Before the gardening season starts for real it's time to think a bit about how we can try and work a bit more cooperatively with nature and using her to help us in our gardening efforts.

Did you know that  that cutting down on the use of harmful pesticides in the garden can benefit your garden as well as the environment. You might not know this, but not every bug in your garden is a bad bug. Some creepy crawlies are in fact eating the bugs that are eating your plants. Knowing which ones to nurture and which ones to blitz can help you to cut down on the use of sprays that are harmful to the environment, without sacrificing your beautiful blooms. Therefore, taking care of the environment does not have to mean a slug infestation.

The food chain begins with the garden in more ways than just growing vegetables. All insects are an important part of the natural food chain in your garden for other wildlife to feed on. By keeping toxic chemicals out of your garden, you allow the beneficial wildlife to make an appearance because more often than not, these good guys are affected to a greater extent than the insect you were trying to control with a pesticide.

Most of us know that Ladyirds and butterflies are the helpful damsels of the garden, but which wildlife are the knights in shining armour? Believe it or not bees, moths, hedgehogs, bats and birds are all responsible for keeping your flowers pest free. But how do you keep this helpful wildlife around?

1. Use ornamental plants that provide a food source over a long period. Include nectar- and pollen-rich plants for bees, butterflies and other flower-visiting insects, and fruiting trees and shrubs for mammals and birds. Night-flowering or scented species will benefit moths.

2 Create a log pile to benefit insects, fungi, birds, mice, hedgehogs.

3 Leave some plants uncut throughout winter to provide seeds for food and shelter to birds and other creatures.

4 A water feature (a washing-up bowl set into the ground will do) without fish will enable frogs to spawn. They will return the favour by eating slugs and snails

5 Turning part of your lawn into a wildflower meadow would require careful management but will provide food and shelter for wildlife of all kinds

6 Attract bats and hedgehogs by providing specially built boxes comfortable enough for hibernation.

7 Put out a variety of nuts, seeds and fat snacks to attract birds when natural food sources are scarce. They will at the same time eat the bugs and aphids on apple trees.

8 Ivy, honeysuckle and clematis and other climbers along with hedges offer shelter and potential nesting places for birds and over-wintering sites for butterflies

9 Hand picking and removing weak plants that are heavily infested with pests will help keep pests in check as well planting Barriers, such as floating row covers or baited traps are also effective.

And LASTLY

10. Avoid spraying pesticides unless it is absolutely necessary so that the good guys have a chance to settle into your garden over the winter so they are ready to fight come spring!

In the current climate we need to make sure that the plants that we are bringing into our gardens don’t have a huge carbon footprint after traveling half way around the world. With this in mind it is more important than ever to make sure that as Irish gardeners we are using Irish plants when and where possible. We tend not to think about where our plants are coming from when we buy them. We think that buying plants for the garden is doing our bit for the planet, and it is. It is just that we need to be careful where they are coming from. The world of Horticulture is no longer the world of the local gardener growing a few plants outside in his back garden and offering them for sale. This is now a multi billion euro industry with many plants that reach the Irish marketplace starting off in a distant country. Many of these plants will have been grown in artificial environments with artificial heat and light and then they get wrapped in plastic, placed in plastic trays and fed onto trucks which will deliver them all over the world. So now one can see where the damage is being done.

In these times of climate change posing a real threat to our way of life it is now essential that each one of us begins to act more responsibly and that no longer means that we are doing enough by simply driving to our local bring centre in the first week of January to dispose of used Christmas wrapping paper so we can feel good about ourselves. No the responsibility that we have now is that we need to use our heads about all things that we do. We need to think about everything that we buy and how it has been produced, where it has been produced, how much unnecessary packaging has been used and how did it get to us. Equally we need to think about how it or the packaging will be disposed of.

We can do a huge amount for our local environment and thus the planet at large by creating a healthy living and sustainable garden. It is a joy as a hobby, a beautiful addition to the home and in material terms a valuable add on to any real estate. I use the word sustainable here in terms of our purchases. Where do the plants come from and how do we treat pests and diseases. If we can be sure to use locally produced Irish plants and try and garden with nature using natural solutions for garden problems then we will be more successful as gardeners and be doing our bit for the natural order.

Also of huge importance right now is that by buying Irish grown plants we are keeping Irish nurseries in business and thus helping keep employment in Ireland. This is obvious in its importance at the moment. We need to think about where our plants are being grown and try where possible to obtain locally produced plants.

There is a long tradition of growing plants in Ireland and a vast number of Irish plants available to the amateur gardener and Peter Dowdall is making it easier than ever to purchase Irish plants through the website www.gardeningonline.ie.

Now is the time to lift and divide those perennial plants that may have outgrown their space or maybe they aren’t flowering as well as they should be due to overcrowding. Shrubs and trees that are in the wrong place and were screaming to be moved earlier in the year can all be moved during this dormant season. A good idea for any gardener is to get used to taking regular photographs of the garden. Try and remember now the jobs that you said you must do during the winter. Was there a shrub that you wanted to move? A perennial that you said you must lift and divide?  Photographs will jog the memory and remind you of the clump of perennial life lying beneath the soil and show you the shrubs that you thought were wrong during the summer.

It’s very easy to bulk up on your plant numbers by dividing perennial plants that have died back for the winter. With a strong shovel or spade lift the clump out of the ground, identify the growing shoots and with a good sharp knife, secateurs or spade simply divide the plant so that each new division contains at least one growing tip. These plants can then either be grown on in pots, given away as gifts or planted directly into the ground where they will continue to prosper and multiply in size over the coming years. It’s also nice to pass some of these extra plants onto friends and other interested gardeners.

Plants that can be divided in this way include:

• Hosta
• Echinacaea
• Delphinium
• Lupin
• Verbascum
• Astilbe
• Gunnera
• Geum
• Dahlia
• Anemone japonica
• Chrysanthemum
• Geranium
• Iris
• Rudbeckia
• Sedum
• Dicentra
• Sedum

This is one of the things that is great about gardening. It is this passing on of knowledge and interest and surplus plants. I couldn’t tell you how many plants I have in my garden that have been given to me as gifts. Whenever the plant catches your attention it reminds you of who gave it to you, often the plant has outlived the benefactor, thus making the garden a truly living and wonderful entity.

A friend of mine is involved with a fantastic charity ACARA. They have already built a school in Lesotho but what is great is that they also helped to build a Keyhole garden for the school. This garden illustrates how much we have to learn from them when we are using our skills and knowledge to help them. ACARA built a keyhole garden in Bloom in the Phoenix Park in summer 2009 and I am delighted to report that that garden is now being transported to Dunsland where we will have it on permanent exhibition so people can see how it works. A KEYHOLE GARDEN A Keyhole Garden (so called because it resembles a keyhole being a broken circle with a wedge out of it) was specially designed by the charity Send a Cow, for use in African countries, especially Lesotho, where drought and flash rainstorms make the growing of vegetables very difficult. It is designed as a raised vegetable garden, built from stone, with layers of soil, manure, wood ash, and dry matter placed inside the stone. The essential element of this garden is the placing of a COMPOST BASKET in the middle of the raised bed. All grey water from washing and washing up can be poured directly into the compost basket, along with all the normal compost materials. The goodness and moisture created by the compost basket seep directly out into the vegetable growing area, making a warm, moist bed for the vegetables to grow in. The keyhole garden is generally covered with a mulch to stop evaporation from the surface soil. Lesotho can have 7 months of drought and then 2 months of flash, very heavy, rain storms – this has created a huge problem of soil erosion, with vast stretches of top soil being washed away, adding to the many other problems associated with vegetable growing. A keyhole garden can supply enough vegetables, throughout the year, for a Lesotho family. Vegetables usually grown consist of spinach, beetroot, carrots, kale and beans. The vegetables are rotated around the circle each growing period and more manure is added to the garden and it is revitalised during the winter months.

keyhole garden2.JPG (39.56 kb)

There is a dramatic beauty about winter in the garden as deciduous trees and shrubs provide stunning displays as their leaves develop into old age before falling and providing wonderful winter stem effects, but what is really important about winter in the garden is the creatures who call our gardens ‘home’ during the winter months. As gardeners (budding and mature) the outdoor space we create is for us to admire and play in. However, you would be amazed at how much wildlife share this space with us. There is a great diversity of fauna living in our garden’s delicate ecosysytem and it’s these ‘good guys’ that we want to encourage. It isn’t just so we can feel good about ourselves – though is it a wonderful feeling to see your bird table as busy as a popular deli – no, the reason we should be doing this is because they truly can help our garden grow. From the tiny little ladybird that will happily munch away on greenfly and other aphids, to the birds who are a natural predator for slugs and snail, these critters will lend a helping hand all year long if we provide the right home for them. By using chemical formulations either in liquid or pellet form you will upset these useful creatures and thereby upset the balance in your garden. You will encourage birds into the garden by placing bird feeders, baths and tables and also by planting plants the produce winter berries. As I write this, for instance, I am being serenaded by a cacophony of birdsong. I don’t know enough about birds to be able to identify which ones are singing, but I cn tell from where I am sitting that it is a pretty big orchestra. So next time you moan about the birds having stripped your Holly bush or your Skimmia, just remember that they will repay you tenfold by taking care of many of your garden pest problems over the following year. It is believed that domestic gardens accomodate over 60% of all wildlife in Ireland Keep in mind that once you have attracted these creatures to your garden, many of them will need care over the winter. One of the easiest ways of protecting them is by planting a self producing food source in the form of winter berried plants. There are of course many varieties that would be suitable, but one of the most popular is Ilex or Holly. This plant, synonomos obviously with Christmas, is a very important plant in the garden for maintaining the natural order. These majestic plants are also at risk of becoming endangered so so plant one if you have space for one in the garden. Other berried plants that create a wonderful winter display and provide food for the birds are: Pyracantha, Skimmia, Callicarpa, Cotoneaster among others