FLOWER POWER
I’m a gardening expert, my £4 hack gets rid of slugs and it also fills your garden with a beautiful scent
THERE'S a way of keeping slugs away without horrible chemicals and it will make your garden look better too
IF slugs are still decimating your garden - consider Companion Planting.
It’s where you choose specific flowers or herbs to either deter slugs - or encourage them to eat those particular plants instead of your favourites.
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Aromatic plants like lavender and rosemary have strong scents that actually deter slugs, so it’s worth strategically dotting them around the garden in the hope they keep slugs away.
You can buy a lavender plant from B&Q for as little as £4.
They also don’t like hydreangea’s - as well as thick, hard to eat plants like ferns.
And they don’t like the bitter taste of Euphorbia’s and hairy geraniums also put them off.
GARDENING
Alternatively they absolutely love marigolds, lupines and larkspur, so it’s an idea to get them in the ground to offer your slimy friends something else - a sort of distraction technique.
Some gardeners - and many allotmenteers - will have a strip of marigolds between their lines of veg in the desperate hope it puts off the little leaf munchers.
SUN GARDENING
In Veronica's Column this week...
FOR the next six weeks from now the heady scent of elderflower will fill the air in countless British gardens.
Now is the perfect time to pick the blossoms - which can be transformed into cordial, added to cakes and champagne or even fried in batter! Belvoir Farms has given Sun Gardening a really easy cordial recipe to make at home.
YOU WILL NEED:
2.5kg white sugar, granulated or caster
Zest from 2 unwaxed lemons
20 fresh elderflower heads, stalks trimmed
85g citric acid (buy online or from a chemist)
Method
Put the sugar and 1.5 litres water into a large saucepan. Gently heat, without boiling, until the sugar has dissolved, occasionally stirring.
Remove the zest from the lemons, then slice the lemons into thin rounds.
Once the sugar has dissolved, bring the pan of syrup to the boil, then turn off the heat. Transfer the washed flowers to the syrup along with the lemons, zest and citric acid. Stir well, cover the pan and leave to infuse for 24 hrs.
Line a colander with muslin or a clean tea towel, then sit it over a large bowl or saucepan. Pour or ladle in the syrup and let it slowly drip through. Discard any bits left in the towel during the straining process.
THIS WEEK’S JOB Remove side shoots from cordon tomatoes, deadhead roses and keep picking those slugs and snails by night.
THIS WEEK’S TIP
Get a bunch of spring onions from the shop, put them in water, wait until the roots grow - then plant out - they’ll grow lovely long spring onion microgreens out of the top to use in all sorts of cooking all year round.
WIN!
Thanks to our friends at one lucky reader will get their hands on a Corus String Five Seat Sofa Set worth a massive £1,799!! The set includes a three-seater sofa, two lounge chairs, and a durable slat-top coffee table.
To enter visit THIS LINK or write to Sun KETTLER competition, PO Box 3190, Colchester, Essex, CO2 8GP. Include your name, age, email or phone. UK residents 18+ only. Ends 23.59GMT 22/06/24.
SAVE!
Screwfix are selling a great handfork for £13.99 - or get this £4 version from
LEARN!
Q. I have a cherry bush three years old in a large pot. It flowers every year but no fruit. I would like to plant it directly in the ground. When is the best time to replant? Hugh Hardie, via email.
A. You could technically do this at any time - but the best time is from late Autumn to Spring, when the plant is dormant. It means you won't shock it too much while it's merrily growing and producing flowers. It sounds like it could do with a prune to encourage fruit. And planting it at this point means it will have time to root over Winter ready to burst forth in Spring!
NEWS! A paper origami self watering pot won Sustainable Garden Product of the Year at Chelsea this year - and it can even fit through your letterbox. Visit for more.
Its been reported previously that there are 20,000 slugs in the average garden - but only five per cent will be above ground.
Another way is to go out at night with a head torch and pick them off one by one.
Most read in Fabulous
And there's also the option of a beer trap - which is easy to make by sinking an old jam jar or a can into the soil so the lip is at soil level - and then fill with the cheapest beer you can find.
You can always put broken egg shells round the base of your favourite plants, so they won't slide over them.
And you can also get copper tape to put round the tops of pots. When you have pots - make sure they're far enough away from each other so the slugs can't travel from leaf to neighbouring leaf.
Keep slugs away with Alan Titchmarsh's top plant picks!
Consider nematodes - parasitic worms which you water into the soil - they infect the slugs underground, and they die.
You can also make a garlic spray - which stinks - but does deter the slugs.
And an old favourite is a ring of salt around your plants - although not too much as it can damage your garden.
Happy Hunting!
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