admin
Gardening presenter and horticulturalist Monty Don is the lead host of the gardening TV series BBC Gardener’s World.
The 68-year-old has appeared on a plethora of gardening programmes over the years and has also written a variety of books on the subject.
Each month, Monty shares in his blog which tasks gardeners should be tackling in their gardens to get them looking their best.
This month, Monty shared which plants to prune as well as the correct technique for pruning them.
He has also shared an “effective but simple” method to “suppress” annual weeds and “weaken” perennial ones.
He said: “Mulching is very effective but very simple. All you have to do is spread a layer of organic material over any bare soil.
“This will do three important jobs simultaneously. The first is to suppress any annual weeds and weaken any perennial ones.
“The second is to reduce evaporation and therefore keep in moisture and the third is that it will be incorporated into the soil by worms and improve the structure and nutrition.”
Monty said the best material to use for mulching high-quality, homemade garden compost since it has a wealth of the bacteria and fungi that plants require to be healthy.
The gardening expert said he used to use mushroom compost because it’s both easy to handle and alkaline, however, he found that most growers now use some peat as part of their mushroom compost so he decided to stop using it.
Peat releases substantial amounts of carbon dioxide when it is harvested which contributes to greenhouse gas levels.
Instead, Monty is using homemade compost which is made using council green waste, some proprietary organic peat-free compost and bark chips.
He added: “I have used the latter for many years on our grass borders as they are slightly ericaceous (acidic) and have low fertility, both factors which are beneficial to ornamental grasses.
“Whatever you use it is important to spread it thick enough – no less than two inches deep and twice that if you have enough material.
“It is better to do half the garden properly than all of it with too thin a layer of mulch.”
