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Hints and Tips

 

Top tips for solving problem areas in the garden.

 

Every gardener has to deal with a range of pests and irritants, from ants and molehills to neighborhood pets. Help is now at hand with these ingenious tips for a problem free garden.

Hints & Tips

How To Stop Pests


Aphids

Attract hoverflies, they lay their eggs amongst aphid colonies, as
well as eating some themselves. Hoverflies are attracted to
yellow/orange flowers, such as sunflowers.

Ants

Tempt them with a sprinkling of sugar. When they start taking the
sugar back to the nest mix one part sugar with one part Borax
crystals. The queen ant will be fed this fatal ingredient.

Cats

Stop cats using your flower beds as a toilet - spray tea bags (either
new or used) with Ralgex (Deep Heat). Bury the teabags just below the
surface of the soil - when the cat disturbs them they will give off
the scent of the spray - which cats can not stand. In time the tea
bags will break down and nourish the soil.

Dogs

Dog pee kills grass - twice a day put one tablespoon of tomato juice
in with your dogs food. The harmful acid in the pee is neutralised,
which means that the grass is not killed. (This does not harm the
dog!)

If you are trying to re-seed an area of grass, put the seeds in the
freezer over night - the extreme temperature change sparks the seeds
into action.

Moles

Mix ferret or badger dung with a little water, to form a paste. Paint
this in the mole runs and they'll soon move on. (Ferrets and badgers
are natural predators.)

Slugs & snails

Tempt them away from plants with the skins of oranges and grapefruits.

Spray WD-40 on pots - they don't like crawling through it!

Put mineral felt roofing material around plants, slugs and snails do
not like crawling over it to get to the plant.

Place horse hair around plants - would you like to crawl through this !

Hostas often get eaten when they first start to grow in spring. Slugs
and snails lay their eggs around such lush plants in the autumn -
knowing that their offspring will have a good meal ready once hatched.
As soon as hosta begin to grow remove the top soil from around it - it
will be full of eggs. Replace with fresh soil.

Useful Hints


Birds

Put Shredded Wheat out for the birds - they use it to build their nests.

Houseplants

To help house plants look more healthy mix one teaspoon of Epsom Saltsinto a pint of their water. Soluble aspirin in the water promotes newgrowth.

Cut flowers

Put cut flowers into flat lemonade rather than water, they will lastmuch longer.

Climbing plants

To get more/better blooms bend and tie-in the stems of new growth,this reduces the flow of sap and encourages the plant to put moreenergy into flower production.

Feeding roses

Use banana skins as mulch around roses - they feed on the potassium released.

Tomatoes

To feed tomatoes put a handful of hoover bag fluff, damped down,
around the plants.

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