Grower’s digest - April 2019

Go for gabion for your garden

Among the garden trends for 2019 identified by the Society of Garden Designers is more use of gabion walls. A gabion is a cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand.

It may appear stark in its geometry but one trick is to soften the look with clever planting behind, in front or above.

Mano Mano sell a gabion frame in steel, (sample price €80.99, on going to press) with dimensions 200 x 50 x 100cm.

See www.manomano.fr

Key words on fraises

If you want an early-fruit fraise harvest this year, April is the time to plant out strawberry beds.

Be sure to enrich the soil first with generous helpings of well-rotted manure.

Then for protection use cloches to cover your plants.

In growing season, use a liquid potash feed such as a tomato feed once a week.

Say cheese

Houseplants have never been more in vogue, especially for millennials keen to impose an identity upon their rental accommodation.

However, what goes around comes around: this year is set to see the resurgence of that 1970s favourite, the cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa), as the interior gardener’s greenery du jour.

www.truffaut.com

Insta-jardins

Social media app Instagram is a brilliant way to enjoy other people’s gardens in France, with everyone from chateau visitors to chambre d’hôtes owners posting seasonal snaps of their gardens (users can search using the hashtag #jardins).

This month’s selection features the splendid Château de Chantilly, as snapped and posted by les_tribulations_de_rachel