Hate weeding? An easy solution | James Wong

These fast-growing flowers beat the weeds at their own game

If you’re a regular reader, it will probably come as little surprise that I am a passionate believer in the therapeutic power of horticulture. I love witnessing the miracle of life unfold by sowing seeds, the satisfaction when a tree first bears fruit, the fresh scent of a mown lawn. However, there is one job I really can’t hack, especially at this time of year of peak plant growth, and that’s weeding. The hours of back-breaking work rooting out weeds between cracks in paving and in gravel drives, only to have to repeat the whole process a week later is (even to me) just too much like outdoor tidying up.

Fortunately, there is a simple trick you can deploy to beat nature at its own game. You can harness the power of tough, low-growing ornamentals to out-compete weeds for space, water and nutrients in these nooks and crannies. Not only will this dramatically reduce the amount of time you’ll need to spend weeding, but it will also turn a desert of paving and gravel into a colourful, living surface that will withstand any amount of trampling. Here are some of my favourite, hard-working candidates to fill cracks and crevices and get down to the business of fighting weeds.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Xw9NVa
via IFTTT

Harvest time on Plot 29 | Allan Jenkins

This month in the garden has its rewards – and a few jobs, too

July, the harvest time, when sowing slows, but even though it’s the summer holidays you’ll need to grow for next spring: cabbages, cauliflowers, sprouts if you like them.

Continue with kales and chards and fennel. And it’s likely to be your last chance to sow beetroot this month. Add carrots for autumn and winter. It’s getting late to top up peas and French beans to be ready before the frost.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XvUtrC
via IFTTT

Harvest time on Plot 29 | Allan Jenkins

This month in the garden has its rewards – and a few jobs, too

July, the harvest time, when sowing slows, but even though it’s the summer holidays you’ll need to grow for next spring: cabbages, cauliflowers, sprouts if you like them.

Continue with kales and chards and fennel. And it’s likely to be your last chance to sow beetroot this month. Add carrots for autumn and winter. It’s getting late to top up peas and French beans to be ready before the frost.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XvUtrC
via IFTTT

How to keep a property transaction on course Nottingham Estate Agents

The collapse of a property sale can have a far greater effect than just disappointment or irritation – it can cost sellers thousands. OnTheMarket.com offers the following tips to keep your transaction steady. The numbers According to YouGov, a staggering 300,000 transactions collapse each year. The average cost of each case is £2,727, and 12 […]

The post How to keep a property transaction on course appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

from OnTheMarket.com blog https://ift.tt/2WaJ2Ar
via IFTTT

Bold and brave: design in a rental house

With creative use of colour and lots of art, living in a rental property was no barrier to creating an inspiring, individual home for this designer

One of the first things you notice as you enter Swiss-born interior designer Ana Engelhorn’s elegant London period home is the original wooden staircase painted dark green. It’s set against the cheery brightness of the hallway, painted in Papers and Paints’ Soane Yellow – an homage to Ana’s mother. She told her: “When you open a door you want to be happy to go inside.”

There are flashes of colour everywhere in the stucco-fronted Belgravia rental property she and her husband Carlos moved into last year, with their two young children, their nanny and Persian cat Duke. Not able to change anything structurally, Ana’s solution was to give the house a makeover with colour and reinvent the space.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XqqNap
via IFTTT

Bold and brave: design in a rental house

With creative use of colour and lots of art, living in a rental property was no barrier to creating an inspiring, individual home for this designer

One of the first things you notice as you enter Swiss-born interior designer Ana Engelhorn’s elegant London period home is the original wooden staircase painted dark green. It’s set against the cheery brightness of the hallway, painted in Papers and Paints’ Soane Yellow – an homage to Ana’s mother. She told her: “When you open a door you want to be happy to go inside.”

There are flashes of colour everywhere in the stucco-fronted Belgravia rental property she and her husband Carlos moved into last year, with their two young children, their nanny and Persian cat Duke. Not able to change anything structurally, Ana’s solution was to give the house a makeover with colour and reinvent the space.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XqqNap
via IFTTT

How to grow your own medicine cabinet | Alys Fowler

Sore throat? Hungover? Anxious? Don’t reach for the tablets; you could find the cure in your own garden or local park

I recently walked into a tree. I didn’t mean to, but I was, as usual, looking at what was growing around my feet and not where I was going. The result was a messy scrape of torn skin, but nearby was also the solution: I plucked a few leaves of herb robert and a number of ribwort plantain leaves, mashed them between my fingers till their juices flowed, and pressed the mash into my cut. Within an hour it was knitting back together; a week later you could barely tell it had happened.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2YAqmfa
via IFTTT