Top Tips to make gardening easier

Here are Devon in Sight's most useful tips that will make gardening easier.

If you have any other ideas please call 01392 876 666 to share.

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Be prepared

Be prepared - get to know the layout of your garden if its new by walking around it at different times of the day before you do anything.

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Tools

If you have a job planned, get all your tools together before you start.

Take a kneeler, small stool or even stroller with a built-in seat with you if you need it.

Don’t try to carry more than you can easily manage.

Find the best way to carry tools around.  Perhaps a bag, bucket or basket for short handled tools or a wheelbarrow for long handled tools.

Wrap high visibility tape (Hi Viz Cloth Tape for Safety £8.99 available from Amazon) around the handles of your tools so you can see where you have put them. You could also paint the handles white.

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Beds

You may need a gentle stretch before you start to prevent aches and pains later.

Keep beds narrow, no more than a meter wide so you don’t overstretch and fall.

Cover beds with a thick mulch to reduce weeding or even adopt the “No Dig Garden” approach by just putting a new layer of topsoil, manure, or compost and planting in that.  Worms and micro-organisms will help break the new layer soil down and the mulch will help stop weeds growing.

Create raised beds and use containers. These bring the soil off the ground, reduce the need for digging and make any digging that you have to do much easier. Paint edges of raised beds in white.

Put an old bight (yellow or orange) felt tip pen in the soil near favourite plants so you don’t pull them up by mistake.

Plant new annual bedding plants in blocks so you don’t pull them up thinking they’re weeds when they’re only small.

Make you own labels for plants. These could be as simple as a strip of ribbon or a bright coloured old plastic pen stuck in the ground.

If you are growing plants from seed, use different shaped containers (square and round pots are easily available) for each plant to help with identification.

The free App “Be My Eyes” connects to a volunteer who will use your phone’s camera to help you identify plants or weeds!

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Pruning

When you need to prune a plant, feel upwards from the base. You’ll feel vigorous stems, side shoots and buds where the leaf joins a stem. Prune the stem or shoot at an angle just above a bud, and this then forms a new shoot.  Choose buds that are pointing outwards from the body of the shrub.

Put brightly coloured plastic cane toppers or old plastic pots over branches or stems that you have cut for safety.

Plant cordons and espalier versions of fruit trees and soft fruit bushes as they are easier to reach and to prune.

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Mowing the Lawn

If you must mow the lawn, here’s how

  • Pay someone else to do it.
  • Leave the lawn long, it’s good for wildlife!
  • Brightly coloured buckets or cones might provide a target to aim for with the mower.
  • Keep the cord over your shoulder.
  • Always use a circuit breaker.
  • Don’t use mowers if you’ve mown the cord without getting a safety check.
  • Try a cordless electric mower (buy spare batteries).
  • Consider a robot mower.

Leave part of your lawn as long grass to attract insects and reduce work.

Replace lawns with paving, pea shingle, or even fake grass if you are finding it too much to mow.

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Devon in Sight

Don’t struggle on your own there is so much support available.

Call us on 01392 876 666

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