11 tips for aspiring gardeners in 2022 (including some that could save you money)

Whether you're a keen gardener or someone who checks in on the condition of their outdoor space only occasionally, we all like to give our green space a bit of an uplift. But take note of any fancy gardening tools you're investing in and plans you're putting into practice outdoors - as you might just find they're not entirely necessary.

Sure, at times your garden will benefit from action to create a better home for any seeds you'll want to plant - and at times, this will mean some new kit to make your activities less of a chore.

However, some of the time and money you're investing into your garden could turn out to be unnecessary, with there being easier and more affordable ways to go about things.

Gardening expert and ecologist Ken Thompson shares his tips and tricks of what you need to do in the garden and what you can get away with avoiding.

Top tips for aspiring gardeners in 2022

1. Compost queries sorted

If the need to turn your heap puts you off making compost, then don’t – turn it, that is. Because, whatever anyone else may tell you, there’s absolutely no need. Your heap might take a little longer to break down if it’s never turned, but you will have usable compost in six months to a year, and why are you in a hurry? 

If you chop everything up small, especially anything woody, your compost will be ready sooner, and the finished product will look better. But you don’t even need a bin, other than for the sake of tidiness. No need for fancy aerators or tumblers either, or for chemical activators, and nor will the typical small heap get properly hot, so don’t worry when yours doesn’t.

2. Wildlife homes are inefficient

With the honourable exception of those for birds and solitary bees, ‘wildlife homes’ rarely work. And even ‘solitary bee hotels’ aren’t worth actually buying; just drill some blind holes (4-10 mm diameter) in any old piece of untreated wood and fix somewhere sunny and sheltered from the rain. That’s it.

3. Grow your own fruit and berries

Some plants are so easy to propagate that seeing anyone actually buying them is enough to make you cry. If you want to grow blackcurrants or gooseberries (and you should – they’re easy and delicious), just find a friend or neighbour who grows them, beg some prunings in the autumn and stick them in the ground – preferably the right way up. They will be rooted by spring, and make decent-sized bushes in a couple of years.

Raspberries are even easier to grow, especially if you go for an autumn-fruiting variety. They sucker so freely that anyone who grows them will already be digging up new canes and throwing them away, so they may as well throw some in your direction.

4. Use fertiliser sparingly

When planting a new shrub, ignore any instruction to add organic matter, fertiliser or anything else to the planting hole. Let me quote Jim Buckland, one half of the team that created the wonderful gardens at West Dean in Sussex: “Do not dig a huge planting pit and fill it with the soil equivalent of crack cocaine. 

Trees are in it for the long term and have to grow in the soil they are presented with, not be given a fast food takeaway meal for their formative years and then rapidly moved to a more austere diet as their roots leave the cloying comfort of their planting pit.” But do mulch around the tree after planting to suppress weeds and retain moisture in the soil.

5. Bugs could be your biggest help

Just because something is ugly doesn’t mean it’s out to get you, so don’t just squash all creepy-crawlies on principle. Hoverfly larvae, which are basically maggots, are candidates for the least attractive animals in the garden, but nothing else is quite as good at hoovering up aphids. So learn what they look like and, before you attempt to control your aphids, always check whether they are already doing the job for you – along with ladybird larvae and other predators. They usually will be.

6. Get rid of the rockdust

Exhaustive research has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that rockdust does nothing for your plants, your soil or anything else.

7. What does biochar do?

A question without a simple answer - because it can be made from literally any kind of organic matter. If the original material is alkaline, then so is the biochar, so it has a liming effect – although lime itself would be better and cheaper. If the original material was rich in plant nutrients, then the biochar will be too, although most biochar is nutrient-poor. So if your soil is either very acid or very low in nutrients, some biochars might have a small effect, but very few garden soils are either of those things.

8. Check the pH of your soil

The official advice on liming and soil pH is clear. For example, here’s the RHS on the subject: “a pH between 5 and 6 is ideal for rhododendrons and other acid-loving plants, but if you’re growing anything else, add lime”. But this advice is based on a mistaken idea of how the availability of nutrients, and especially phosphorus, varies with soil pH. In reality, almost everything grows very well at a pH between 5 and 6, so unless you’re trying to deal with a specific problem, such as club root in brassicas, or your soil is exceptionally acid (few garden soils are), don’t bother with lime.

9. Stick to original compost

Compost tea is water in which compost has been steeped, and which therefore contains some of the compost’s nutrients, microorganisms, and heaven knows what else. Personally I’ve never been quite sure what compost tea is supposed to do that the original compost wouldn’t do just as well, and probably better. When Which? Gardening tested compost tea, they found it did precisely nothing. Save your time and money.

10. The story behind mycorrhizas

Mycorrhizas, a symbiotic association between the roots of most plants and beneficial fungi, effectively extend the plant’s root system and are very important for uptake of nutrients, especially phosphorus. They raise the interesting question: just because you know something is good for your plants, does that mean it must be a good idea to buy some more? 

The answer is: probably not. The basic problem is that most garden soils will already contain a diverse collection of mycorrhizas, either as the active fungus or as dormant spores, so most plants will quickly recruit the mycorrhizas they need. On top of that, there are at least 300 different species of mycorrhizas, yet the typical commercial product contains only a few, and sometimes only one, so maybe it’s not surprising that they usually don’t add much to what’s in the soil already. Finally, whenever anyone bothers to check, plants arriving direct from the nursery often turn out to be mycorrhizal before you even plant them. 

Here’s tree expert Peter Thomas on the subject: “It is far better to take a small amount of soil from beneath a nearby successful tree to act as an inoculant.” This is more likely to have the right local fungi and is, of course, free. And finally, a bonus number 11:

11. Nettles can be good for your garden

The one thing all wildlife gardening pundits seem to agree on is that you should grow some nettles, the larval food plant of the red admiral, small tortoiseshell, painted lady and comma butterflies. But nettles are already a candidate for Britain’s commonest plant, so nothing you can add to that is more than a tiny drop in a very large ocean. In any event, this is surely a case of looking at Lepidoptera through the wrong end of the telescope. 

Why this obsession with just four of Britain’s 59 species of butterfly? More to the point, what about our 2,500 species of moths? Have you ever wondered what they might like to eat, and if not, why not? Good choices of larval food plants for moths include birch, willows and hawthorn, along with almost anything in the rose, currant, mint and daisy families. But there are so many moths, with such varied diets, that most gardens will provide food for many species, even if only by accident. Grow a wide diversity of plants and your local moths will be happy.

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