Take a look at the Airboards - surfing on snow, brand new to the slopes this season and now available at The Garden Factory.

Go straight to the spec on the Airboard Classic 130 featured in the video.

Have fun!

My little guide to maintaining garden furniture through the winter months.

Hardwood garden furniture:

Using a small to medium sized scrubbing brush (depending on the depth of dirt), clean using a mild detergent and elbow grease. When dry, apply a sporadic application of hardwood or teak oil. Our trusty Hardwood cleaner kit is an excellent way to get started. It has everything you need - my wife has removed the rubber gloves, cloth and scrubbing brush as her own and she claims it is one of the best potato scrubbers she’s ever used. Hmmm.

Teak Furniture

You really don’t need to store teak over the winter time. Teak contains natural oils which means it can withstand the forces of nature for years. When people talk about ‘Graded’ teak this refers to colour consistancy and not about resilience to weathering. All teak weathers well, and to keep it looking good it simply requires a clean, and you won’t go far wrong with a small to medium scrubbing brush, a mild detergent or wood cleaner and good ol’ elbow grease. You’ll be amazed how much gunk comes out leaving the wood looking fresh and new. Teak reverts to a ‘brand-new’ look when oiled and many prefer this immaculate clean and slightly darker look. And there’s no better teak oil than Cuprinol. The rub though is this; when you start oiling, you should continue to oil every year or you’ll end up with a strange manky-coloured wood look.

Pine, Cedar and Oak Garden Furniture

Bring these indoors over the winter even if painted. And if you don’t have the room, you must cover them up. Yes, even the oak or it will warp.

Glass

The best way to clean glass furniture is by using a soft cloth and warm water. Then buff it dry. However good your intentions, don’t use detergents.

Steel - Metal  Furniture

The best way to clean steel furniture is to rub it down with warm soapy water. Non-textured surfaces can be buffed with car wax to bring out that ’showroom’ look. Use WD40 or similar to get at joints, and in damp corners. Always use a garden furniture cover if you can’t store metal furniture away.

Textured surfaces – resin etc

Baby oil gives resin weave garden furniture surfaces a revitalising lift to make resin garden furniture sparkle-like-new once more. Use WD40 or the like on joints and hinges. Best to store over the winter, but if no space, use a furniture cover.

With a donation going to BBC Children in Need here’s an animated version of my poem in the newsletter,  ‘Think: Christmas‘, put to music. Hope you like it! Pass it on if you do!

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At the end of the season, it’s  nice to look back and reflect on the successes in the garden – and the failures. As a result I thought it might be a bit of fun to run my own winners and losers –  in various categories – so that perhaps when they are less good / awful  I will be reminded of their merits / shortcomings.

The following is based on loose observation from dry East Anglia. Please feel free to add your comment with your own winners and losers.

Trees

Winner –  Weeping Willows.  Stuffed with rich coloured leaves, regalled in wonderful garb, they excelled this year.

Runner Up - Prunus / Malus varieties in the hedgerows, stuffed with fruits.

Bronze – Red Oaks whose late colour was breathtaking.

Losers – Laburnums never seemed to get going and petered out. All my ornamental Acers suffered in the dry weather. Chestnuts had another stinker.

Large Shrubs

Winner – The Lilacs (syringa) were simply beautiful early on the year, when they are often so poor.

Runner Up - Holly. Rich foliage colour all year and now dotted with bright red berries.

Loser - Viburnum Opulus Roseum. Flattered to deceived and faded away early.

Shrubs

Winner – Roses. They were wonderful, flowering on and on. Even now, one refuses to let go of it’s petals.

Runner-Up – Hebes in general were fabulous. The one that impressed was the usually placid Hebe Raciensis, normally weak,  which simply burst into life.

Bronze – Viburnum davidii.  An insignificant garden plant, I was stopped  by its modest flowers and latterly, it’s waxy rich mauve berries.

Loser – Buxus. Partly because it was so dry I guess, but none of the regular bushes looked at all ‘bushy’. Bad year too for my Choisya Aztec Sun. Looked miserable.

Annuals

Winner – Sunflowers. Astonishingly happy!

Runner Up – Geraniums. Bloomed away like an everlasting firework.

Loser – Pansys and violas. I just couldn’t get them right.

Fruit

Winner – Apples. I’ve never seen so many large juicy apples before.

Runner Up – Plums & Greengages were breaking the branches and they seemed particularly delicious.

Loser – Strawberries.  Panned.

Vegetables

Winner – My neighbours ‘Anya’ potatoes were sensational.

Runner Up – Plums / Greengages were breaking the branches and were  particularly delicious. Grapes were full of flavour.

Loser – Tomatoes. Seemed a little tasteless in comparison to recent years and not quite so plentiful. (All my fault, I should think)

Other (un)commended plants:

- Corsican Mint (prostranthera cuneata) was astonishing. I couldn’t help myself taking a pinch of its spicy mint foliage every time I passed.

- Lavenders were wonderful but couldn’t keep up with the late summer.

- Grass – lawn was abysmal.

Deters not only Deer, but Badgers, Squirrels and Humans!

The Deer Scarer

(A testimonial by Bumble)

What a joy it has been to go into the vegetable garden and find that despite the fact that all the cabbages are uncovered, the walnuts are multiple on the tree without protection, the carrots are not dug up and there are no holes in the ground that the badgers have used for lavatories, we realised that either something odd was going on or the Deer Scarer was doing its work. And it certainly was the latter. We tried it out in the spring – but after the damage had been done – in the flower garden and we managed to save a few bulbs , pinks and wallflowers from being guillotined by the deer and hares.

Firstly I must describe the machine. It is a wireless with a light attached and a ‘presence sensitivity’ or what ever it is called and when there is any movement in front of it the radio goes on the light goes on and everyone not expecting it has a big surprise or shock including the rabbits, pigeons, squirrels, badgers, hares and deer. It only stays on for about 30 – 50 secs and after a pause, if the beast has not fled and it moves again, it comes on with a different voice or a piece of music or whatever happens to be playing on Radio 2, to which it is tuned, day and night.
The animal has had enough and flees. We have put ours on a stand so it can be easily moved around.

I am giving these as Christmas presents. I now need to find some sonic devise to scare the white fly from the brasicas and the butterflies from the cabbages, beans etc and then I will be truly turning ‘green’ so roll on experimenters.

BUMBLEBEE

Has there ever been such a vibrant, lasting blaze of Autumn colour? Here, in the East Anglia the Oaks and Poplars, Maples and Malus are showing off the very best colours of stirring autumn hues imaginable. And with every passing day of this mild Autumn the show becomes even more breathtaking.

In the garden, the abundant crops of apples still abound, and the blackberries (brambles) are nearly over, the final few pinched off by the birds. For cultivated blackberries, when the fruit has been gleaned off the bushes, cut out the old fruited canes at the base and tie in the fresh new canes to supports. With Loganberries, cut back the old and tie the new in place. Leave a gap in the centre and fill it next season with new stems, tied temporarily in a bundle.

Clean up Lavender hedges, removing the straw-like heads with secateurs, but trim rather than prune. Do this in Spring. Likewise with privet hedges where a trim will keep them tidy and orderly over the winter months.

And finally, as bonfire night approaches before the leaves get burnt, an Autumnal ditty:

Pretty leaves are falling down,
Green, orange, yellow and brown.
Here comes one coloured red,
It landed on my head.

Enjoy the season,
James

New in store at The Garden Factory is the Aerobin, is a breakthrough in home compost bin technology. As the blurb says, it is a ‘revolutionary’ compost bin, which will add a significant tick to your environmental jobs check box.

‘Revolutionary and compost bin’ go together about as well as ‘Marxism and Champagne’, but in this case there’s a twist. Tests at Swinburne University of Technology Environment and Biotechnology in Australia show that the Aerobin can reduce at least 50% of household waste which would otherwise end up in landfill – halving your rubbish outlay. And what’s more the Aerobin breaks down organic waste faster than any other compost bin creating cracking compost for the benefit of your flowers and vegetables.

So how does the Aerobin work? Well, it has a patented ‘lung’ within an insulated bin which sucks in air and literally lets the bin breath. This promotes aerobic and efficient breakdown of organic matter which in turn helps to reduce greenhouse gases. Condensation and aerobic activity make heat. And heat, as even any high school musical games teacher will tell you, creates reactions. In this case the high temperature kills pathogens (garden baddies), weeds and seeds. As a result, it produces great quality compost in a very short period of time.

Compost technology: the easy way to help the environment

Nine: YOU’RE DOING YOUR BIT. AND OK, IT’S ONLY A LITTLE BIT – BUT IT’S A START!

You won’t need a loan calculator to work out whether this state of the art compost bin is a worthwhile investment, because at £250 the Aerobin represents not only a commitment but an investment in our future. In ten years time, your Aerobin may well be the best investment you ever made. Take a look at the video below:

The Aerobin is perfect for schools, universities, hospitals, offices, clubs, garden centres, retail outlets, educational centres, allotments, large and small households, gardening clubs, even Hampton Court Palace for heavens sake!

Happy composting.

James
The Garden Factory.

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