National Trust Home & Garden
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Get the best out of your outside space by calling on your garden 'friends'. Introducing helpful wildlife into your garden will help to control pests, maintain a natural chemical-free balance and encourage your garden to bloom, whether you have a large garden, an allotment or a simple window box.
Some plants are great 'friends' and are endlessly useful – sweetpeas are good for regenerating tired soil, for example, while marigolds repel pesky greenfly away from your prized cabbages. Birds and other animals such as hedgehogs, bats and frogs are also renowned pest-munchers, while bees, butterflies and other insects will happily pollinate your flowers, fruit and vegetables. Encouraging just a few of these 'friends' into your garden will soon ensure your prized plants are blooming.
This practical guide describes all of the wonderful wildlife that is helpful to have in your garden and how to spot them. Packed with hints and tips on how to encourage the critters into your space and make sure they stick around, this guide is a must-have for any gardener.
A thoughtful and practical book on how to garden in harmony with nature. A leading National Trust gardener reveals the techniques that work at in grand gardens are just as applicable for all gardeners, whether you have a small yard, a veg patch or several acres. His advice covers:
How to make a plant healthy from organic spraying with milk, introducing friendly fungi to good nutrition for your plants.
Making perfect compost, including hot composting techniques, the ultimate leaf mould, bracken compost and potash, and composting food waste.
Surviving droughts and downpours with low-watering regimes, increasing drought resistance in plants, choosing the right plant for your conditions, and keeping plants healthy in water-logged soil.
Making your glasshouse green with water-collection systems, using beneficial insects to control pests, alternatives to pesticides and fungicides, sterilising without bleach, peat-free composts and alternatives to plastic.
Gardening by the moon with simple and scientific experiments in biodynamic gardening.