What could be better than picking your own tasty and healthy fruit straight from the garden? The good news is that everyone can grow fruit trees and bushes - they are easy and long-lived and can provide years, even generations, of scrumptious crops.

If you want to discover how to choose the best types for your garden, come along to our FREE Fruit Event this Saturday (see below for details). It's also a great time for planting all types of fruit and you'll find one of the best choices of varieties in the country here at Ardcarne Garden Centre. 

Hope to see you soon

The summer and autumn-flowering heather, Erica vagans, will light up the front of a bed, border or rockery for months with its tapering spikes of pink or white flowers. It's also extremely easy to grow, tolerates normal soil conditions and thrives in exposed windy gardens, even by the coast!

It blends especially well with dwarf pines and petite conifers, feathery grasses and choice perennials. Heathers generally look best when used as groups of the same variety, planted about 18in (45cm) apart. Then they form good ground cover, that suppresses most weeds. Heathers of course can be fantastic to use in containers and generally last for a few years without the need to replace or re-pot. 
Tip: Trim off the old flower spikes once they finish flowering to encourage the plants to stay bushy and compact.

Special offer
 

3 heathers for €12

After the wear and tear of summer the lawn needs a boost, and now is the best time to put out lawn fertiliser such as HumberPalmers. This is a professional product which will green up the lawn in just a few short days and continue to keep the lawn in great condition over the autumn and winter. Use a lawn fertilser spreader to ensure even application. 

Flowers:                  

• Feed and deadhead summer bedding to keep plants flowering till the first frosts
• Plant late flowering perennials such as helenium, nerines, asters and schizostylis to bring a splash of colour to beds and borders
• Move evergreen shrubs this month so they establish well before winter.                        

Fruit & veg:                 

• Check sweetcorn cobs for ripeness – if kernels exude milky fluid, they’re ready
• Lift marrows, pumpkins and squashes onto boards to help ripening
• Have the ground ready to plant overwintering onions and shallot sets, once they are delivered to the garden centre (mid-end sept)

Greenhouse:               

• Keep feeding and watering tomatoes – cropping can continue well into autumn
• Sow herbs and salad leaves such as pea shoots, beetroot and rocket
• Lift tender perennials like Mexican salvias to overwinter in a frost-free greenhouse         

Around the garden:     

• Sow green manures on empty beds to add goodness to the soil
• Finish clipping hedges to send them into winter neatly trimmed
• Net ponds ready to catch falling autumn leaves