Gardening Q&A: How to avoid tulip fire

We’re back with more from Susan Esche’s visit to the beautiful University of British Columbia Botanical Garden in Vancouver in early September. It is open to the public and has many different sections and types of gardens to explore.

We’ve visited Susan Esche’s home garden before (A Garden Wedding, the Flowers, and the Deer), but today she’s taking us along to visit a public garden in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Horse manure makes an extremely good soil improver for the garden. Often combined with stable bedding and allowed to rot down for a couple of years, horse manure is perfect for digging into planting holes or spreading onto the surface of bare soil. Fresh manure mustn’t be used directly on the garden as it can actually remove nutrients from the soil and scorch plants, but it can be added to compost heaps.

Q: I have a beautiful Clematis montana that I planted in my garden many years ago, but it’s now got too large and is threatening to pull down an old garden fence. Can I prune it back hard without damaging the plant? AL, Co Longford

Garden for long enough and you eventually come to the inevitable realisation that for several perfectly good reasons it’s not that easy to create a memorably good winter pot display. Why not? First and foremost is the fact that unlike its summer equivalent (a completely different creature) you can’t simply stuff a winter container full of lots of frothy annuals, heat-loving, dramatic foliage plants, gauzy grasses, and showy, frost-tender perennials and then hope for the best. Instead the planting must be chosen to be resilient in the face of cold winter winds, heavy rain and frost, as well as tolerant of short days and low light levels, while somehow still being decorative enough to justify its prime position for up to six months. It’s quite the ask.

Intergenerational gardening lets older people and children come together for their mutual benefit. Intergenerational gardening is a great way for children to learn, and offers older adults an important role in mentoring and teaching them, as well as some fun and pleasant company.

Watering Thanksgiving cactus correctly is key to maintaining your plant and keeping it healthy and looking beautiful.

Fall is a great time for garden chores. This is the time to clean up before winter, protect vulnerable plants, and wind down the growing season. This isn’t the right time for all tasks, though. Know what to do with your garden in the fall and what not to do — for instance, what plants should not be cut back in the fall — to best prepare it for next year.

Take a tour of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and discover a meeting ground of natural beauty, expert design, and horticultural excellence. Nestled in the picturesque landscape of coastal Maine, this garden offers a symphony of colors, fragrances, and serene vistas that will surely captivate any nature enthusiast. In this video, director of horticulture (and frequent Fine Gardening contributing writer) Andy Brand takes us on a journey through three of his favorite gardens and gives insights as to what makes them unique. This tour barely scratches the surface of what CMBG has to offer, however, with its more than 300 acres and 16 unique gardens connected by well-maintained paths and trails. You can spend days at the garden and still find something new.

Why do plants get sick? The simple answer is for lots of reasons, many of them similar to the reasons why we humans do. Take, for example, poor diet. Just as it’s one of the root causes of disease, poor growth and reduced life expectancy in humans, so it is with plants.

Q: Now that it’s late autumn, my dahlias are starting to die back. Can I leave the plants in the ground or do I need I lift the tubers and store them in my shed for the winter? I’d much prefer the first option if possible! MD, Kilkenny

If, like the plants, you’re starting to feel the chills of winter, here are some of the best glasshouses and hot houses you can visit using our 2-for-1 Gardens card.