Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year
The first couple of weeks of May are just about your last proper chance of getting stakes into your flower beds in order to prevent top-heavy herbaceous plants from flopping about under the combined weight of flowers and rain and the infuriating effects of freakish gusts of wind (freakish wind being a thing enjoyed by nobody at all). At least, you can do it later, but not without trampling on things. Bamboo and twine will do, or metal plant supports – either the plastic-coated variety or the ones with the rusty steel finish. I’ve found a relatively inexpensive way of getting the trendy ferrous oxide look is to buy a job lot of steel fencing pins, the ones with the handy hook on the top, ideal for hanging a ball of twine upon. But my absolute favourite are those supports artfully fashioned from sticks of native trees (usually hazel), woven together to form a thing of beauty in their own right. My efforts with this technique are, admittedly, something less than gorgeous, the one consolation being that they’ll soon be covered up by the plants they’re there to support.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, writer, photographer, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking this image.