Bare soil is the bane of the busy gardener. Leave it unfilled and weeds grow. Bare soil also needs a lot of tickling over (usually with a pitchfork) to keep it looking really good. The answer is to cover as much of it as possible, in the early stages by mulching, and later by allowing ground cover plants to knit together both above and below ground. If you like to see gaps between your plants, use permanent...

Weeds are essentially plants growing in the wrong place. All of our gardens are potentially full of them and even if at some point we succeed in eradicating every weed from our plot, they will reappear as if from nowhere. Light seeds fly in on the wind (thistles and rosebay willowherb), birds drop seeds from berries they have eaten (bramble and elder), and perennials like bindweed, ground elder, brambles, and...

Depending on the type and size of the water feature, positioning can be critical. Here is a list of things to avoid for all but the smallest of features. Don’t excavate for a pond where there is a naturally high water table because the pressure from below will push the liner up, forcing the pond water out. You can work out the level of your water table by excavating a hole until you see water. It is best...

Once the pond has settled down and there is a balance between aquatic insect life, plants, and oxygen levels, the water should become clear and clean. If it doesn’t, try immersing barley straw into the water, which should clear the water after about six weeks and help keep it free of algae for the rest of the summer. You can buy sachets of barley straw that will give some idea of the quantity you need;...

The large particles making up sandy soils refuse to bond together into a good crumb structure, and this means they lose water quickly and don’t hold onto nutrients well. But gardening on a light, sandy soil is not all bad. These soils warm up quickly in spring and you can tread, fork, and dig them on virtually any day of the year. Improvements include adding lots of organic matter, but you’ll find...

Individual clay particles are so small they are visible only under a microscope and clay soil is made up of more than 25 percent of them. Mixed with water, they can be sticky and cement-like. Where there are less than 8 percent clay particles, yet the soil is still heavy, there could be silt mixed with the clay. Silt compacts easily but is less sticky. Tiny particles mean tiny pores and a clay or silt soil is...

Go through any gate and there is a sense of expectation. A gate may offer you an enticing glimpse of what’s beyond, or it might be solid to provide privacy and security—and maybe an even greater sense of anticipation, particularly if it is marked “private”! Gates should blend with the surrounding design. Keep the top of the gate at a similar height to the adjacent wall or fence to create...

A woodland garden needn’t be on a grand scale. It may be no more than an extension to a perimeter planting of quick-growing trees and shrubs designed to screen the garden and offer protection from strong, cold blasts. Add to your tree-planting list a selection of interesting deciduous and evergreen species with colored bark (birch), shaped foliage (maple), (lowers (hawthorn), or fruit (crab apple). Under...

If you have room for an unmown area at the bottom of the garden, a well-established wildflower meadow is a thing of rare beauty. From spring until autumn it is a palette of ever-changing flower color. And it doesn’t have to be an entire field-almost any small patch that you mow only once or twice a year can produce good-quality, well-behaved wildflowers such as cornflowers, native daffodils, cowslips,...

A rockery is exactly that—an area of rocks built to resemble a small-scale mountain. Rock plants or alpines are planted in pockets of soil and between cracks. The rockery doesn’t have to be high, although height allows you to use larger rocks. Use soil that is free of perennial weeds to make the mound, since once weed roots become established under large rocks they are difficult to eradicate. Planning...