FAQs

Moss will never grow on a healthy patch of grass. poor drainage is usually the reason the grass dies off and moss grows on lawns. Poor drainage is usually the result of soil compaction and water logging and can be remedied by first removing the moss then coring and conditioning the soil.

Starting in spring, we should aim to cause rapid growth after winter when root energy levels are low, with a balanced high nitrogenous fertiliser, this will cause rapid leaf tip growth, and allow the grass to energize the root system.

Following up in summer with a light-maintenance fertiliser to maintain colour and vigour. Autumn feeding should aim to store root energy, rather than using it up for leaf tip growth. Organic products such as blood and bone or composted chicken manure products work well.      

The most effective ways to control weeds in the garden are a combination of spraying small weeds, hand weeding larger weeds to prevent seed drop and mulching to suppress initial weed growth.

All trees require some pruning to retain their health i.e. to remove dead or dying limbs and or root suckers. Some trees if they are fruit bearing will require pruning to regulate height, remove water shoots and thin out some of the fruit quantity. The golden rule is little and often.

Contrary to the old winter pruning theory, fruit trees can be pruned in spring, after fruiting in summer to regulate their height, and in winter for any heavy structural pruning. Care should be taken not to prune through flower set or fruit development, as this can have an adverse effect on the fruit production or cause the fruit to drop. In summer the rule of thumb is not to cut more than a third of the trees canopy off.

There could be many reasons why an apple tree does not produce fruit. If there is no fruit set after flowering, you may need a pollinator. The varieties that pollinate a Pink Lady are Royal Gala, Granny Smith and Red Delicious, try one of them. If it does set fruit feeding the tree with a complete fertiliser, mulching around the tree and keeping it well watered through summer. Should it set fruit, then drop it all, check the fruit for insect activity inside near core.

Usually when the leaves of a citrus tree yellow from the outside of the leaf it is usually a sign that the tree is iron deficient. This can be corrected by watering in chelated iron. It should be watered over the top of the tree, as the iron can be taken in through the foliage and through the root system.

The following varieties don’t require a pollinator: Morella, Lapins, Sir Don, Sunburst and Stella.

The black fungus on your orange tree is caused by the aphid or white fly that are sucking the chlorophyll out of the leaf of the tree, and excreting their honey due on the leaf, thereby setting up in the tree rich food almost pure sugar for a black fungal spore to hop into and proliferate. The solution is to spray the tree with eco-oil and get rid of the primary problem, the insects and that will solve the secondary problem of the black fungus.

From experience, don’t leave the responsibility to the tenant. We can put in place a maintenance program to take care of every area of your garden from lawn, hedges, shrubs, Irrigation, winter pruning, weed spraying and many other facets of general gardening maintenance.

I personally have no faith in subsurface dripline and see more negatives than positives when planning irrigation systems, repairing irrigation systems in lawns or when carrying out turf management.

Unfortunately, many subsurface dripline systems are not buried at the correct depth, making lawn coring risky and possibly expensive, blockages in pipework due to root intrusion very hard to troubleshoot, and the inability to water the surface when applying lawn treatments in summer makes them quite user-unfriendly.

I believe sprinklers used at the right time of the day, with the right turf management practices offer a less problematic solution to watering your lawn, with faults easier to locate and repair and lawn coring safe to undertake.

If installed properly, Dripline is the best system to install in the garden due to the efficiency of the system to water the entire garden area at rootzone level, and keep soil moisture constant throughout the warmer seasons when most growth occurs.

If this system is installed as per the manufacturer’s specifications the system should be still operating 20 – 30 years from installation without any real issues.

All that is required to maintain it is the water supply (tap or solenoid) any breaks in the line, and a periodical flushing (6 monthly or when a break is repaired)

We recommend Rainbird controllers and modules because they are well priced, easy to operate, have many special functions that save time and money. For a battery-powered unit, the Bluetooth Hunter Node is very good.

Drippers are a low volume form of watering designed for trees and shrubs. They are usually fitted in to low density black poly tube near the shrub or tree that is being watered. Drip line in the brown poly tube that is used in landscapes and has a very sophisticated dripper inside of the poly tube. This dripline system is meant to cover the whole garden area providing a grid of drippers over the entire area. Drip line systems should be designed properly in order for it to operate properly. This includes correct operating pressure, vacuum breakers, flushing valves and correct configuration and lengths of pipework.

Salts building up in the pipework from the chlorine and other water filtration products that are used in our water supply, will build up and cause blockages if not periodically flushed out. And also if you accidentally cut the pipe and get dirt into the pipework you need to flush it clean before you start running it again.

Manifolds are a larger diameter pipe than the 13mm drip line piping, normally 19mm or 25mm. They are used to distribute the flow of water better, and allow the entire system to be flushed efficiently.

A manifold should be constructed at both ends of a drip line system to send out water and receive water, with a flushing device at the end point of the system.

There are two issues to deal with here, incoming water supply, and water going to our end-use supply.

Incoming water pressure should not be excessively high or components in your irrigation system will be damaged when the water shuts on and off.

This can be rectified by getting a plumber to fit a pressure reducer just after the water meter, this will also save your household appliances from an early death or repair. Make sure you get an adjustable one, either a Thomson or a Wilkins.

Water supply to drippers or sprinklers is the other pressure issue, this is taken care of with what is called a pressure regulator. This device delivers the recommended pressure that is specified by the manufacturer for the drip system or sprinkler head, and will ensure the system runs at its optimum efficiency.

In dripper or drip line systems some common signals are pipes blowing off, drippers spraying out of the hole instead of dripping.

Pop-up sprinklers often present a very fine mist that is picked up by the slightest breeze and carried off down the road.

Excessive water pooling around the sprinkler head evident by the very green patch around the pop-up location.

Lawns may have dry areas where sprinkler pattern has missed the area.

Leaking pipework underground or components in the system.

Eventually, if water pressure is not reduced all components in the system can be damaged and need to be replaced before the normal use by date.

Yes, this is available if you purchase a controller with the add-on function to insert the additional Wi-Fi module. I have not seen any battery-powered devices with a Wi-Fi capability but Hunter does have a Bluetooth option.