Peter Seabrook speaks to Professor Nicola Spence from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Xylella fastidiosa is a plant disease threatening to spread across the UK. Nicola and Peter discuss how you can monitor plant health and prevent disease in your garden.
Keeping a watchful eye over the plants in your garden means you can get control over pests before they takeover. Picking off the bugs helps but isn’t 100% effect. To get rid of them completely you need to use a pesticide like Provado Ultimate Bug Killer. Ken Crowther met up with Tom Cole, Senior Horticultural Lecturer at Writtle University College who explained the best way of tackling pests.
With the weather in the UK this winter being wet and warm the grass has grown like mad, and what have they been left covered in, worm casts. Mike Seaton from the Lawn Company has a sulphur based control suppressant which deters the worms from casting as he told Ken Crowther.
People have been using Grazers in their gardens to keep away pigeons and rabbits and all sorts of pests away for years. The formula is a natural product as the active ingredient is food grade calcium which works by coating the leaf and benefits the plant as calcium is a fertilizer. Jonathan Tebb Roger worked on the trials from the outset. He talked to Ken Crowther about the product.
One of the easiest and natural ways to get rid of pests in your garden is to use nematodes. Nematodes are a parasite which controls all the pests in the garden. Particularly effective against the number one pest slugs, they can also be used against vine weevil, caterpillars and ants as Chris Holden explained to Ken Crowther.