Attracting wildlife to your garden...

Verbena Bonariensis is fantastically easy to grow, is a prolific self seeder and adds wonderful colour to your garden from early summer right up to when we experience the first frosts in the autumn. As if that's not enough, it's foilage is evergreen and butterflies and other flying insects love this plant! You only need a few plants to start off and a year or two later you'll be giving the seedlings away to your friends.

I planted them in a border amongst giant delphiniums and the combination earlier this year looked stunning - having said that they look equally great on their own and due to their sturdy stems are reasonably self-supporting. They can grow to a good height - mine have reached about 1.5m this year, but with the quantity of rain we've experienced many plants are taller than usual... so don't be put off. Another good thing about them is that despite their height they do not disguise other plants which surround them due to their open stem structure. In my opinion every garden should have some!

Hearty stuff in July...

Despite all the unseasonally wet weather we've had so far this year my lettuces have been left alone by the slugs.... a total miracle! The seedlings which have started to come up seem to have been spared as well. My French Marigolds weren't so lucky! I did happen to notice the signs that a Mistle Thrush had been close by with a number of smashed snail shells left behind as evidence - so I was glad I'd not used slug pellets.

If any of you reading this has had a problem with blight (a fungal disease which is brought on by wet and damp humid weather) this year which have affected your potato crop, the tip is to remove all of the plant above soil level which will help prevent the potatoes themselves being affected. Ensure you burn all the affected foilage so contamination doesn't affect next year's crops or any tomatoes for that matter. Also you're advised not to plant tomato and potato crops in close proximity to help prevent the spread of this fungal disease. You also might like to consider adopting a system of crop rotation which will help avoid crops being infected with the same disease year after year as the spores etc remain in the soil. Bon courage!