Landscape Juice

Landscape Juice is featured by Typepad

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the visitors from Typepad.

Today, Typepad, the owners of the platform I use to broadcast my gardening messages and news, has very kindly featured Landscape Juice on their site - This is truly an honour and a great privilege.

This is indeed very special recognition for me and I must say (and bloggers everywhere will understand this) really is the highlight of my blogging career so far.

Getting the best out of your garden blower

Did anyone watch the formula one motor racing from France last weekend? If you did, you may have noticed that the teams are using an ordinary hand held garden blower/vacuum to introduce air into the car engines to stop them overheating.

I think that this is probably the latest obscure use I have seen for these fantastic machines - I have thought of a few other uses that I have seen or heard of - please feel free to add one of your own.

Tom Hart Dyke's Lullingstone 'guerilla' inspired World Garden

Some unfortunate soul might die in their garden but would you die for your garden?

No, I am not sure that I would and when it comes to plant hunting, the most dangerous situation I have found myself in was getting a bit close to a herd of stampeding but inquisitive bullocks who decided that they didn't like me lying on my stomach photographing a wild flower.

Bad debt in your landscaping business

I was rather fortunate in the twenty one years I ran my landscaping and gardening company in so far as I only encountered three bad debts.

The first one was a small building company that went belly up in the early nineties as the recession took a grip.

The second was the infamous Jack Dellal who refused to pay me for removing an Elaeagnus p. maculata hedge at the bottom of his drive - when his butler claimed he had instructed me to just tidy the border up!

The third was a client in Alton who held back the balance payment after claiming that the job was not completed to their satisfaction when indeed, as we packed up for Christmas, the job was not finished at all and we were never given the opportunity finish the work.

A problem shared is a Problem Solved

My fingers have never been as busy as they are at the moment and the little digits are just about to get that little bit busier.

Problem Solved, a website that is dedicated to find the right trades person for the consumer has asked me to become one of their resident bloggers and part with a bit of my knowledge and experience and hopefully a little bit of anecdotal fun too.

It is another great notch in the bedpost for me and more importantly it will get the site out to a much wider audience.

Exploring the BBC gardening website

I have got to hand it to the BBC for the latest design of their Gardening site. Not only is it clearly defined and easy to navigate but it is well presented and extremely user orientated.

I am not a great fan of clutter with frames normally but in this instance, the BBC have set out the page well.

I am not too sure though that we need to have the TV listings in the corner?

Why we need to control Grey Squirrels

Killing in the name of conservation never seems to fit together and to me sounds like one massive contradiction.

I love to see all wildlife but I am also acutely aware of the fine line there is between feast or famine.

Overpopulation of any species, including humans, in a concentrated area can mean that devaluation followed by degradation of the worlds food assets can swiftly follow.

I am keeping a close eye on the debate concerning the culling of Grey Squirrels in the United Kingdom in a bid to curb their enormous population.

Weedkiller in manure damages food crops

An Organic gardeners nightmare!

If you have an organic allotment or small holding and have noticed damage to your tomatoes or potatoes, it might be worth investigating the source of your manure.

The government pesticide - (PSD) site has issued a warning about the dangers of farm yard manures containing residues of aminopyralid, sprayed on crops, which may have gone onto contaminate animal waste because it is present in the straw.

Do not let your garden rule your life

I have a major confession to make and it is not something that fits comfortably with me. I feel I have let myself down and above all, I have let you, the readers, down - let me explain.

I live in a wonderful place, deep into rural France with twenty acres of truly unspoilt countryside looking out over a truly natural landscape.

I came here to relax and enjoy the second half of life and explore gardening just a little bit more and try to develop a burgeoning vegetable patch to supply us with all of our produce.

Gardeners urged to adopt new 'marque'?

Great Britain is today seeing the launch of a new marque that aims to bring quality and self regulation to what is seen by some as to be a massive unregulated industry in need of direction.

Until this point, there are just two landscaping bodies in the United Kingdom who set out to represent the landscaper and associated horticulture trades.

The Landscape Network Green Tick is aimed at individuals and companies who want to to be held up to scrutiny and broadcast the message that their sole aim is to provide a quality service.