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Less often than most people do, and far more deeply each time. The single most common lawn watering mistake is a light sprinkle every day, which is worse than not watering at all. The target is
That is blossom end rot — a sunken, leathery, dark brown or black patch on the base of the fruit, opposite the stem. It is not a disease and not a pest, and no spray will fix it. The cause is a
Some of it does, with reasonable evidence. A great deal of what circulates is traditional lore that has not held up when tested, and the two are rarely distinguished in the advice you find. What has
Several methods work, and the effective approach is usually to combine two or three rather than relying on any one. Nematodes are the most effective biological option. A microscopic parasite watered
They are the percentages by weight of the three nutrients plants need in the largest quantities: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), always in that order. A fertiliser labelled 10-5-5
Nearly always too much water, too rich a soil, or the wrong pruning — and often all three. Lavender is a Mediterranean plant, and most of the ways people look after it are actively harmful. Drainage
Deadheading is removing spent flowers before they set seed. It works because it interrupts the plant's reproductive cycle and redirects its energy. A flowering plant's purpose, biologically, is to
Almost always one of five things, and the order below is roughly how often each is the culprit. Temperature. This is the most common cause and the least visible. Every species has a soil temperature
You can, but it usually goes badly, and the reason is physics rather than fertility. Soil that behaves well in the ground behaves very differently once it is confined in a container. In open ground,
Brown, dry tips are a water-balance problem in the broadest sense: the leaf edges are the furthest point from the roots, so they are the first tissue to be sacrificed when water delivery falls short
Six or more hours of direct, unobstructed sunlight a day during the growing season. "Direct" is the operative word — bright ambient daylight in an open but shaded spot does not count. The standard
Usually pollination, and often simply timing. Courgettes, along with cucumbers, pumpkins and squash, carry separate male and female flowers on the same plant, and both need to be open at once for
Morning, in most situations — but the reasoning matters more than the rule, because the trade-offs change with climate and with what you are growing. Morning watering has three advantages. The
Because a supermarket basil pot is not one plant. It is dozens of seedlings sown densely into a small volume of compost, grown fast under glass, and intended to be harvested whole within a week or
They are almost certainly fungus gnats, and they are a symptom rather than the problem. Fungus gnats breed in permanently damp compost, so their presence is telling you the pot is staying wetter than
The words describe how long a plant takes to complete its life cycle, which in practice tells you how often you will be replanting. An annual germinates, grows, flowers, sets seed and dies within a
Almost always transplant shock, made worse by one of a small number of repotting mistakes. The plant did not die from being moved as such — it died because the root system could no longer supply the
Because the colour of a mophead or lacecap hydrangea is set by soil chemistry rather than by the variety alone, and something about your soil has shifted. The mechanism is aluminium. Blue pigment
The timing rule that resolves most confusion is about when the shrub sets its flower buds, because pruning at the wrong moment removes the flowers before they open. Shrubs that flower in spring
Tall, thin, pale seedlings that fall over are stretching toward light, a response called etiolation. The plant is investing everything in height to escape shade, at the expense of stem thickness and
The difference is purpose rather than material, and the confusion arises because compost can be used as mulch while most mulches are not compost. Compost is decomposed organic matter used to improve
Splitting is caused by uneven growth rate, which almost always traces back to inconsistent water. The skin sets at a certain size; if the flesh inside then expands faster than the skin can stretch,
Hardening off is gradually acclimatising indoor-raised plants to outdoor conditions before planting them out. Skipping it is one of the most common reasons healthy-looking seedlings collapse within
Moss does not outcompete healthy grass; it colonises space where grass is struggling. Killing the moss without addressing why the grass is weak guarantees it returns, usually within a season. Four