How can I tap into saving more water?
I’m trying to be a bit more eco-friendly this year, can you tell me how best to conserve water in the garden?
DAVID: A water butt is ideal for water conservation. You can also mulch your borders now to retain moisture over spring and summer. Choose native, drought-tolerant plants to reduce watering and, when you do need to water, always do it early morning or evening – never during the hottest part of the day.
Buying garden tools can be a great treat. A shiny new spade, fork or pair of secateurs can be incredibly motivating when it comes to doing the actual work.
Gardening can be backbreaking so having the best kit will save endless time and trouble and help prevent injuries or damage.
Nothing is worse than trying to prune a large bush with a blunt pair of clippers, or working with rusty tools with broken handles.
But with such a massive selection of tools on offer at even your smaller DIY stores and garden centres, it can be confusing knowing what to buy.
Having the wrong tools for the job can be a hindrance and make for lots of extra hard work that isn’t necessary. You want to make sure your garden tool collection has everything you need – with high-quality multi-purpose tools that will stand the test of time.
If you have never gardened before, you can’t go wrong with a longhandled spade and fork, and a handheld trowel and fork. These are your classic garden all-rounders and suitable for many jobs.
The spade is perfect for cultivating the soil in your beds and borders as well as making holes for planting trees and shrubs.
A long-handled fork is what you’ll use to turn over soil ready for planting or to aerate the lawn; while the handheld version is perfect for smaller spaces like containers or the front of borders.
Your trowel is useful for any number of things, from planting up containers to scooping compost or digging out stubborn weeds.
Once you’ve got to grips with these basic tools, you’ll want to expand your collection – and you’ll soon find taming your garden is just as important as growing it.
A pair of hedge shears and some bypass secateurs will do for pruning and manicuring to help keep your garden looking neat.
A garden knife or scissors are also important for cutting things like twine, canvas stripping and even small branches. Don’t be tempted to just use one from your kitchen – these aren’t tough enough for the garden and could easily cause accidents. A proper pruning knife or some garden scissors are what you need.
If you have a lawn, you’ll also need a rake to remove leaves and scrape out moss from underneath the lawn.
A garden rake is a solid flat T-bar shape with tines used to rake over soil. A spring tine – sometimes called scarifying rake – is used on lawns to collect leaves and remove moss. Your spring-tine rake also comes in handy for running over the top of the soil to create a fine layer of tilth – perfect for planting seeds. For