Bee there

Our gardens rely on a fragile ecosystem teeming with life that we often don’t spot. Get my lowdown on how to keep the bugs while losing the slugs

Iam a huge fan of flower shows – their wealth of attractions make them a brilliant family day out. And one of my favourites is the marvellous Southport Flower Show.

If you’re planning a visit this year, be sure to check out the breathtaking show gardens, inspired this time around by the “curious garden” theme.

And of course you’ll want to visit the Grand Floral Marquee, packed to the brim with unusual plants and a great place for top green-fingered tips from some of the nation’s best growers.

Another unmissable feature at Southport is the Celebrity Theatre, partnered by Everest (everest.co.uk).

Running from August 16 to 19, the show has a fantastic line-up of talks from horticultural heavy hitters such as Monty Don, Carol Klein, Christine Walkden and myself – as well as TV presenter Anita Rani and Cbeebies superstar Justin Fletcher.

If you’re coming down, pop in and say hello. The theme for my talks is The Living Garden.

I’ll be taking audiences on a journey of discovery concerning the garden as an ecosystem, giving gardening tips along the way. Here’s a sneak preview – but to hear more grab yourself a ticket and head to Southport.

Slugs

A common garden pest, slugs have been around in the UK since the end of the last ice age.

As a nocturnal species prone to drying out, slugs spend most of their lives underground. They only venture out in the cool and wet – which is why we see hundreds of their silver trails the morning after a cold rainy night.

As we all know, slugs love to eat plants, causing an estimated £8million of crop damage a year in the UK.

One way to protect your garden is with “sacrificial” flowerbeds to tempt slugs away from your prized blooms.

Nasturtium, hostas, petunias, dahlia and delphiniums all work well.

Or just fill your garden with plants slugs dislike. These include ones with tough leaves they find hard to chew (geraniums or ferns) or those that taste bitter (spurges or foxgloves).

For more top tips on slug control, see my website, daviddomoney.com.

Microbes

Microbes are miniscule forms of life so small that they’re measured in millionths of a metre – and a gram of garden soil can contain as many as a million of them.

Common microbes in gardens include bacteria, algae and fungus.

Microbes are essential to the health of our gardens. They eat dead creatures, animal waste and decaying plant matter – and put the nutrients

Slugs cause around millions worth of crop damage yearly

back into the soil. To create a microbe-friendly environment, mix into your soil lots of organic material, such as manure or compost, or cover it with natural mulch such as bark chippings.

Microbes slowly break this down, adding moisture, air and nutrients to your soil in the process. Or you can buy or make a compost tea – a liquid full of billions of beneficial microbes. Added to soil or sprayed on foliage, it is the ultimate microbial boost.

Bees

The UK is home to more than 250 species of bee, from fuzzy bumble bees to lean honey bees. We have stripy black and white bees and gristly orangutan-like bees. All play a hugely important part in our ecosystem.

They pollinate our crops, our garden plants and our wild flowers – helping to keep us fed and ensuring the next generation of plants comes into existence. Yet bees are now in big trouble. In recent winters, we’ve lost as much as half of the bee population in some areas of Europe.

The good news is that this is an area in which gardeners can have a truly incredible impact.

Planting flowers that provide nectar and pollen for bees throughout the season is a brilliant way to support them and help bolster their numbers.

Good plants to achieve this include globe thistles, lavender, buddleia and wallflowers. Foxgloves, too, are a big hit with bees.

And if you have herbs in your garden such as chives, thyme, oregano and sage, an effort-free way to feed the bees is by letting some of the stems flower.

For more about bees and how you can help them, listen to my Grasping the Nettle podcast on Youtube.

For more info and tickets, visit southportflowershow.co.uk.