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  • What To Consider When Building A Kitchen Garden in Towns Like Twickenham

    What To Consider When Building A Kitchen Garden in Towns Like Twickenham

    Kitchen gardens are the best way to keep fresh vegetables and fruits coming into your kitchen. It’s increasingly popular in towns like Twickenham. When your garden is truly thriving everything you grow tastes incredible and cuts your grocery bills down.  

    Here are some things to consider when growing your own kitchen garden.  

    The Right Time  

    The best time to grow your kitchen garden is early spring. The Southwest London Gardener can help with your garden design and soft landscaping to help get your kitchen garden ready at the best time. We can help you plan a kitchen garden that you can handle and is the right size for your garden and maintenance level.  

    Best Position  

    How much space and light level can really affect what you grow and how your veg/fruit grows. At The Southwest London Gardener we can advise you on the right veg/fruits that’ll work and how you need to maintain each plant. We can even plant source these for you.  

    Decide On What To Grow  

    There are so many vegetables and fruits to choose from but you need to think of the climate and what you enjoy eating. Only grow things you’ll use and enjoy. Start off small if you’re unsure and slowly increase in what you grow. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself.  

    Prepare The Soil  

    Ensure your soil is perfect for what you’re growing. One of the things to do is clear all weeds. If you’re unsure The Southwest London Gardener provides plant reconditioning and can help improve your soil and advise you on how to constantly keep your soil good. All types of soil benefit from the addition of organic matter to keep in moisture and nutrients.  

    How To Layout Your Kitchen Garden  

    Deciding on a garden layout can be difficult. You need to think about how much space you have, where the sun will hit and what each plant needs. Some veg and fruit require different things to grow and they all can’t grow together. The Southwest London Gardener can advise you on what needs what.  

    If you think carefully about what you want and plant what you’ll enjoy, your kitchen garden will be thriving in no time. Especially with help from us! Get in touch with our friendly team at The Southwest London Gardener to see what we can do for you.  

    Our website has been reviewed and approved by uklistings.org – Greater London Website Listings, and you can find us in homeandgardenlistings.co.uk’s Gardening and Landscaping Directory, so keep an eye out for The Southwest London Gardener.

    We look forward to hearing from you.

  • Cutting Back Your Garden | Garden Maintenance

    Cutting Back Your Garden | Garden Maintenance

    lovely garden

    Plants require maintenance from the moment they’re in the ground. Especially in preparation for
    the colder seasons. With some regular pinching, pruning and deadheading, your flower garden
    will be healthier and last through the harsher months. The South West London Gardener can
    advise and help maintain your garden in advance Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Putney, Richmond,
    Twickenham and SW postcodes.

    What Is Pruning and Why is Pruning Important?

    Pruning is the procedure of removing parts of a plant for landscape and horticultural purposes.
    Pruning is great for maintaining a plant’s health, removing dead, dying, diseased or damaged
    wood. By removing crossing branches or rubbing branches the plant is helped to grow correctly
    and also helps it look better and keep it in proportion. This is particularly important for trees and
    larger plants and for the bigger jobs it is always wise to look to a professional tree surgeon to help.

    Generally you need to prune plants at the correct time otherwise you could do more harm than
    good. However if a plant is heavily overgrown it will be doing more harm than good to itself and
    its neighbours so in these situations pruning at any time is OK. The South West London
    Gardener can help advise you on the right time to prune based on the specific plant, the desired
    outcome and the urgency of the pruning needed.

    The Purpose Of Deadheading

    Deadheading is the act of removing the dead flower heads from your plants. Deadheading
    controls the spread of seeds, encourages plant growth and overall makes everything look good.
    Due to The South West Gardeners experience and extensive knowledge of plants, we can help
    and advise the best time to deadhead your plants and how to best do it.
    You don’t want to cut too close to the bottom of the bloom, you’ll just be left with an unattractive
    dry stem. Every plant is different but a basic rule of thumb is deadhead your flowers and stems
    back to ¼ inch above a new lateral flower, leaf or bud. This will not only look better but
    encourage new growth.

    Pinching

    Pinching is a type of deadheading, this is deadheading using your fingers by pinching the very
    crisp or thin stems. Pinching off the flowers can help the plants grow bushier and fuller.
    With some plants pinching can help move their bloom times back a few weeks giving flowers
    that could bloom into late September when the rest of your garden is dying down.

    Shaping Plants By Cutting Back

    Sometimes the plant isn’t dying however is overgrowing and therefore cannot support itself. This
    especially occurs in fall bloomers, they’ll grow tall, gangly and unable to support themselves. By
    cutting back you’ll encourage them to come back stockier and fuller.

    For more information on what The Southwest London Gardener can do for you, visit our dedicated garden maintenance page. Or, if you want to speak to one of the team, get in touch today.

  • Everything You Need To Know About Landscaping

    Everything You Need To Know About Landscaping

    Designing your garden for the first time can be confusing. Where do you start? Not only are gardens great for improving our quality of air and health. It’s also a great social space for friends and family. This is why it’s important to think about how you want the landscape to look and how you could put your own spin on it. 

    At South West London Gardeners we can help you from design to implementation installation to help ease the stress and provide you with professional work. 

    The Elements 

    When researching for landscape ideas some people like to go to garden centres, social media or magazines for inspiration. The first thing you need to consider is the size of your garden and what is the purpose of your garden, is it an entertainment space? Is it to appease your gardening obsession? Once you’ve figured out the size and purpose you can start to sketch out some ideas and moodboards. 

    South West London gardeners have a great design team that can help discuss the possibilities for your garden and create a design that’ll cater to your needs and maximise your garden’s potential. 

    Location

    How much sun does your garden get? Which side does the sun rise and set? This is important to help determine where things should be positioned. For example, do you want seating placed in the sun or in the shade? Certain plants will need more sun exposure than others. 

    Also location doesn’t just revolve around the sun, is your property in a safe area? Do you want more privacy and security? 

    Where do you want everything placed? Are you interested in wall mounts, hanging plants and leveling? All these things need to be considered to get the most out of your garden space. 

    Materials

    Are you planning to do hard landscaping as well as soft landscaping? Thinking about the materials you’ll want is important. South West London Gardeners work with brick, block, slate, tile, stone, wood, railway sleepers, composite artificial grass and many more surfaces. This also includes watering systems, garden lighting and annual maintenance and repairments. 

    Garden Edging 

    Edging your garden can help make your landscape more structured. A natural garden edge can be easy to maintain and provide flexibility to change it if needed. 

    The above are just a few things to consider when thinking of landscaping. Contact the team at South West London Gardeners and we can create a garden that’ll satisfy your needs.

  • How To Make The Most Out Of A Small Garden

    How To Make The Most Out Of A Small Garden

    Not everyone is lucky enough to have a huge garden with lots of space to work with. However having a small garden not only gives you less maintenance to deal with but it can help you embrace your creative side and create a magical space.

    Here are a few tips to consider: 

    Keep Things Proportionate 

    Less is always more to make a small garden look bigger. Make sure you really consider the elements you really want. At The Southwest London Gardener we can help you figure out what the perfect garden design would be for your garden and what elements could work and what wouldn’t. 

    Everything needs to fit into the small space perfectly. For instance a large water feature would be hard to fit into the space without it taking up a considerable amount of room. However something a bit more fitting like a modest wall mounted waterfall or spout. 

    Simple Landscaping 

    Keep your scheme simple and bold. You don’t want crazy curves etc . You want enough space to make it useful for you and provide you with the necessary elements you need. The Southwest London Gardener can help you make the most out of your landscaping, providing both soft landscaping and hard landscaping advice, design and build. 

    Introduce Levels 

    Not everything has to be on the ground, simple changes to the level of your garden can give the illusion the garden is a lot bigger than it is. It also offers room for sectioning your garden out. Also use the height of your walls or fencing to add extra elements. You could add hanging baskets, window boxes and wall mangers can add that extra bit of green. 

    Materials and Plant Colours 

    To make a space look bigger, introducing bright colours and reflective materials can help make everything look larger. A gloomy space always gives off a claustrophobic feeling, with some reflective surfaces you’ll be able to use natural light to brighten the area. Light, cool coloured paint shades can also help. Light pinks, blues and yellows should be placed around the edge of the garden to evoke depth. More bold colours like bright yellows and oranges draw attention and should be centre focus.

    Garden Furniture 

    Small gardens usually means less storage space for garden furniture to be put away during the colder seasons. However there is garden furniture that can last all year round. Hard wearing woods like teak, eucalyptus or a synthetic waterproof rattan are a good way to go. 

    And don’t forget, garden furniture doesn’t have to be bad for the planet. There are plenty of options when looking for sustainable garden furniture.

    The Southwest London Gardener can help you at every stage from designs to the finished product. Contact us today and we’ll help you figure out the perfect garden solution.