Guardian Money helps you put your finances in order while adapting to a new way of living
The coronavirus crisis has had a huge impact on all of us. About 8.4 million workers have been furloughed, tens of thousands have lost their jobs and many self-employed workers’ incomes have taken a hit.
Continue reading...Then plant cornflowers and take a virtual garden tour
Buy this If you hanker after something to nurture, a mini growing kit from the Crop Club (£13.50) will provide something to enjoy on your windowsill. Choose herbs and edible flowers to sow in each of three decorated pots, then you can watch them grow.
Plant this The vivid blue flowers of the perennial cornflower (Centaurea montana) are cottage garden favourites, blooming from now until late summer in sun or partial shade. Cultivars ‘Jordy’ (dark purple) and ‘Carnea’ (pale pink) are worth a look, but you can’t beat the blue. Height and spread: 45cm x 60cm.
Continue reading...From raspberries to gooseberries, blackcurrants or tayberries, we can enjoy soft fruit all summer long
Soft raspberries and wineberries; sun-warmed strawberries so ripe you can smell them before you see them; blueberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, and the strange delicacy that is white currants. Then there are jostaberries, worcesterberries, tayberries and the fattest blackberries you can imagine. Our climate may not be one for citrus or mangoes, but we have berries and we can have them all summer long.
Productive soft fruit is the most cost-effective of all food growing when you compare with shop prices – productive being the operative word here. It is very easy to do little and have plants that do the same. Strawberries need love poured into them in the form of liquid feed high in potash (comfrey is ideal) once a week during the growing season; regularly propagate runners to maintain vigour and mulch with well-rotted compost from autumn to early spring to keep the soil in good health. That, a lot of sun and, crucially, a sheltered spot, as bees don’t like to be belted about to find their tea.
Continue reading...Sculptural and primeval, Australian tree ferns have been thrilling British gardeners for more than 150 years. They’re also perfect for today’s tiny back gardens and shady courtyards
With thick, fuzzy trunks topped by a headdress of imposing fronds, these giants of the fern family are showstoppers. “When you see them, you think, wow,” says designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, who has been using them in his gardens for more than 30 years. But it is their ability to make a statuesque feature in the smallest of spaces that has cemented the tree fern’s recent popularity, he says. “When you’ve got a dark area where little else will grow, few plants perform so well.”
Among the tree ferns available in the UK, the most popular is Dicksonia antarctica. Its huge trunks, which arrived on our shores in the 1840s and 50s, were transported from their native Australia to be planted in Britain’s grand gardens by well-heeled Victorian gardeners. The plant’s main asset is its hardiness: it can cope with temperatures as cold as -5C, which means it will survive the average British winter with the help of some insulation around the crown. They can grow to 15m (49ft) in their native south-eastern Australia. Others, such as the black tree fern (Cyathea medullaris), may thrive outside in a sheltered garden in Cornwall or in the heat island of central London, but would struggle elsewhere in the event of a harsh UK winter.
Continue reading...It’s not too late to add a splash of colour. These flowers thrive in containers, in even the smallest of spaces
Over the past two years, I have accumulated a little collection of terracotta pots in a sheltered corner of the Garden Museum in London, where I am head gardener. The largest is no wider than 30cm (12in), the smallest the size of my hand. They allow me to trial plants I haven’t grown before, and together form an uplifting, colourful display. Through spring they have bulged with yellow uvularias, bright dicentras and the tubular blooms of corydalis. Most enjoyable is the ease of maintenance: I can water by hand, feed as necessary and rearrange to my heart’s content.
With spring now almost over, I’m transferring these plants to suitable homes throughout the garden and preparing to refill the pots. Like many gardeners in lockdown, I want bright, long-lasting blooms, but also low maintenance: pot-tolerant species able to cope with my reduced visits to the garden.
Continue reading...Managing to secure a mortgage isn’t just about proving you can afford to repay it each month. You’ll need to have at least 5% of the deposit saved up – more if you want the lowest rates. If saving tens of thousands of pounds feels like a daunting prospect, you aren’t alone. OnTheMarket asked the […]
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After the Labour peer David Clark said he had spotted an albino pheasant for the first time in 75 years of bird-watching, readers respond with their own sightings
We were surprised when an albino pheasant (Letters, 22 May) took up residence with our seven domestic chickens last year. They seemed to coexist happily for a few weeks, sharing the same food, although the pheasant roosted elsewhere. We’ve not seen it this year and don’t know what happened to it.
Stephen Ross
High Biggins, Cumbria
• Last year I saw an albino pheasant occasionally on walks through local countryside. The last time I saw it, it was among several other pheasants hanging in the back of a gamekeeper’s quad cycle after a shoot. How jolly unsporting, I thought!
Alex Allan
Gore End, Hampshire
