May 18, 2018 |
Clue: it’s not a gathering involving shouting catchy phrases like “yee-haw”! A Hoedown is what I called my Garden Consultation Service, purely because ‘Garden Consultation’ sounds so boring! If you want to yell “yee-haw” at the end I’ll be more than pleased!
It’s usually an hour (but can be more) spent standing in your garden with you talking through anything garden related! Someone called it Garden Therapy as they were feeling so stressed and overwhelmed by their garden and not enjoying it all! Others have found it really helpful at different times: perhaps you’ve recently moved in, about to put your house on the market or have just built an extension and now can see your garden more. In the past I’ve covered:
- Identifying what plants are what
- What to prune and when
- How to prune
- What to do after an extension has been built or after a garage has been pulled down
- How to make fences and walls look better
- What shape borders or beds to make
- Ideas on what plants to use in different places
- Lawn care
- What materials would work in a small courtyard
- What plants wouldn’t mind living in pots
- Making decisions about taking out shrubs or moving them
- Where it’s best to put waterbutts and raised beds for veggies
- Pests and diseases
- What’s a weed
- Where to put the trampoline!
My objective pair of eyes and ears can be really helpful to solve problems, be a sounding board or come up with ideas. After our hour I write up our discussion including any links I’ve promised and email it to you so you have a record of our discussion and signposted places to go to to take action (or delegate the actions!).
Here’s what Claire had to say following our Hoedown:
“I spent a lovely hour in my back garden with Renée having a Hoedown. She is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable. I feel very inspired now and, most importantly, confident that I can change my garden to suit my family. Renée listened to what I hoped to achieve and asked all the right questions. I can’t wait to get started and thanks to Renée’s follow-up email with links and reminders of what we talked about it didn’t matter that I forgot most of the plant names we talked about! Thank you.”
The cost of a Hoedown is 1 hour of your time, 1 cup of tea for me and £75 (Monday to Friday) or £95 (weekends and evenings) within 5 miles radius of Redhill. I’m more than happy to travel further afield but will need to agree additional expenses to cover mileage.
If you need that objective pair of eyes, please do just get in touch at renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk
What would you want us to spend our hour discussing? Let me know in the comments below!
Renée
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Apr 9, 2018 |
The seeds of Annuals can be bought in the supermarket, garden centre or high street homeware store for a couple of pounds a packet and they literally can provide hundreds of colourful flowers in just 1 packet! Buy in May to sow outside straight away. You’ll need to read the back of the packet to make sure you have the right ones but they include:
- Love-In-A-Mist
- Pot Marigold
- Nasturtium
- Poppy
- Zinnia
Annuals are plants that complete their life cycle in 1 year. Summer annuals grown from seed will produce flowers within 6-8 weeks of sowing, flower all summer and then the plant will usually die with the first frosts in the Autumn. They are a great gap filler between shrubs and perennials; working really hard for you during the Summer putting on a great display. They then do you a great favour! Once the flowers fade they set seed which drops to the soil creating plants and flowers for you again next year!
It’s all in the preparation . . .
- Weed the area that you are going to sow to taking out anything you don’t want however big or small (it might not be that easy to weed for a few weeks as all seedling tend to lo the same!)
- If your soil is quite dry water it now so you don’t wash away the seeds when watering after sowing.
- Then rake over the area to break up the soil particles and give you a level area
- If you’re sowing several different types of seed, consider mixing them up to sow a random selection. Look at the expected heights to help you gauge. I tend to mix two blends according to height and sow the taller plants at the back of the border and the smaller plants towards the front.
There are 2 different sowing techniques:
- 1 is very random: you liberally sprinkle the seeds over your area with your fingers. Once sown gently rake the soil again to cover up the seeds. It will be hard to distinguish your seedlings from weeds when they grow so this may not suit everyone!
- 2 is more controlled: draw a line in the soil with your finger or a bamboo cane and sprinkle the seed along the groove you have made. This could be a straight line or a curved one. Rake the soil back over the groove when sown. When the seedlings appear you will see the line and know they are plants as opposed to weeds!
If it doesn’t rain you will need to water your seedlings in the coming weeks. They should poke their heads out of the ground within a couple of weeks – if they are bunched up together in places thin them out by snipping the emerging stems off with scissors. This gives the others more room to grow and doesn’t disturb their root growth.
You should see plants and flowers in 6- 8 weeks after sowing. Deadhead the flowers with scissors or by pinching them off with your fingers throughout the summer to encourage the plant to flower some more. Leave the flowers in place as we get to September though so you get your free seeds for next year!
Just have a go – it’s dead easy and kids love sowing seeds too and they also love seeing all the different sizes and shapes of seeds. You can see a video of me showing the 2 sowing techniques here:
