Back To School. Back to gardening!

If you are drowning in your children’s exam results (below C level) and have come back from your well-earned break to a slightly overgrown, weedy and crisp garden this article is for you.  Just five simple steps to make next year’s garden that little bit special.

1. Lawn, be radical. If you are fed up with muddy, bare lawns in winter then there are now the most amazing artificial lawns out there which even have their own weeds. They never need mowing, watering or feeding and are great for pets. Artificial grass is particularly useful on smaller areas abutting paving and swimming pools which inevitably dry out or suffer chlorine damage during the summer and never ever look their best.

2. If the above is just not for you, then September is the perfect time for lawn renovation. Hire a good quality scarifier and scarify the lawn to within an inch of its life. You will be amazed how much thatch and moss comes out of an average lawn. Take it down until the lawn is black. A heavy overseed, a top dressing of soil and a heavy fertilize will mean your lawn will look amazing the following spring.

3. Bulbs…   Hush hush, gardeners best kept secret. Bulbs are the most cost-effective form of gardening. A one off spend of a few pounds will give you colour from January through to May, while September and October is the best time to be planting them. Start with an early daffodil in grass or on the edge of a shrub bed. Tete a Tete looks amazing when combined with Crocus and Snowdrops. Follow on with later varieties of daffodil and hyacinth, but spare some space for the stars of the show, the Tulip. Just type Tulip into your search engine to see the amazing variety of shapes, colours and sizes available to transform your spring garden with relative ease whilst making your neighbours green with envy.

4. Talking of neighbours. Ok, so you have just spent a king’s ransom on The Best Graduate Landscape pool and you can still see the neighbours washing.  Oh and is that the glint of a neighbours telescope I see!!!!

Structural tree planting is best done from late November onwards, and look for dense varieties such as Hornbeam and limes

5. Have your garden looked at by the team at Graduate Landscapes.

Go to www.graduatelandscapes.co.uk and meet a couple of the South’s best designers and gardeners.

And invest in a maths tutor!!!