Hi Barb

I live 30 miles away from Street. It is in zone 8/9 but that doesn't really help with gardening over here. It is nothing like a zone 8/9 in the US or Canada. We don't actually use the zone concept at all really since the country is so small and the climate has relatively little variation.If you asked a British gardener what zone they were in they more than likely would not know what you were talking about. I know you want to help but really I think your friend would do better consulting UK sources, preferably a good basic book, since our conditions are so different from anywhere in Canada apart from perhaps somewhere like Vancouver Island (I think). Our winters are much milder than yours but our summers are cooler and wetter. Techniques which work in a continental climate do not work here. For example she will have no trouble overwintering bay, rosemary etc but she will be hard put to it to ripen an outdoor tomato. Melons, peppers and aubergines are pretty much impossible without glass. It is also unlikely she will need to irrigate unless she wants to grow vegetables and then she will only need to water seedlings or if we have a long dry spell (for us that would mean a week with no rain!)

The soil here is pretty good almost everywhere and we tend to garden in the soil we have and do not spend so much time faffing around with 'amendments' and soil tests. Raised beds are becoming more popular but are still the exception rather than the rule for vegetables and even less likely for ornamentals. Reasonable lawns will grow with no effort other than mowing.

Without knowing what she is wanting to grow it is impossible to make any specific recommendations but personally I would advise her to start now and spend her time digging over and removing weeds from the beds and starting a compost heap. It is too early to sow seeds outside except possibly broad beans(favas). If she wants to start flowers it is too early to sow in a seedbed but she could start in her greenhouse, especially if she has a heated propagator. Seed packets will tell her when and how. The problem is not so much 'heavy frost' on seedlings but that the seed will fail to germinate at all in wet cold ground. Our springs creep very slowly forward with gradual increases in temperature and light. They are much less sudden than those in a continental climate.

It is unlikely, unless she is moving into a brand new home, that there is no garden there already. By 'garden' we would mean the whole area around the house including lawn etc, rather than just cultivated beds. I would recommend living with the garden for a year and seeing what is already there. Most gardens have quite a lot of things in them already and at this time of year she should be looking out for early bulbs flowering (snowdrops, crocus) daffodils in bud and tulip foliage. There might also be forsythia and other early spring shrubs in bud, primroses etc. There might also be perennial foliage coming up...

Hello Flora and thank you very much for all your tips. My friend is a relative novice. She has grown some veggies in small plots on the ground but this year she is trying her hand at Annuals and Perennials grown from seed. She DOES have a small greenhouse that is 'not' heated but she says she prefers to start her plants outdoors in a nursery bed.

I realize that your UK climate and growing season will be nothing like ours in Canada or continental Europe so I will keep my eyes peeled for a good book for her that is specific to the UK as you have suggested. If you have any suggestions for novice books on Annuals and Perennials in the UK, please DO offer up some titles for me to suggest to her.

I should also mention that the reason I have joined is that she works six days a week, long shifts and hasn't the time to join a network like this. As I am already a member in the Canada forums and I don't work, it's easy for me to collect info and tips for her and pass them on.

I've already passed to her everything you've told me and highly recommended the BBC UK gardening link you provided. I took a look at it and the daily tips are exactly what she needs. Thanks so much for that.

She does have a fair large garden with established but overgrown beds already in place. She doesn't know plant names so much but does know that she has had daffodils come up in spring. I'll send her some photos in the meantime of other spring ephemerals so she can start to ID things that she might have otherwise overlooked and recommended to her to label the things she wishes to keep so as not to damage the bulbs/rhizomes as she turns over and weeds the beds. Her dad and father in law are going to help her as well so they will be able to point out plant from weed as a starting point on the learning curve.

Anything else you or ANYONE can think of as a tip for newbies will be most helpful. Thanks again and thanks in advance to anyone else who offers ideas/tips/etc..

Barb
southern Ontario, CANADA

Any of the Royal Horticultural Society's publications would be useful. eg RHS Gardening through the year or RHS Encyclopaedia of Gardening. Both are available from Amazon.

The RHS website is full of information.

We also have plenty of gardening magazines which give seasonal advice and information. A visit to any garden centre will also provide ideas and there are lots of gardening shows on TV.

Somerset has plenty of beautiful gardens open to the public where your friend could get ideas.

Regarding the greenhouse - obviously starting seeds in a nursery bed is cheaper because you don't need containers or compost but the attrition rate is greater since there are more pests outdoors and you can't control the weather. The worst pest in our climate is slugs and snails which can destroy an entire seed bed in a night. For example, sunflowers don't stand a chance in my garden unless planted out as sturdy pot grown plants. I reuse modules from bought bedding plants and my only expense is a bale of seed and cutting compost once every year or two.

Here is a link that might be useful: RHS

Thank you again Flora, your suggestions have been MOST helpful, esp. the titles for books and magazines.

Unless flora says otherwise - a 'picture book' of weeds can be very helpful. Particularly showing those perennials that plague a garden bed.

If you let your friend know that sometimes it is more useful to plant seed into 'cells' or 'plugs' than disturb the roots later by digging them out of the ground or flats.

And to think serious thoughts of converting some of those garden beds into very-low care sites, keeping her efforts to relatively small areas that she can manage in her time off. Or find someone who is willing to do the grunt work in the garden, knows what they're about, and can be reliable about turning up. Maybe some sort of sharing of grow space so there can be work in exchange for food. (So long as she can tell Cannabis from tomatoes...:-))). Even the senior citizens grow weed.)

And, please, please, please NEVER plant anything in the way of trees or hedging that's guaranteed to be quick-growing. Or Lawson's cypress. The wrath of neighbours is never to be despised.

OTOH - some decent dwarf fruit trees... Or heritage roses that don't need a book in one hand and a sprayer in the other.

Love your username :o) vetivert!

Super tips too. I never thought of a weed book but you are bang-on. I am one of those rare "nuts" who love to weed so I'm used to ID'ing weeds without even thinking about it but YES it IS difficult for a novice to tell weed from flower at the beginning.

Is there such a thing as a rose that doesn't need a book in one hand and a sprayer in the other? ;o) I adore roses but I'm afraid I don't have the patience for preventing/treating varieties of bugs and molds. My friend 'may' have roses, I don't know yet but I'm eager to see photos she takes as various things emerge from her garden.

I used GOOGLE maps to take a virtual walk up her street and it's amazing what you can identify using the satellite feature. Her street is full of "Butterfly Bushes" and other lovely flowering shrubs and since she hasn't been able to say for sure what is in her garden, I'll be greatly intrigued to look at her photos. Of course anything I can't ID, I'll upload to a photostorage site and post a link here for help.

Flora, to follow up on a few of your tips... I was able to find her a good condition second hand RBG Perennials book that I purchased for a pittance online and had delivered right to her door. She was thrilled and we just called it an early birthday present as her birthday is next month. I also gave her the link to the Garden Calendar from BBC and I have a hotlink to it as well and I read it every day. Thanks greatly :o)

Garden-Webber from Canada

If it's weeds you want, this website has a chart of over 50 common weeds in the UK, with pictures of the flowers and the seedlings. It also has a chart comparing US zones with the UK and European growing zones (look in the botany index under Hardiness), although as Flora said, we don't use zones over here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weed Identification Chart

knottyceltic - if you are able to see lots of buddlejas it rather implies that the area has some fairly ill-kempt gardens. They are a bit of a weed over here and many gardeners regard them as rather infra dig. They will be pretty leafy by now.

By now she will be seeing a lot of things coming up in her garden. If there are snowdrops or crocus they will be flowering. Daffodils will be on the verge of opening, forsythia will be in bud, if not open,and if there are any tulips they will be well apparent. Other early and very common things she might see in her garden are Chaenomeles, ornamental cherry, Ribes, Pulmonaria, day lily foliage and rose foliage. (I am guessing here, based on stuff that pretty well any ordinary garden will have.)

Has your friend told you how big the garden is? I am imagining the size of garden a single person living in a house in Street would have and it is not very big so should be managable.

My last thought (for the time being) is that I would really, really,really, recommend spending as much time as possible on PREPARATION, not sowing or planting. That is dealing with perennial weeds, building a compost heap, digging the beds. Really this shoul all have started last year and have been going on all through the winter. But never mind, it still needs doing. There is nothing more dispiriting than planting things in badly cultivated beds and losing the lot to weeds and bugs.

Regarding roses - you can go for perfection by chemical means or you can just plant tough types and ignore a bit of blackspot.There are plenty of them which would grow fine in Street. Guess which one I would recommend.

Once you have some pictures of her garden you could upload them to photobucket then post them on the Name that Plant forum here on garden web, or provide a link. I visit that more often than this forum and I can id pretty much anything she is likely to have.

Crazylady...thank you for the tip on the online weed chart. It will be most helpful.

Flora...thank you for the heads-up on what's probably coming up in the beds and budding/flowering. My friend is a true novice so when most people would know for sure if they have a forsythia, my friend has just never paid any attention and is not sure. Same with the ground plants. She of course knows tulips and daffodils but may not be familiar with other plants or at least not until they actually have blooms. Anything I can't readily ID for her I will indeed put on photobucket or imageshack and put a link for ID'ing. Thanks! :o)

I had to chuckle when you said "Buddleia/Butterfly Bush" is considered a "weed" over there. Here in North America it is very expensive and still considered a bit "exotic" if you can get it established and keep it going from year to year. I haven't had any trouble with it myself but it is difficult here because we have severes of temperature. As low as -30'sC and summer highs in the 30's to 40'sC region. It's our lows that kill Buddleia though. The trick here is to chop it very close to the ground, mulch over it heavily and then brush away the mulch in spring. The seeds don't seem to survive our harsh winters so I don't think it will ever be a "weed" here. They 'are' a lovely bush here as they also don't get big and lanky due to always cutting them right back. And we live along a migration highway for Monarch butterflies and hummingbirds so the Buddleia is a magnet for those species. I hope I didn't give the wrong impression of my friend's neighbourhood. By "lots of buddleia" I meant that it is much more than we see here in southern Ontario, CANADA. Here you are fortunate to see one Buddleia in the area of 2 city blocks of residential area. On her street, you can see one Buddleia about every 2nd or 3rd house and I don't think they are 'accidentals' but appear to be deliberately planted. I could easily imagine with such moderate temperatures in the UK that a shrub like that could easily be considered a "weed" if the seeds can germinate. We have a similar example with "Burning Bush/Euonymous alata"...in the USA it is considered a "weed" because it is prolific but up here it is too cold and seeds die in winter.

Now I have a question for all of you... what would you consider your most annoying bug/pests? Top 2 or 3 would be a good start for me to inform my friend and help her choose plants accordingly.

Thanks again in advance and GOOD GARDENING to all!

Barb (in freezing canada with no sign of spring for a LONG time) :o/

Top 3 UK pests...

1. slugs & snails
2. slugs & snails
3. slugs & snails

If she's just growing ornamentals, she should try anything she fancies. Look at other people's gardens and if she sees something growing well which she likes find out what it is. Talk to the people at the garden centres (not the DIY stores, but the proper places. There are at least 5 within a 10 mile radius of Street) Visit gardens - there are loads in Somerset including east Lambrook Manor, former home of Margery Fish which is 41 mins away from Street and has a nursery. Picking the right plant for the conditions ie hardiness, soil, drainage, sun/shade, etc. is far more important than trying to avoid pests, which are really not a big problem. Unless she is wanting to grow show blooms there's really not much which will absolutely devastate her plants. It is not terribly difficult to grow a reasonable-looking garden over here and I think people are a bit more relaxed about not seeking perfection.

One thing which is rather different between the UK and much of N America is that most of us regard our gardens as essentially permanent fixtures which just need tidying and refreshing through the seasons. We don't need to start from scratch after a hard winter and 'gardening season' isn't a frantic race. Shrubs and perennials can be planted throughout the winter as long as there isn't a frost. Many annuals can be sown in the Autumn. Pruning can be done over several months between Autumn and Spring. The concept of 'putting in' or 'adding' new gardens doesn't really figure. The whole area around any house will be fully cultivated already, albeit not necessarily very well. Spring is a long drawn out season as is Autumn. Summer is seldom very hot and winter seldom very cold, at least not for long. As I said before, unless your friend has moved into a brand new house there will be a garden there already so she is not starting with a clean slate and a vast space to fill. The very best bit of advice I could give to any new gardener is to live with your garden for a full year and start a compost heap. Watch where the sun goes, see if there are shady bits, are there dry or wet patches, where does the wind come from, where do you tend to walk when you are going round the garden? By all means pop in a few new plants but it doesn't all have to be done at once.

Super tips once again Flora :o)

My friend is a 'runner'. She runs for about an hour every morning and I've told her that she should be looking out at people's gardens to see what strikes her as attractive. Even a walk up her street will give her better idea of what things appeal to her and told her not to be shy to knock on a door and ask what the plant is or even ask if she can have a division/cutting.

I'll pass along the name of the gardens that you mentioned. She and her husband don't own a car as they both work within walking distance and take busses everywhere they go.

Slugs huh? I think she told me about slugs way back when we first met. They can be problematic here where I live but mostly only for one variety of plants and as it happens the most expensive variety "Hostas". You say that pests probably won't be a problem but will slugs decimate a garden full of baby plants? I have a feeling that most of her garden beds are weeds and not much else. Practically the whole rear of the property is already established with beds. They just need to be cleaned out from all the weeds and given a good turn and rake. I don't think she's going to do "systematic planting" and I've told her not to make a garden "work" otherwise it negates the point of having a relaxing garden. This weekend she goes to visit her dad out of town and then the following weekend she thinks she'll be able to get out and do her pruning and get a start on the beds. I've gone off on a tangent... IF slugs do pose a problem, what is the most common means of managing them?

I'll also mention a "compost heap" to her. I don't think she keeps one presently as I've seen her on her google maps page and she's hauling yard waste to a local dump site. Should a compost heap be situated in the sun?

Thanks again for the wonderful tips and hints and thanks in advance for the new questions I've posed.

Barb (who is ever so envious of a prolonged spring and fall and a winter in which planting can be done)

Hi again - no, a compost heap does not need to be in the sun. It can be in any odd corner. Also it does not need to be a hot heap. All she needs to do is pile the stuff up. Her local council has a deal on cheap compost bins, which come with instructions. There is also a garden waste collection system. There's no need to carry garden waste to the dump. I have the same system where I live and although you have to buy the bags or rent the bins you can get a lot into them if you tread the contents down.

Yes, slugs and snails can destroy new plantings. That's why I still think it would be better to make use of their greenhouse to raise transplants. You can never really manage slugs, especially if you want to avoid pesticides. I use hand picking, choosing tough plants and ignoring the damage if it's just the ornamentals. I have to confess, however, to using non-metaldahyde slug pellets on my vegetables or I wouldn't get a crop.

And again I reiterate that gardening here is very forgiving. She can dig and plant all through the summer. It seldom gets too hot, as long as she waters the new plantings. And once things are established she is unlikely to need to water much at all.

One thing which can make a garden look better almost instantly is edging the beds properly. After the lawn is cut sharpen up the edges with a spade or edging iron and then keep them maintained with edging shears.

This is a corner of my tiny garden showing the kinds of things in flower at the moment.

Here is a link that might be useful: Recycling in Somerset

Wonderful tips and links again Flora :o)

Beautiful photograph! What is the name of your Pulmonaria? I have one similar and it's called "Raspberry Splash". The pink of the Pulmonaria and the Yellow of the Daffs looks great together. Several more months before I see anything like that here. We're underneath snow and ice here.

It's a species - Pulmonaria rubra. It is very tough but has plain leaves unlike the hybrid Pulmonarias.