Time to give green manure credit!

Ican’t help thinking that green manure could do with an all-singing, all-dancing public relations team. An overhaul of the ‘brand’, if you like. Let’s face it, for something that can look so lovely, suppress weeds and do so much good for our soil, it doesn’t sell itself very well! It’s the word ‘manure’, which just conjures up animal dung to most people. While much of that in itself is wonderful for our plots,

I can see why new gardeners turn their noses up, if you’ll pardon the expression, at the idea of covering their garden in ‘green manure’. And yet it’s something that I think we should all grow, every year. It’s great for pollinators, can bring a dash of colour to otherwise barren spots, and when dug back into the soil it’s positively nutritious, as our feature on page 22 explains – yet somehow the phrase ‘green manure’ seems a little... lacklustre. I wonder if GN readers have any good ideas for a name change!

I’m just back from a fairly wet and breezy few days with the family on the Norfolk coast (we came home to a heatwave, of course). It’s one of my favourite places in the world, and this year some of the gardens look absolutely spectacular (private gardens, I hasten to add; I’m nothing if not nosey). I suppose the mixture of weather they’ve enjoyed has helped, but in particular I noticed spectacular buddleja and lavatera near our caravan, and one envyinducing cottage garden so packed with plants I’d still be drooling over the garden wall if my wife hadn’t eventually moved me along! Have a great gardening week.