Florabella Gardening

24/02/2023

We're often tempted to add flowers to our gardens to attract bees and promote biodiversity. But what if this is sometimes a bad idea?

19/05/2021

I can’t stand plastic grass -seems the be a combination of all that is wrong with our approach to the environment. Please sign!

PLASTIC GRASS

British gardens are being dug up and replaced with plastic grass. But this isn’t the flaky, fading stuff on which oranges were once displayed at the greengrocer. Today’s artificial grass is nearly identical to the real thing.

With products named after beautiful places – Lake District, Valencia – modern artificial turf mimics not just the mottled colouring and shape of grass blades, but the warm springiness of earth.

Unlike the grass itself, the market is growing. Dozens of specialist firms now market fake grass as a replacement for garden lawns. UK sales have surged and valued the global market at $2.5bn (£2bn) in 2016 and forecasts a “staggering” rise to $5.8bn by 2023.

While fake grass might indeed be greener, at least in colour, its environmental impacts are difficult to gloss over.

Paul Hetherington, fundraising director for the charity Buglife, says “It blocks access to the soil beneath for burrowing insects, such as solitary bees, and the ground above for soil dwellers such as worms, which will be starved of food beneath it,” he adds. “It provides food for absolutely no living creatures.”

This is a particular concern in view of the dramatic global decline in insect species. The UK is on course to miss its own targets for protecting its natural spaces, and has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows in a single generation.

If you would like to petition the UK government over this here's a petition.

PETITION: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/585520

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/aug/02/turf-it-out-is-it-time-to-say-goodbye-to-artificial-grass

PHOTO: Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

22/02/2021

These are great! What a brilliant idea to share interest in native plants.

20/02/2021

Its happening now! This is not a drill!

It appears that our moonflower is a bit of a sunlover and it has started opening during the day, just to keep us all on our toes!

Visit the livestream to see it in action: www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/moonflower

We'll still be doing a Facebook Live Q&A, but it will be a bit earlier on, probably teatime (actual time tbc, we'll be in touch to confirm details).

16/02/2021

After a good tidy up I am looking forward to planting up these pots, planning is half the fun.

08/02/2021

A meter isn’t a great distance but it can make a big difference in how plants perform. Both these pots of Iris reticulata were on the same mantelpiece, given plenty of water and neither were in a draught. The only difference is that the pot on the left was closer to the window by roughly 1m. A surprisingly little amount of extra light can produce a much healthier plant with greater numbers of fruit or flowers. Maybe try moving a houseplant or an underperforming perennial (in the Spring time rather than now!) and see if you notice an improvement.

02/02/2021

Keep your garden hedgehog friendly. Check leaf litter and long grass before using those garden tools; many hedgehogs are killed and severely injured by garden forks and mowers.

22/01/2021

Sounds like a great way to avoid the vegetable glut in mid summer.

27/10/2020

03/10/2020

Take a moment and observe the different tribes of Tomato 😎

11/09/2020

Maybe wasps are not so bad after all