How does your garden grow?

The Edited Guide has lots of gardening information. From wildlife gardens to window boxes, there are tips for every level of involvement.

Check how well you did on our quiz. The links will lead you to the Guide Entry for more sage gardening advice.

1. From how to protect your favourite citrus tree to planting the perfect booby trap for slugs and snails, here you'll find all manner of advice and tips on how to make your neighbours go green with envy at your garden.
2. Gardens in the UK generally need around 2.5cms of water a week to keep plants healthy and growing well.
3. Of all the skills associated with the gardening arts nothing has come close to acquiring the same degree of mysticism and superstitious dread as pruning.
4. Bats are protected by law in the UK, and are very rare in an urban garden. The easiest way to attract them is to grow night scented flowers, and follow all the suggestions on how to build a wildlife garden, as this will attract the insects that they eat.
5. Another natural control for caterpillars is an organism called Bacillus thuringiensis, which destroys the caterpillar from the inside.
6. The art of pruning living bushes and trees into fantastic shapes has been around for as long as formal gardening itself. Pliny the Elder described it in the 1st Century AD. The history of topiary provides a fascinating read...
7. If you haven't got the room, or the cash, for a greenhouse, you can still grow winter vegetables.
8. Guerrilla gardening is the act of reclaiming empty and neglected spaces and illicitly transforming them into unofficial gardens by filling them with flowers, plants or sometimes fruits and vegetables.
9. Bonsai is a Japanese word that is used everywhere to mean a tree or shrub planted in a shallow container, and trained to look like a full-size tree.
10. When you consider what the most common garden creatures are, the snail or the slug, or one of the many insects that call the Earth home might spring to mind. However, it is more likely that the gnome is the most prevalent of garden inhabitants throughout the western – and perhaps entire – world.

If you got them all, we bet your courgettes win prizes at the local fair. If not, don't despair: even garden gnomes have their off days.

Didn't see your favourite gardening subject covered? Why not consider sharing your own expertise with us during Create's gardening month?

Remember: Your dahlia may be two centimeters smaller than your neighbour's, but it's just as pretty.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

15.07.13 Front Page

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