Common Garden Pests (and how to spot them)

It’s not just bugs and insects that lay claim to your beautifully tended garden – microscopic bacteria, fungi and viruses are all there, ready and waiting to make your bedding look sorry for itself and kill off your well watered plants.

It’s not all bad – a certain amount of pest activity does help to support the bugs and wildlife that does your garden good. Don’t be tempted to douse everything in insecticide; it may wipe out the bugs to begin with but it won’t stop neighbouring colonies of pests or diseases racing in to the area – which will now be free from their predators too!

Sometimes, things can get a little out of control, and action is needed. In the right conditions and with an abundant food supply, pests can multiply. Sometimes it’s seasonal, plants grow faster when the weather is better and insects like aphids love new spring plants to feast on. During the summer only female aphids hatch, and they can go on to give birth to live young within a week of being born themselves. One solitary aphid could turn into a huge colony within weeks.

If you decide on a chemical spray, ask advice from a garden centre on which one to use as they all have different properties and some are not suitable for gardens where pets are usually milling about. The problem with a chemical spray is that it can ruin the balance of a garden and it can take years to get it back.

Preventative measures are a better way to keep the pest population down.

• Use pest- and disease-resistant plants wherever you can, especially with fruit and vegetables.
• Grow a wide range of different plants and mix them up mixed together – this will stop pests and diseases from spreading so easily to nearby similar plants.
• Encourage wildlife that kills off pests – ladybirds, spiders and other garden insects all help keep the pest population in check, as do garden birds.
• Think about investing in traps and barriers where you can, to shield plants.
• Get to know what your plants look like when they are healthy and growing as they should do. This helps you spot any problems before they become too well-established.

Designing your garden to be pest-resistant can be a project in itself; whoever said that gardening was easy? If you would like advice about landscaping your garden, the best places for certain plants and more, speak to the experts at John Lessels Landscaping and we’ll be delighted to help you with all your garden landscaping needs.

Laying the Groundwork for the Borders to Edinburgh Link

It’s exciting times for the Borders to Edinburgh Rail Link, a project that John Lessels Landscaping has been keeping a very close eye on since we were involved in some of the ground works for this important project.
Last month, Network Rail announced that they were more or less halfway there, with 44 per cent of the line which will stretch between Edinburgh and Tweedbank, south of Galashiels, being finished, and that by the end of May they should have been at least halfway there.

It will be great to see the trains run for the first time in 46 years, in September 2015, as we’re too young to remember when the old Waverley line to Carlisle was still in use. The line should be in operation again by next summer, and following driver training and line testing will be open for rail users by September.
The rail link has been an absolutely massive project; construction started last year and so far over 850 members of staff have worked on it, clocking up 2.1 million hours. That’s not including independent contractors like ourselves. Rumour has it that there have been over 25,000 bacon rolls supplied to construction workers so far…we may or may not have partaken in a few ourselves!

You wouldn’t believe the amount of work that goes into reopening an old railway line. For example, it’s involved refurbishing 104 bridges, installing 16 miles of drainage, and moving 804,000 tonnes of earth. That’s an awful lot of digging. That’s not to mention the logistics involved in stabilising the old mines along the route, restoring the Lothianbridge viaduct and two tunnels, and re-routing a section of the Edinburgh City Bypass! We’re sure it will be worth it to have this important strategic railway line back in operation.

Interestingly, we’ve also heard that Alex Salmond has been hinting that it’s possible the Borders Railway could be re-opened all the way back to Carlisle. He was also keen on trying to bring high speed railways into Scotland, but we’ll believe that when we see it.

At John Lessels Landscaping we’re very proud to have been able to contribute in our own way to the project, and we’ll be watching in anticipation to see what happens next.

Top Tips for Gardens in June

We’re fast approaching the longest day of the year. The sun encourages us out into the garden but it’s only then as we’re sitting on our lovely patio with a Pimms in our hand that the warmth has tempted out lots of weeds – number one thing to do in this month will be battling the pests and keeping your garden looking tidy! Our advice is to do this little and often, rather than leaving it to do all in one go; the task will be much easier cut into smaller chunks. And your knees will thank you for it.

Another constant job for gardeners in early summer is dead heading. Your beautiful blooms will shrivel up and keel over as fast as the weeds sprout up to replace them, so keep on top of removing spent heads from pots, baskets and flower beds, and give them a good feed every now and again.

Depending on whether we get a ‘barbecue summer’ or simply a dismal, wet one, you’ll have to step up your watering routine, too. Give everything a good watering once or twice a week when it’s warm and dry, except for hanging baskets which really need water every day. If you have lots of trees and shrubs, and there are no hosepipe bans in place yet, leave a hose by the base of the plant for an hour or so, just on a trickle.

If you’re planting in June, just as at any other time of year, the most important thing is to water the plant in well, whether it’s a perennial, bedding plant or shrub. To do this properly, make sure that you give the root ball a really good soak in a bucket of water before you plant it – it’s ready when there are no more air bubbles popping to the surface.  Dig your hole, fill it to the top with water and let it drain, then put your plant in the hole. Once it’s in place, cover it with soil and then water it well again.

If you’re planning on spending time enjoying your garden, lounging on the patio and generally socialising outside, keep an eye on the moss that can grow on driveways and patios. Get rid of it along with any weeds as soon as you see them pop up, and hopefully you can stop them proliferating too much over the summer.

For more advice about garden landscaping, decking and more, speak to our experts at John Lessels Landscaping.

Top Five Weeding Tips

Image: Green Seedling In Hand by domdeen via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Weeding – it’s never going to be anyone’s favourite job, is it? Some people claim to find it therapeutic, blitzing all those pesky weeds, but for most of us it’s a necessary evil if we want our garden to look presentable. The good news is that in just ten minutes a day you can get on top of your weed situation and make sure that your driveways, paths and gardens look pristine.

 1. Get mulching!

Mulching really makes a difference to the overall weed situation, simply because bare soil is like an open invitation for all the weeds in the garden to congregate and take root.  If you pre-empt the invasion by covering any bare soil with mulch, it stops them from seeding and growing. You can use pre-made shredded leaf and straw mulch, or make use of your own garden waste, but organic mulch is better than non-organic, especially for vegetable patches, herb gardens and fruit.

Mulching also has the benefit of enriching the soil with the nitrogen it needs for healthy growth.

2. Give it some air

Give the soil in your garden a good raking over, especially around the bases of plants, to aerate it. It’s recommended that you do this at least once a week, and to a depth of 3-5 inches. Collect any loose weeds up as you go. Don’t over-rake your soil though, because this can have the opposite effect, embedding weeds into the soil as you go

3. Just 10 minutes a day!

You really don’t have to spend hours and hours in the garden, it’s just a matter of keeping on top of the little jobs so that they don’t turn into one big one. If you make a deal with yourself to get outside and do a bit of weeding every day, just for ten minutes, you’ll be able to stop roots of weeds from bedding in and growing too much. Even if you’re just outside enjoying a spot of spring sunshine, you can weed here and there and get rid of them as they appear.

4. Don’t forget your pathways

 The annoying weeds that crop up in between the paving on your pathways and driveways won’t stay there – they’ll soon start appearing in your lawn and borders if you don’t take care of them, too.

5. Cover old crops 

Bare soil from old vegetable patch crops is another open invitation to weeds. They love an empty space! Prevent them by planting ‘cover crops’ to fill in the space while you’re waiting for your next crop of vegetables or fruits to start growing.

For more advice on gardens, contact a garden landscaping expert like John Lessels Landscaping.