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Run off our feet! Gardening tips for late April

What a thrill it is to see all my baby plants suddenly realising the fun of life and shooting up out of their pots and trays! Oh yes, that does mean that they all need moving into bigger spaces …the work is piling up….. This week, we’ll also be tidying up winter jasmine, propagating thyme, […]

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Full throttle springtime – garden tips for early April

Busting out all around us now, spring in all its excitement and hopefulness! It’s all systems go, go, go in the veg patch (did you see my article in the April issue of Garden Answers, by any chance? We 3Growbags got very over-excited about that!), and a mountain of other tasks such as thinning out […]

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Perfect plants for a patio! Gardening tips for early April

Spring has well and truly popped its cork now – hurray! But oh boy! Suddenly there is not enough time in the day – lucky the clocks go forward this weekend, and we can stay out there a bit longer in the evenings…..let’s get on with planning our pots for summer, putting in supports for […]

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Great veg the easy way! Gardening tips for March

No apologies this week for focusing on getting some veg going!  I do want to mention a few ‘flower-jobs’ as well, but mostly mid-March is all about the luscious new-season edibles.  Growing your own vegetables and salads makes even more sense than ever now that the cost of transportation is rising so alarmingly…………… So here are some […]

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Spring’s a-coming! Gardening tips for early March

Oh, when named storms aren’t blowing our trees sideways, you can sniff it on the air – spring is getting its snout above ground! Certainly here in the south, the birds are out singing, the weeds are out growing, and we should out there too, preparing for the coming horticultural havoc. Let’s have a go […]

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Great ideas for early spring – Gardening tips for February

So pleased to see more and more green shoots pushing up through the soil now! I realise that it’s probably not the case in all parts of the UK, but could we all at least admit to a touch of excitement now that spring is on our doorstep?   Our jobs this week include forcing some […]

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Itching to get going? Gardening tips for February

Here we are on the brink of another busy spring-season – full of hope that we’ll be able to make our gardens even more fabulous than they were last year! We know that by the end of February, we’ll be madly trying to keep up with our horticultural to-do lists, but for now, there are […]

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Gardening on gloomy days – tips for January

Second half of January and it is often difficult to see how we are going to reach the glory of spring, isn’t it!  But if you look hard, you’ll spot little signs that Nature is girding itself – an early primrose here, a hellebore bud there.  And while we’re waiting for the all the fun and […]

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Get set for a topping 2022! – gardening tips for January

Here we go – a brand New Year full of promise!  And amazingly, this is the 100th edition of our fortnightly Gardening Tips column – it’s quite a back catalogue now!  I hope your New Year’s Resolutions include throwing yourself into gardening with renewed vigour this year, ready to make 2022 the best one EVER. If you’d […]

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Deck the halls – Gardening Tips for December

Not long to the big day now! Lots of lists to be written, lots of decisions to be made about catering, cards, decorations, what gifts to buy and for whom…….Stay calm, you’ve got this. And even if you haven’t, a few hours spent doing some quiet garden jobs will put things in perspective………………….. Lifting the […]

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Gardening tips for early December

The festive season is upon us, and we must brace ourselves for browsing the shop-shelves while listening to Slade, Mariah Carey and Wizzard once again.  Because so much of Christmas was cancelled last year, I wonder if we’ll welcome the Yuletide Muzak a little more this year than normal? No, me neither, but I’ll be humming […]

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Gardening tips for November

Mid-November – Can you hear the faint tinkle of jingle bells on the wind? Time to start making wish lists for yourself, and planning and ordering lists for your family and friends too, perhaps? There are a few really useful jobs to tackle outside too, including giving your garden tools an early Christmas present……… By […]

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Cuttings the easy-peasy way – Garden tips for early November

Here we are, already at Halloween weekend! In between scraping out pumpkins and dressing excited small children in spooky outfits, there are some very handy tasks in the garden you could tackle/escape to, including reviving your mint pot, taking easy cuttings and digging out the horror weeds. Just a reminder that if you don’t have […]

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Buckling up for autumn – Grow-how tips for October

We all know the weather’s going to turn soon enough into something a little more…errr… challenging… So here are some ideas to get you out there before that happens. And don’t forget that if you don’t have time to read this blog, no problem! Click on the podcast link at the bottom and listen to […]

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Cutting back and sorting out – Growhow tips for early October

There is a certain wistfulness at the start of October about another summer gone by, but this month has its glories too – be sure to stop and appreciate the coming autumn colours and harvests while you are busy cutting-back or making leaf-mould amongst other tasks….. Pruning for protection The usual time for the serious […]

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Busy, busy, busy – Growhow tips for September

Aarrrgghh – suddenly SO much to do in the garden again! The lazier days of July and August are over, and we must buckle to it with all sorts of propagating and preparing – and shopping! – while we enjoy the soft air and beauty of September. My resident robin has started serenading me loudly […]

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The show must go on! – Growhow tips for early September

I’m struggling to remember an early September when the grass looked greener and the plants (and weeds!) looked lusher. There are compensations to having a summer as we have had in the south, when the sun has been VERY reluctant to put his hat on (although quite fed up with Caroline’s reports of daily sunshine […]

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Time for the beech! Growhow tips for August

The plentiful August rain round here has kept things green and growing.  Disappointing for the high holiday season, but it has meant that the garden has avoided its usual ‘parched desert’ look – hurray!  Jobs for August include cutting hedges, supporting late border-stars and planting bulbs as we look forward to the end of the year and […]

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Turning beasts into beauties – Growhow tips for August

High summer and everything in the garden going at full bore – hurray! This is when you really find out how successful your plans were for new plants, new borders, this year’s fruit and veg crop etc. Triumph? Disaster? A bit of each, I expect, like me. There are still some things to do in […]

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Prepping late summer flowers and the next generation – Grow-how tips for late July

From the torrential rain to the searing heat and back again – it’s amazing our gardens are standing at all! But they are, and giving us heaps of pleasure (and work and grief, sometimes!).When weather permits, let’s get on with some tasks like cutting back early perennials, feeding rhododendrons and harvesting courgettes………… The next generation […]

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Ignore your shrubs at your peril – Grow-how tips for July

This chaotic summer weather is keeping us on our toes, isn’t it! After all the rain, we’ve had howling winds to contend with, ripping our summer plants to shreds. What next, I wonder?! Apart from all the clearing up after the gales, let’s also get on with some pruning, seed-sowing and note-making, amongst other things…………. […]

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Full speed ahead for summer ! Grow-how tips for late June

By George, we’ve had some interesting weather in June, haven’t we! Certainly it’s been too hot between 11 and 5 to do anything much in the garden beyond some gentle weeding under a broad-brimmed hat, followed by rain so torrential that Noah would have been very impressed.  Nevertheless, there are lots of jobs to do when […]

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Help, my garden’s going mad! Growhow tips

Summer’s arrived! Let’s give a cheer for rampant growth, roses everywhere and longer warmer evenings filled with the scent of sweet philadelphus. It’s just as well the days are so long now because there’s a HEAP of stuff to do like grass-mowing, summer fruit-pruning, cutting back Clematis montana etc. So let’s get on with it……… […]

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We want some heat! Grow how tips for late May

Surely, surely by now we are owed a decently long spell of warm weather – what a treat it will be to potter in the garden without needing my fleece! While we are patiently waiting for that to happen, let’s get on with some tasks like primping the flower borders, giving the lawn some TLC […]

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Now’s the time! – Grow-how tips for May

Before I start in on this week’s gardening tips and reminders, we 3Growbags would just like to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all the dozens of well-wishers on all our media channels on the occasion of our fifth anniversary. We were bowled over by your kind comments. All we can add is: PLEASE keep […]

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Marvellous May! Growhow tips

Arrgghhh, we seem to have had a cold dry East wind for weeks now, and it’s taken such a long time for the soil to warm up, despite the sunshine! I think we’ve got there now though, at least down here in the south – just in time for National Gardening Week, ( and the […]

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Paused at the starting gate – Growhow tips for April

This spring is certainly taking its time to get going! The soil still feels cold, and this week experienced the coldest April night in eight years – even in the the balmy southern counties. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do though, including sorting out your seating areas, tending the roses, and dividing primroses, […]

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Stepping into spring – Grow-how tips for April

We’ve arrived at April – probably the busiest month in the calendar for a gardener! Seeds to sow, beauties to plant, shoots to tie in…..at least we now have an extra hour in the evening to get things done! A few tips here to help you, and we 3Growbags also want to tell you about […]

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Action stations! Grow-how tips for March

We all know that winter hasn’t finished with us yet, but isn’t it great to be really up-and-doing again. Thank heavens the clocks will go forward soon and we’ll have more time in the evenings to get through the hundreds of gardening tasks clamouring for our attention. Judging by the response to our new pocket-book […]

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The magic begins – Grow-how Tips for March

Arrgghh! So much to do now that it’s March! There’s a shiver in the air, a lovely anticipation that the garden is about to pirouette from the wings onto centre-stage again. We need to get ready! Let’s pot up some summer bulbs, sow some salad seeds, sort out the shed……….. Smashing summer bulbs The garden […]

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Plotting and planning – Growhow tips for February

The snowdrops are in full fig, and even early daffodils are starting to flower down here in the south – praise be! We’ll soon be through this ghastly, frightening winter and into brighter, more hopeful days. Time to start some veg-plot planning, and tackling some deep-rooted weeds amongst other things… Rotation motivation If you are […]

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With a spring in our step! Early February Grow-how

Brilliant! We’ve made it to February! And it really won’t be long now before the early spring flowers will be everywhere to cheer us through these dark times. It’s still pretty quiet in the garden, but we can certainly start getting the beds ready, begin rose-pruning, and sow some broad beans………………… Can you dig it? […]

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And a final word on clematis

Don’t you just adore those small and medium-flowered summer clematis – they will enchant for weeks and weeks from mid-summer onwards, if you have a good hack at them now. All that mass of tangled brown top-growth can be cut off entirely now, right down to about 1ft off the ground. I know it’s scary […]

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Jolly jobs for January

While the world hunts desperately for snippets of good news amongst all the awful stuff, we gardeners still have the little buzz of feeling that spring is not hopelessly far off now. The snowdrops are pushing through, and we can begin preparing our plots for the coming season. Let’s get going on tasks like pruning […]

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Let’s start preparing! Growhow tips for January

Back to ‘normal’ apparently but no doubt still very challenging days ahead for us all. We lucky, lucky gardeners at least have an interest that can sustain us. There are early seeds to sow, plans to make, tools to sharpen…………..let’s get going! Early seed-sowing Before we start, I must just share with you part of […]

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Let’s help our plants in winter

So. 2020 is just about done, all bar the shouting. Not a year anyone in the world is ever going to forget in a hurry. But Glory Be! At LEAST it’s meant that millions more people love and appreciate plants and gardens now. Let’s escape the knotty and stressful confusion of who’s allowed to go […]