Catch up in the garden

A tour of your beds can keep you busy all day, says Ruth

- Ruth Hayes

THERE’S always something to do in the garden. Some days I have set plans for what I need to achieve, while on others I start on one thing and that leads to a host of other pressing tasks.

Pottering around like this is a great way of getting to know your garden. You can see which plants are flourishing, which aren’t doing so well (make a note to mulch the borders in autumn) and where pests are congregating.

It was on a recent round-up of jobs that I noticed an unusual mound of soil in one of our borders, with another just a few feet away. The mole was back, and while their hummocks are unsightly in the lawn, they can cause serious issues underneath plants as the connecting tunnels can disturb the root systems of smaller plants.