It seems such a pity when a nursery has a lot of land but it is all just grassed over or filled with evergreen bushes. If this is your situation, can you negotiate for:
* a flower bed to be 'the children's', for growing annual flowers?
* a patch to be left to grow a few vegetables for the nursery kitchen?
* a sizeable area of grass to be left unmown from early May to mid- September, so you can have a meadow garden? The grass will grow tall and flower, and wildflowers will appear: buttercups, daisies, clover, hawkbit, groundsel. Enjoy the names: ragged Robin, shepherd's purse, fieldmouse ear chickweed! The joy of rolling in long grass, picking daisies and blowing dandelion clocks is part of childhood. Some children's only experience of this could be at your nursery. See how the flowers attract butterflies, ladybirds and other small creatures. If you never do anything else, do try to have a meadow garden. The effort for you will be about nil, and the potential pleasure for children will be enormous.
But don't be alarmed at doing 'real' gardening. It would be very straightforward to put in a bed of perennial flowers that need minimum attention (see box). Or just putting in a few easy-flowering bushes could make a huge difference to your site. Try a camelia, a hardy fuschia, a 'butterfly bush' (buddleja davidii 'Harlequin', or buddleja alternifolia), Choisya 'Sundance', flowering currant, or the bright yellow-flowered Hypericum 'Hidcote'. Or plant a lilac, a crabapple, or a mountain ash tree with its masses of red berries to attract birds.
Remember that when the children grow plants from seed, it is for their benefit, not some kind of gardening test for you! Seed packets carry instructions and when buying plants you can always ask advice from the people selling them.
MAKE A PATCHWORK PLOT
* Either have a border along a path or next to a wall or fence, or create a plot in a sunny, grassy area. Make sure there's enough room for children to be able to walk all round it, and that they can reach every part without stepping on it.
* Especially if you intend having vegetables or growing flowers from seed, make a 'patchwork' plot. Divide a rectangular bed into small patches for different plants. Very economical on space, this also makes for easy work, because you can work on just one small patch at a time. And if one crop fails, it will hardly be noticeable - just dig in some compost with a trowel and plant a different crop. Do the same when a crop is harvested.
* Start with one plot about two metres long and 70cm wide. Stretching string or tape between small sticks, divide the plot in half lengthways.
Then put strings across widthways about every 35cm, to make 12 patches.
* Plan your crops: have either patches of flowers grown from seed, or herbs, or salad-and-vegetables - or any mixture of these. Particularly if you are growing food crops, always have a patch of onions, chives or garlic, and also a patch or two of English marigolds to attract beneficial insects and discourage harmful ones (the petals are edible and make a pretty garnish). A sample 'patchwork plot' could have two patches each of marigolds, Breakfast Bowl lettuce and spinach, and one patch each of chives, radishes, turnips, beetroot, ruby chard and carrots.
If this is successful, then create as many more plots as you want to and have space for. Always allow plenty of room to walk round all your plots, perhaps putting down bark chips between them. Rotate your crops each year (see the upcoming gardening column in Nursery World on 9 March).
* Look on seed packets to find out how to space out the seeds and to get an idea of how many to put in each patch. Very tiny seeds, such as lettuce, are hard to plant individually, so mix a small pinch with some dry sand, then sprinkle over the patch.
Allow large plants such as potato and broccoli a whole patch per plant, and a courgette or pumpkin plant four patches. Make a tall teepee across four patches for runner beans to climb up, and a small teepee in one patch for peas.
If you keep dead-heading the marigolds, they will flower the whole summer.
In the autumn, let the flowers run to seed and save the seeds to plant next year. Breakfast Bowl lettuce leaves can be cut off a few at a time, leaving the plant to grow more leaves throughout the season.
PREPARING THE GROUND
1) Dig out large weeds such as dandelions, brambles and bindweed, making sure that you get the whole root - any bits left behind will grow again.
Burn or bin the weeds.
2) With a spade, skim off small surface weeds (or take off the layer of grass in a new lawn plot). Bin or burn any seeding weeds. Save the rest (or pieces of mown grass) in a container for compost.
3) Double dig the whole plot methodically, end to end (see 'How to dig', page 20), removing any large stones as you go. Leave the ground to settle for two or three weeks.
Raised beds
Having double-dug your ground, it is possible to avoid ever having to do it again by having raised beds. To make these, simply enclose your plots with wooden planking and, every autumn, cover the earth with a thick layer (at least 10cm) of compost, or compost plus manure. This smothers weeds and protects against soil erosion. Earthworms will pull the compost underground, feeding the soil and improving its structure.
Next spring, fork in some blood-and-bone and begin planting. As no digging is needed, there is no need to stand on the beds, and the soil won't get compacted.
You can also create raised beds by enclosing patches of grass with 40cm-high wooden boards and filling with good top-soil and compost. Each autumn, top them up with compost, as above.
HOW TO DIG
Deep digging ('double digging') is essential, at least the first time you start working your plot. It's done like this:
* Stand in one corner of your plot, facing one end, then push your spade straight down (not at an angle) into the ground as deep as the full length of the blade (one 'spit').
* Dig out a straight-sided cube of earth, measuring one spit each way. Put the soil to one side. Then dig out another cube to the side of, and adjoining, the first. Then dig out a third.
* You should now have a straight-sided trench about 55cm (three blade-widths) long and nearly 20cm wide. Leave all the dug-out soil on one side.
* Take a fork and push the prongs into the bottom of the trench to their full length and fork over the soil. You may find clay, stone or chalk down there. Chop it about well, but leave it there.
* Tip in some organic matter - compost, manure, or both - and lightly fork it in.
* Step back and dig out a second trench abutting the first, repeating the whole procedure. But this time, put the soil you dig out into the first trench, and fork a few handfuls of bonemeal (or blood-and-bone) and a few of peat substitute (for example, coir) into it.
* Step back again and dig a third trench, and so on.
* At the end, use the soil taken from the first trench to fill the last one.
Never let the much poorer, deep-down soil (the sub-soil) come up to the surface..
You needn't double-dig every year. But in vegetable plots, it is a good idea to dig the soil over one 'spit' deep each year and mix in some blood-and-bonemeal, peat substitute and compost, plus well-rotted manure if you can get it. Add a little lime if your soil is acid, and always do so for brassicas (see the gardening column in Nursery World on 9 February 2006). Or have 'raised beds', as above.
Easy flowering perennials
These will grow in damp soil
* cranesbill: Geranium endressii
* London pride
* purple loosestrife
* yellow loosestrife
* marsh marigolds These will grow in dry places
* cranesbill: Geranium macrorrhizum
* lavender
* cotton lavender
* Mexican daisy (erigeron karvinskianus)
* nepeta (eg, Six Hills Giant)
* osteospermum
* rosemary
* sedum spectabile Unfussy plants
* aquilegia
* bunnies' ears (Stachys byzantina)
* crocosmia
* day lilies
* hollyhocks
* Japanese anemones
* lady's mantle (Alchemilla mollis)
* Lenten roses
* phlox (white are easiest)
* polygonum: affine or amplexicaule Poisonous plants
Children need to understand that they must never taste any part of any plant without adult sanction, even if they think they know what it is.
Foxgloves, delphiniums, lupins, lilies-of-the-valley, hydrangeas, rue, laburnum, ivy, holly and laurel are just some plants that we know have poisonous parts. They are best avoided at nursery unless unreachable from play areas. Certain parts of food plants can be poisonous too, such as rhubarb leaves.
All the green parts of tomato and potato plants are poisonous. Although these are wonderful plants to grow, you may want to position them carefully. Sometimes a chicken-wire 'balloon' or wall around a crop can be the answer - and it should also deter pigeons and cats!
Advice can be confusing. Sometimes, a book lists plants such as cress or spinach as containing poison, but the amount is so miniscule that these foods can be safely eaten. But John Tampion's Poisonous Plants could be helpful.
Deterring 'intruders' - human and otherwise
* It's devastating for everyone if intruders damage your garden. The less your garden can be seen from the street, main entrance and nearby buildings, the better. In addition to your usual security, think also how to make use of your planting. You can't put barbed wire on top of a fence, but there is no law against training thorny plants along it, and making sure the briars can be seen from outside. Dead briars can still be useful!
* Thorny twigs poked into seed beds help to deter birds and cats.
* Blackberry plants rapidly produce long briars, and provide the bonus of giving you fruit to pick. Wear thorn-proof gloves (available from garden centres) when handling them.
* Wild roses grow long, thorny briars. Try sweetbriar (eglantine) with its apple-scented leaves, pink flowers and masses of red autumn hips.
* To be dense and impenetrable, hedges must be kept well trimmed. Never let them get 'leggy'. Holly makes a very secure hedge, but fallen leaves could be a constant and painful annoyance. Berberis 'Rose Glow' is good, but pick up every single prickly twig after trimming.
* Clumps of bamboo and, in summer, Jerusalem artichokes, make good screens.
* Slugs and snails can wreak havoc. Put down scooped-out orange halves or upturned plant pots to 'trap' them, or let children hunt for them under plants, especially in damp places. Dispose of them in waste or wooded ground - not near other gardens! Or, out of sight, simply do what gardeners do: stamp on them hard and compost them.
* If you have a hedgehog, or a pond with frogs, your slugs should vanish! Otherwise, surrounding your plants with soot or wood ash can protect them, and adhesive copper tape around tubs repels slugs, as they won't slither across copper4.
* If you are desperate, use slug pellets containing metaldehyde. Push one pellet under the leaves of each particularly vulnerable plant (notably lettuces, strawberries, peas and beans).
* As for flowers, grow those that slugs dislike (the majority of those suggested in this article).
* But beware of calling slugs and snails 'bad'. They are excellent food for hedgehogs, frogs and birds. They're just a nuisance to humans, though the big yellow-green ones do help break down compost material.
Further information
* 1 The Royal Horticultural Society Schools Membership Scheme provides free gardening and educational advice, seeds, a newsletter and a monthly magazine. Contact Claire Dudley on 01483 479 728 or e-mail schools@rhs.org.uk , or download the application form from www.rhs.org.uk
* 2 RHS New Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers gives the size, season, colour and best soil conditions of more than 8,000 plants
* 3 Contact BALI (British Association of Landscape Industry) for advice on heavy duty work on 0870 770 4971 or contact@bali.org.uk
* 4 The Green Gardener has 'green' advice and anti-slug products, tel: 01603 715 096
* The Garden Expert and other titles by DG Hessayon
* The Vegetable Garden Displayed and The Fruit Garden Displayed, published by the RHS, updated over the years and still the best guides available
* Learn to Garden (published by RHS) is a detailed gardening course
* Organic Gardening monthly magazine
* Nursery World will publish seasonal gardening tips each month this year
