Gardening Tips and Advice

A petrol garden shredder is a useful piece of garden machinery that not will only keep your garden well maintained and tidy, but also produce compost and mulch.

Petrol garden shredders are more powerful than their electric counterparts, meaning they are more efficient and can cope with more garden waste. If you have a large garden that takes a lot of work to maintain, a shredder can certainly help to lighten the load.

It is environmentally friendly to produce your own compost and mulch using a shredder. The compost produced is rich in nutrients and can be redistributed straight back into the garden. Your garden shredder can be used for years and can result in a beautiful, healthy garden.

There are a number of petrol garden shredders available on the market. Generally, you can choose your garden machinery based on the size of your garden. The bigger shredders will have an output of 8 horse power and will put out as much as 40,000 rpm.

Petrol garden shredders are a good investment but they aren’t particularly cheap. They start at around £600 and the top of the range models can be as much as £3000. If this is more than you are willing to spend, or you have a smaller garden a more affordable electric garden shredder might be the way to go.

Petrol garden shredders are an impressive piece of garden machinery, and it is important to maintain them and use them responsibly. Fortunately, garden shredders are built with a number of safety features and are suitably constructed to ensure a long and productive life.

www.petrolgardenshredder.co.uk gives some great tips on the kind of petrol garden shredders which are available to buy. It also advises you on some of the features to look out for, and where to buy these products. If you want an impressive, well kept garden – a petrol garden shredder is the way to go.

Gardening is such a timeless pleasure, when we are working the soil we can feel quite connected to our forefathers, believing we garden in the same way our grandparents did and their parents before them.

But the truth is, the way we work in the garden is altogether very different from the labours of yesteryear. Most garden sheds these days have at least a handful of garden tools that help us to lessen the load.

How many people do you know who use an old cylinder mower? Here in the office between us we don’t know a single person who doesn’t use an electric or petrol lawnmower, whether a rotary or hover mower. Most people will say they are doing it to save time, others that it is simply easier. And the same goes for other powered garden tools too.

Do you use a strimmer? A hedge trimmer? A chainsaw? A garden shredder? A leaf blower? A garden vacuum? You’re not alone; many people buy any and every labour-saving device to motivate them to get their garden chores done. And let’s be honest, television schedules weren’t so good in our grandparents’ day!

As long as we get the same please from our gardens, it really doesn’t matter which garden tools we choose to get the job done.

Even if you don’t have much outside space to call you own, at this time of year you can make the most of what you’ve got by using baskets and containers to brighten up your courtyard, patio or balcony, filling the area with colour.

Summer bedding plants are readily available at the moment, in garden centres, DIY stores, markets and even supermarkets – and they are very affordable. So too, is a bag of multi-purpose compost, so what are you waiting for?

You can even make your containers useful by including fruit or vegetables to your planting. Strawberries, tomatoes and herbs make great additions to pots and can be conveniently placed for picking. Food doesn’t get any fresher than that!

For hanging baskets, check labels for trailing varieties that will cascade beautifully down the display. Some of the most popular trailing plants are:
Lobelia, calibrachoa, bacopa, pertunia, verbena, begonia, impatiens, pelargonium, diascia and, of course, fuchsia.

As a general rule when preparing containers, whether hanging baskets or pots of any type, is to use one plant per inch of diameter. So, for example, if you are using a 14in diameter basket, you should use 14 plants to fill it, ensuring you will get the most spectacular display possible.

Remember that during the height of summer your baskets and pots will need watering at least once every day, and more frequently if the weather is particularly hot. Make sure you take time to remove any dead flower-heads to encourage new growth. If possible, turn your containers around so that growth is even on all sides.

Most of all, take every chance to sit out and top up your vitamin D levels and enjoy your garden, whatever its size.

It’s fashionable at the moment to turn all sorts of things into tubs for the garden – old sinks and baths, watering cans, troughs, galvanised buckets – anything goes, it seems. That said, terracotta pots remain a firm favourite. They look great, but they dry out very quickly in hot weather.

Take a tip from top gardeners who line their terracotta pots with polythene before planting. Also, choose compost that’s specially formulated for use in pots – often it will contain water retaining gel and slow release fertiliser. If you intend to use compost you already have and it doesn’t contain these – add them! It will save you an awful lot of time over the summer.

Remember to pinch out shoot tips of young plants to encourage side-shoots for a fuller plant. And water regularly, even if it has trained, check the compost to see if more water is required.

We’re talking lawn care, and the way to get a healthy, lush lawn that you can be proud of.

Our top advice goes without saying really, but we ought to mention it. Mowing at least once a week during the growing season will help to thicken a patchy or threadbare lawn by encouraging the grass to spread sideways to close up the gaps. Make life easier by choosing the right lawnmower for the job; remember there are many types available.

When it’s particularly hot and dry, or if your lawn is newly turfed or seeded, make sure you water well twice a day, in the morning and evening, avoiding the hottest parts of the day. Using a hose is the quickest way to do this – a watering can could take forever! If you don’t have an outside tap consider getting one fitted, the time it will save you will more than cover the cost in the long run.

Even well established lawns need feeding. Now is a perfect time of year to apply a high-nitrogen fertiliser. This will thicken the sward and prevent weeds from getting in.

Areas of your lawn that get most wear, such as grass around play areas, shed doors and clothes lines can easily get compacted and become patchy. Use a spring-tine rake to comb the grass in these areas to reduce compaction and allow the grass to breathe and grow.