Care Guides
Care guides by Rupert Foxton-Smythe
426 guides
Lawn Care FAQs
Buying mowers is like buying cars—there is a choice of many kinds and many prices.
Plants and Fertilizers
To keep your house plants looking and feeling healthy, you must give them the nourishment they need, as well as the light, warmth and water.
Flower Arranging With Carnations
Carnations — dianthus and pinks, were fashionable long before many of the other plants and shrubs now growing in our borders were even thought of, much less discovered.
Insects and Insecticides
Many insects are pests of garden plants, some like aphids (greenfly, black fly etc.), flea beetles, leather jackets, millepedes and wireworms attacking a wide range of crops, others confining attacks…
Growing House Plants in a Bottle Garden
As with bottles containing model ships (which are inserted flat, then pulled upright with a string), there are ‘tricks’ to making bottle gardens.
House Plants in the Hallway
Halls are often narrow and lacking in both space and light, but these problems need not make them an unsuitable spot for house plants.
Outdoor Cultivation of Daffodils
A well-drained soil, deeply worked and containing some humus, is ideal for the narcissus. The plant will in no way tolerate a waterlogged soil, nor one of an acidic nature.
Pruning and Training House Plants
Pruning and training House plants is carried out in the interest of shapeliness, and for curbing untidy and weak growth.
Growing Fruit on the Patio and Small Garden
Fruit should find a place in every patio and garden no matter the size. In the very smallest, there must surely be room for a tree or two to be trained against walls of the house; even in the paved…
Growing Plants on Walls
Tiny gardens particularly benefit from walls clothed in brightly colored flowering plants.
Weed and Pest Control of Garden Plants
In a newly established garden, weeds are the main problem; but at a later stage the accent lies rather on disease – that is to say, fungus and pest infections etc.
Best Way to Control Weeds
‘If weeds won’t grow nothing else will.’ Experienced gardeners are fond of saying this and they are quite right.