. Ayeshia above as a variation on those themes. Flowering from mid-summer these shrubs give a magnificent display with very little effort. Did you see Hydrangea maritima on seaside holidays in large displays of sugary pink and sometimes blue.

The Lime is a tall growing well shaped tree which is often grown along avenues and public places in the UK. The flowers have an exquisite fragrance.

Blue is not the colour you associate with foliage but if you can bend your eyes just a little around the silver – grey through to green spectrum there may be some surprises.

Think before you allow poppies to proliferate. Poppies rob a lot of goodness from your soil.

A colourful carpet of ground cover plants may be a creative, low maintenance alternative to a lawn. Alternatively a pattern of coloured stone or chippings with feature plants in containers may be your preference.

I originally wrote this last year but now in April I have checked my Chrysanthemum plants in the cold greenhouse and find I am infested! So it must be worth a rerun. Evil weevil grubs eat roots and tubers of your favourite plants. My tuberous begonias were attacked and destroyed by these pesky pests. It is the white grubs that cause the damage as they eat roots and tubers throughout vine weevil puberty to become small black beetles. The beetles will nibble the edges of leaves but it is the laying of eggs that ultimately cause the problem. The eggs become grubs and your Cyclamen, Primula and Camellias become grub for weevils. Pot grown plants are most susceptible to attack but this pest also affects other plants such as Fuchsias, Gloxinia and Strawberries.

Will the EU ban the garden use of glyphosphate the best chemical cure for Couch grass?

Oak trees conjure up images of Robin Hood and mystical Oak forests. Britain has made good use of Oak trees down the centuries. ‘From little acorns great Oak trees grow’