Here’s how to encourage more birds into your garden.

A garden filled with birds is a joy to be in. Birds add colour, music and life to our gardens, and they also do a fantastic job of keeping garden pests like caterpillars and aphids under control. Some birds will even eat slugs and snails! Our gardens can also be a valuable resource for birds, providing food, shelter and nesting sites, so making your garden more bird-friendly is a win-win situation! Here’s how to encourage more birds into your garden.
<h2>6 ways to attract birds to your garden</h2>
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Put up a few bird feeders. Remember that birds have different feeding habits, so ground-feeding birds like robins and blackbirds prefer table feeders, while bluetits and goldfinches will come to hanging feeders filled with seeds or nuts. Place your feeders near shrubs or trees to give birds an escape route if cats or other predators appear, and remember that it can take some time for birds to find your feeders, so don’t worry if they don’t all turn up straight away!
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<img alt="Bird feerders in autumn" src="https://staging.tuincentrumvoorbeeld.nl/files/files/bird-feerders-in-autumn-1200x500-64f9e9740e43c.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="Bird feerders in autumn" />
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Plant berry-bearing shrubs like holly, berberis, crab apple, rowan and hawthorn, which all provide food for birds in autumn and winter. The brightly coloured berries will also cheer up the garden on gloomy winter days – at least until the birds have eaten them all!&nbsp;
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Mature ivy is a superb plant for a bird-friendly garden. The energy-rich berries are a good food source in late autumn, and the evergreen leaves provide good shelter both over winter and in the nesting season. To keep ivy from getting out of control, cut it back hard in early spring.
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Put up bird nesting boxes in autumn or winter so that they’re ready for the birds to find when they start looking for nesting sites in early spring. Avoid south-facing walls, which will get too hot, and west-facing walls, which will get the full blast of prevailing winds. North or north-east-facing walls are ideal.
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</ol>
<img alt="Birds in autumn" src="https://staging.tuincentrumvoorbeeld.nl/files/files/birds-in-autumn-1200x500-64f9e90cd9215.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="Birds in autumn" />
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Although it’s tempting to use pesticides to get rid of slugs, aphids and other garden pests, try to avoid doing this as much as possible, as these creatures provide food for your garden birds. Bluetits and great tits eat huge amounts of aphids, especially during the breeding season, and blackbirds and thrushes will help to keep slugs and snails under control. If the birds aren’t eating enough of your garden pests, try non-chemical controls like wiping bugs off plants or spraying them off with a water jet.&nbsp;
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If you have space, leave a small area of your lawn to grow long, providing homes for insects and invertebrates that then become food for birds. Leave the long grass to stand over winter so that birds can have their pick of the newly hatched insects in spring to feed to their own young chicks.&nbsp;
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With our fantastic range of bird care products and wildlife-friendly plants, you’ll soon have birds flocking to your garden. Visit us today for help and advice!

6 ways to attract birds to your garden

Here are five of our favourite vegetables to grow in autumn.

Autumn might be on its way, but there’s no need to stop growing vegetables! With the soil still warm and several weeks to go before the weather turns really cold, seeds sown now will grow quickly, giving you harvests through autumn and even into winter if grown in a greenhouse or polytunnel. Dig in some garden compost or well-rotted manure to replenish your soil, and get planting! Here are five of our favourite vegetables to grow in autumn.
<h2>5 tasty vegetables to grow in autumn</h2>
<ol>
<li>Radishes grow fast and can be ready to harvest in 4 weeks from sowing, so they’re ideal for a quick autumn crop. Sow the round red varieties in pots so you can bring them indoors if there’s a sudden cold snap, or sow winter radishes like the popular Japanese radish (Raphanus sativus ‘Longipinnatus’), also known as daikon or mooli, which grows well in cool temperatures. The peppery roots are delicious raw or cooked, and don’t throw away the leaves – they’re edible, too! When young and tender, they’re good raw in salads and pesto.&nbsp; Mature leaves can be steamed or sauteed, which gets rid of any bitterness.</li>
</ol>
<img alt="Grow radish in autumn" src="https://www.dierenartsboschhoven.nl/files/files/grow-radish-in-autumn-1200x500-64f9e52b910ce.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="Grow radish in autumn" />
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<li>Japanese turnips (Brassica rapa Akana Group) are also quick-growing and can be sown outdoors in early autumn and harvested while still small for tasty, tender, sweet flesh. You can also grow them in a greenhouse for a later harvest. Use the young leaves as turnip greens.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hardy spinach varieties like Spinach ‘Giant Winter’ will grow all through winter in a polytunnel or outdoors under the horticultural fleece, giving you harvests of cut and come-again leaves until spring. Enrich the soil with plenty of well-rotted manure or compost before sowing, and space the plants well to allow air to circulate, reducing the risk of downy mildew. Sow in late summer or early autumn for a late autumn harvest, with a second sowing to overwinter for harvesting in spring.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Kale is one of the classic winter crops and will cope with even the coldest winter weather. It’s slow-growing, so it needs to be sown in early summer, but you should be able to find seedlings in garden centres now. Plant in well-drained soil that’s had plenty of organic matter dug in and harvest through winter – regular picking will encourage more leaves to grow. You may need to net the plants to protect them from birds.</li>
</ol>
<img alt="Grow kale in autumn" src="https://www.dierenartsboschhoven.nl/files/files/grow-kale-in-autumn-1200x500-64f9e4ea193c9.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="Grow kale in autumn" />
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<li>For winter salads, sow hardy varieties like lamb’s lettuce (Valerianella locusta) or Oriental greens like mizuna and mibuna, which grow well in cooler conditions. Planted in a polytunnel or under cloches, they’ll keep you in salad leaves all winter. Iceberg lettuce ‘Winter Gem’ also grows well under glass, and its compact size means you could even grow it in a pot on a balcony.</li>
</ol>
Enjoy harvesting your own home-grown vegetables and salads all winter with seeds and seedlings from our extensive range. Visit us today and get sowing!

5 vegetables to grow in autumn

Find out how to prune your hydrangeas with our simple guide.

With their big flowerheads and bold foliage, hydrangeas are a superb choice for shady borders, adding structure and beautiful late summer colour. With the right pruning, hydrangeas will flower reliably year after year. Find out how to prune your hydrangeas with our simple guide.
<h2>Identifying your hydrangea</h2>
Hydrangeas come in a wide range, and each type has its own pruning requirements, so before picking up your secateurs, you’ll need to identify your hydrangea. The easiest way to identify hydrangeas is by their flower type, so if you’re not sure what you have, leave it to grow for a season before pruning it.
<img alt="How to prune hydrangeas" src="https://staging.tuincentrumvoorbeeld.nl/files/files/how-to-prune-hydrangeas-4-1200x500-64ecb1af96c94.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="How to prune hydrangeas" />
<h2>Types of hydrangea</h2>
Most hydrangeas found in gardens will fit into one of these categories:
Hydrangea macrophylla: Compact, bushy shrubs, known as either mophead or lacecap hydrangeas, depending on their flowerheads. Mophead hydrangeas have round flowerheads made up of small flowers. The flowers are usually either pink or blue depending on soil pH, although white varieties are also available (white varieties don’t change colour with soil pH). Lacecap hydrangeas have flat flowerheads with a ring of petals around the centre of tiny flowers.
<ul>
<li>Hydrangea paniculata: a bushy deciduous shrub with long, conical flowerheads on arching stems. In some varieties, the flowerheads gradually change colour as they mature.</li>
<li>Hydrangea arborescens:&nbsp; a large shrub with huge round flowerheads, usually white. Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ is one of the best-known Hydrangea arborescens varieties.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hydrangea quercifolia (oakleaf hydrangea): a medium-sized shrub with long conical flowerheads and bold lobed leaves that turn red in autumn.</li>
<li>Hydrangea anomala sp. petiolaris (climbing hydrangea):&nbsp; a self-clinging deciduous climber with lacecap flowers and leaves that turn yellow in autumn.</li>
</ul>
<h2>How to prune hydrangeas</h2>
<img alt="How to prune hydrangeas" src="https://staging.tuincentrumvoorbeeld.nl/files/files/how-to-prune-hydrangeas-5-1200x500-64ecb1c83c57e.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="How to prune hydrangeas" />
<ul>
<li>Pruning Hydrangea macrophylla: Don’t deadhead mophead hydrangeas in autumn. Leave the dried flowerheads on the plant over winter, as they will provide some frost protection for the new buds. Prune in early spring, cutting back last year’s flowered stems to the first pair of strong buds below the old flowerhead, and cutting back one or two of the old stems to the base to promote new growth and more flowers. Lacecap hydrangeas can be deadheaded after flowering, cutting back to the second pair of leaves below the flowerhead.&nbsp; As for mopheads, cut back one or two old stems in spring.</li>
<li>Pruning Hydrangea paniculata and Hydrangea arborescens: Prune in spring, cutting back last year’s growth to a pair of healthy buds lower down on the stems. Hard pruning to around 25cm above ground level will give you a compact bushy shrub. For a taller plant, prune to around 60cm high.&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pruning Hydrangea quercifolia: Prune in spring to remove any dead wood and cut back any overlong stems.</li>
<li>Pruning Hydrangea anomala sp. petiolaris: Prune as soon as possible after flowering, cutting back any overlong shoots. Most flowers will appear at the top of the plant, so don’t prune too hard in this area.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
From flowering shrubs to vibrant perennials, you’ll find plants to suit every garden in our centre. Visit us today and add some autumn colour to your garden!

How to prune hydrangeas

We’ve put together our top tips on how to keep garden pests under control naturally.

Every gardener knows how infuriating it can be to see your newly planted seedlings devoured by slugs or your broad bean crop smothered in aphids. But luckily, there are ways to tackle garden pests without automatically reaching for the pesticide spray. We’ve put together our top tips on how to keep garden pests under control naturally.
<h2>7 natural pest control tips for gardeners</h2>
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Strong, healthy plants are less at risk of attack from pests and diseases, so make sure your plants have the right growing conditions and enough water and nutrients to grow well.
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Encourage beneficial insects like ladybirds and hoverflies into the garden. As well as chomping their way through huge quantities of aphids, these useful insects also feed on nectar and pollen, so they’re attracted to flowering plants. Umbellifers (plants with flattened flowerheads) like Ammi majus and Achillea are especially popular, as are plants in the daisy family.
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Use sacrificial plants to attract pests away from the plants you want to protect. You can then either pull up the sacrificial plants and destroy them or pick the pests off by hand. Nasturtiums are great at attracting aphids, and French marigolds will lure in slugs and snails.
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<img alt="Nasturtiums natural pest control" src="https://staging.tuincentrumvoorbeeld.nl/files/files/nasturtiums-natural-pest-control-1200x500-64ec983d52f91.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="Nasturtiums natural pest control" />
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Birds eat a huge number of caterpillars, aphids and other garden pests (thrushes and blackbirds will even eat slugs and snails!), so encourage birds into the garden by planting shrubs like hawthorn, pyracantha and holly, which provide both food and shelter.&nbsp;&nbsp;
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Create a wildlife pond to attract frogs and toads, and they’ll help to control slugs and snails. Your pond doesn’t need to be big – even a large washing-up bowl sunk into the ground and planted up with one or two aquatic plants will attract wildlife and help keep pests down.
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Protect precious plants from slugs with beer traps. Sink empty yoghurt pots into the ground, with the lips of the pots approximately 2-3cm above ground level, and part-fill them with beer. Slugs and snails will be attracted to the liquid, fall in and drown. Check and empty the traps daily.&nbsp;&nbsp;
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</ol>
<img alt="Use beer traps as natural pest control" src="https://staging.tuincentrumvoorbeeld.nl/files/files/use-beer-traps-as-natural-pest-control-1200x500-64ec985c18ee6.jpg" style="width: 100%;" title="Use beer traps as natural pest control" />
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For small gardens, hand-picking is one of the simplest ways to control pests.&nbsp; Wipe small infestations of aphids off plant leaves before they have a chance to get established, or spray them off with a water jet. Go out with a torch and bucket in the evening and pick slugs and snails off your plants – just remember that they have strong homing instincts, so if you’re planning to release them, take them at least 20m away. Keep an eye out for bright red lily beetles on lilies. Pick them off by hand and squash them. They tend to drop off the plant to protect themselves, so put a sheet of white paper on the ground around the plant first to make any fallen beetles easier to spot.
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</ol>
Whatever challenges you face in your garden, you’ll find solutions in our centre. Come in and see us today – we’re always happy to help!

7 natural pest control tips for gardeners

On the Blog

Leaving soil bare to the elements for any length of time is a recipe for disaster. Soil structure is a delicate thing, and if it's pounded into a hard cap by relentless rain, baked by the sun and then colonised by tough, hard-to-eradicate weeds it's no wonder you struggle to get anything to grow

Green manures

Plant potfuls of hyacinths and paperwhite daffodils now to force for their sweetly-scented flowers in the middle of winter. You'll find specially-prepared heat treated bulbs on sale in the garden centre: plant into pots of bulb fibre, water and keep cool and dark until shoots appear. Move onto a sunny windowsill and enjoy.

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