Lawns have taken a bit of a hammering this summer between drought and deluges and Beechgrove’s lawns are no exception, so Jim gives some timely tips on autumn lawn care. George continues to revamp the Woodland Garden at Beechgrove by lifting the canopies of mature trees to provide new planting pockets below. George also visits Andrew Skea’s family farm near Dundee. Andrew has been supplying gardeners with a range of unusual and specialist seed tatties and is also working on developing the perfect multicoloured crisp.
This week It was a cooler early autumn filming day at the Beechgrove Garden Jim, Carole and George were in the Fruit Cage. The top fruit was looking amazing and it’s not just at Beechgrove, it’s clearly all over the UK. The conditions have been just right for pollination and fertilisation this year, in the cool, wet spring and followed by the summer heat for ripening.
The Beechgrove Garden episode 18 2018
Autumn Lawn Care
Early September is absolutely the best time of year to be sowing new grass seed. Jim was re-sowing an area in which a tree had been taken out and his advice was that when you are spreading the seed, ensure that you go beyond the edges of the bare patch as it helps to merge the new with the old. The gardening team were scarifying the rest of the lawn by hand with a rake as it was too wet to use the scarifying machine. After scarifying a fertiliser with moss killer will be applied.
Crooked Garden Revamp
George continued the revamp of The Woodland Garden at Beechgrove by adding plants to the cooler and shadier side of this garden. This garden is now 20 years old and so some of the
trees have grown sufficiently to start shading out some of the under story plants. One or two shade loving thugs dominate now. George pruned back several branches off the cherry and maple in this garden to lift the canopy and let in more light for new planting.
His general advice for pruning was get rid of dead, diseased or crossing/rubbing branches. If the branch is quite a big one, reduce the length of it to reduce the weight, then make the initial cut underneath, close to the main stem, then continue to prune out the branch from the top and this will stop a heavy branch from tearing.