Gardening Tips Your fortnightly gardening tips for indoors and outdoors

LAWNS
It is perfectly feasible for a lawn to occupy a large area of the easy-care garden, for a well-designed lawn can be a most labour-efficient feature.  Once established, a lawn requires little maintainance apart from mowing when the grass is growing actively and watering during periods of drought.  It is true that a lawn can be hard work.  A pristine, closely-mown, luxury lawn composed entirely of the compact, fine-leafed grasses, the bents and fescues, which has a characteristic 'bowling green' appearance, involves far too much work to interest the easy-care gardener.  This type of lawn requires careful site preparation, is hard to establish, will not stand up to hard wear or any neglect and demands a continual programme of heavy maintenance. Far better for the easy-care gardener is a utility-grade lawn consisting of a mixture of broad-leaved turf grasses plus some bents and fescues.  Such a lawn will appear attractive, will be low in maintenance and will stand up well to hard wear and some neglect, without losing its vitality or becoming unsightly.  It establishes itself easily on a wide variety of soils and quickly forms a dense, healthy sward, which will prevent any wind-blown weed seeds from germinating.  If some grass is already growing well on the site it may be unnecessary to create a new lawn from scratch, as it can be possible to improve the existing grass by good cultivation alone, thus avoiding the work and time involved in preparing the ground.   If the site is reasonably level, little or no soil disturbance will be necessary.   However, if it is uneven it will be necessary to level the bumpy areas of lawn by first removing the turf, either by using a spade or, better still, a turfing iron.   Dig and level the soil and replace the turf.  Where there is no suitable grass the site must be prepared, and then seeded or turfed.  If a lawn is planned on a new, empty site it is often best to use seed to put the whole site down to grass.  The grass will act as an attractive and effective temporary groundcover; giving you time to create other features such as beds and borders at leisure.  To prepare the ground for seeding or turfing, clear it of all weeds and dig it over, removing any debris or stones.   Incorporate as much organic, humus-making material as possible and, if possible, improve heavy soils by adding lime-free sand and light soils by adding peat.  Level the ground and break down any large clods of soil.  Leave to settle for a week or two, and on a day when the ground is reasonably dry, consolidate the soil by walking on it with short, overlapping steps with your weight on your heels, any soft spots will be revealed by deep foot prints.  Lightly rake to level the surface and repeat the treading and raking until the soil is firm.  The site can now be grassed, either by sowing seed or laying turf, the main difference being that a lawn grown from seed takes time to become established while laying turf produces an 'instant' lawn.

TESCO LAUNCHES SHERINGHAM SUPERMARKET APPEAL 

Tesco today announced its intention to lodge an Appeal to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister against the failure of North Norfolk District Council to make a decision on the Company's long standing planning application for permission to build a new foodstore in Sheringham.

The proposed foodstore forms the key element of a package of proposals to benefit the local community, including an urgently needed new community centre, a replacement fire station and private and affordable housing.  These can only go ahead if permission for the foodstore is obtained.

Five months ago, in September 2005, the District Council's Joint Development Control Committee voted to refuse Tesco's foodstore application, but agreed to seek a legal opinion on the reasons given for refusal before a final decision was made. This decision was against the recommendation from the Council's Head of Planning that permission should be granted and an earlier in principle decision by the same Committee in January 2004 that consent should be given.

Speaking today about the Company's intention, Tesco Corporate Affairs Manager, Katherine Edwards said:  'We are disappointed that it is taking the District Council so long to make a final decision on a matter which is of such importance to Sheringham and its people.  We have always made clear our commitment to the town and the many people who support our proposals.  We believe that we must now act in the only way left open to us to seek to fulfil our desire to provide a quality and clearly much needed foodstore in Sheringham.'

MOBILE PHONE WARNING

If you receive a phone call on your mobile, claiming to be a company engineer checking your mobile line and have to press #90 or #09 or any other number, end the call immediately. There is a fraud company using a device that once you press the numbers they can access your SIM card and make calls at your expense.