The silver birch is a striking tree, with its silver-grey trunk and limbs that shed paper-like bark, light canopy and drooping branches, weighed down by yellow-brown and green catkins in April and May each year. It grows to around 30 metres in height and its triangular-shaped, serrated leaves go from light green in the summer […]

This article is for you if you are looking to fell a tree in your garden, or you have an unsightly or inconvenient stump in your garden, because stump removal can be a really tough task for the uninitiated. Here are some of the facts you’ll want to know upfront: Stumps should be removed when […]

October is the ideal time for a number of last-minute, pre ‘cold snap’ garden activities, so while you still have time, prepare for the coming Autumn with the following four P’s. Planting If you are looking to add a little more green to your garden and introduce flora that will add something special to your […]

When I was younger I used to love picking blackberries with my parents. It’s not like we did it all the time, but once in a while, bucket in hand, we’d traipse off to Alexander Palace or any other accessible bramble Mecca and pick away until our fingers were stained rosy with juice. BUT, as […]

Imagine you own an orchard… how valuable would it be for you to be able to take your most productive fruit trees, clone them and make more with exactly the same characteristics and yield as the original? Until the advent of vegetative (or non-sexual) propagation this would have been but a dream, but now it’s […]

Trees are wonderful things that bring character, shade and life to your garden, but when they grow too big and are too close to your home they can cause problems – both practical and when it comes to your home insurance. The practical issues that insurers worry about can be placed primarily into two categories: […]

As the grey clouds of winter start to evaporate and the long-missed sun finally emerges, for a little while at least – after all, this is Britain – we can finally, thankfully, say that spring has returned. One advantage of the dark greyness of winter is that you can’t see all the stray fallen branches, […]

What colour should the leaves on a healthy tree be? Easy question, right? Green of course (aside from the glorious reds, golds and browns of autumn for deciduous trees, but that goes without saying). Healthy trees in spring and summer are green, so why do we see so many coniferous trees looking scraggy and brown? […]

When you’re selling your home, you want prospective buyers to imagine themselves living there. That’s why the experts have been saying for years that an uncluttered, stylishly furnished property shows well because it gives the visitor an insight into their idealised home. And it’s why the smell of freshly baked bread or cookies can evoke […]

The weather this year has been crazy. First, storms smashed into us with winds gusting up to 90mph, then the cold seemed to linger for months longer than usual, and finally, in May we had the hottest bank holiday on record as we all wilted in the blazing sunshine. Such weather can weaken our trees […]