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Green cypress isolated on white background

The might of the Mughal dynasty lasted from 1526 until the sun set on the empire in 1857. The Mughal rulers were generally cosmopolitan and were renowned for their interest in their various construction projects. The Taj Mahal is perhaps one of the best-known buildings commissioned by a Mughal emperor called Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife. The original gardens of the Taj Mahal were built with the ideals of Mughal garden design in mind but were altered rather extensively years later by Lord Curzon when he was Viceroy of India.&nbsp; So, what were the integral features of Mughal garden design? Like Persian gardens, Mughal gardens were centred around breathtakingly geometrically exact walkways, channels of water, water features, and shimmering pools. Because access to large amounts of water was a necessity in Mughal garden design the location of a garden was always carefully chosen to ensure that it could be conveyed to the garden consistently. But beauty was not the only thing the imperial garden designers had in mind they literally wanted to create a vison of paradise on earth. Every plant and structure and their positioning was dictated by this desire to reflect a kind of paradise on earth where all was harmonious and peace reigned.&nbsp;Take a trip over to our virtual shed next week Thursday to see another post on garden history.&nbsp;

An Emperor's Garden

First of all, if you have a complex tree cutting job that needs to be done, especially if the tree you need to cut leans over in some way which increases the likelihood you will have difficulties, call a tree surgeon. It is always worth calling a tree surgeon for reasons of health and safety.&nbsp; But if you’re doing a slightly smaller job, you feel confident doing, you may want to know how to avoid a very common and frustrating problem; getting your chainsaw stuck in whatever you’re cutting. Your primary concern before doing anything with a chainsaw should be the cleanliness and condition of the chain itself. Tired, old chains are more likely to cause you a sticky problem when you’re trying to cut something. It’s the same with tired, old guide bars, or guide bars with dirt on. Look after your machine and it will look after you. You also need check the tension of your chain and adjust it according to what the instruction manual says if necessary. If there is anything amiss with either bar or chain or both you may have to have them replaced.&nbsp; It is also important to be careful about how you operate your chainsaw if you don't want it to get stuck. Cutting at awkward angles and not cutting the correct the notches in a trunk can cause sticking.&nbsp; And don’t forget to wear all the safety wear you need if your going to use any machinery.

Never Break the Chain

If you’re a June baby one of your birth flowers like the other, the rose, by any other name would also smell as sweet: honeysuckle. It is likely that you will be most familiar with the type of honeysuckle that often decks a pergola, climbing honeysuckle. Climbing honeysuckle is fantastically easy to look after once established, all you need to do is mulch once a year in the spring, and water your climbing honeysuckle thoroughly when the weather is very hot and dry. The lengthy flowering period of this kind of honeysuckle is another plus as they usually flower from mid-summer to autumn. The frosts of winter also need not be a worry because climbing honeysuckle is typically hardy. A particularly beautiful variety of climbing honeysuckle is Lonicera estrusca ‘Donald Waterer’ with its massive clusters of leaves and blooms. It does prefer a slightly warmer climate so you may have more success with it if you don’t live in a colder part of the country.Adding a shrubby honeysuckle to your garden can help with keeping your garden looking great year-round as several of them flower in the winter. However, if you would like a summer flowering variety, Lonicera syringantha is a type of shrubby honeysuckle that flowers in the spring and summer. Other than the differences in the flowering period of the majority of shrubby honeysuckles, caring for them requires you to take pretty much the same steps that caring for climbing honeysuckle requires.Something to note is that the fruit of the honeysuckle can be toxic to both humans and pets, so please take this into account when handling the plant. But there is a variety that produces fruit that is safe to eat, Lonicera caerulea. This edible honeysuckle produces flavoursome fruits that look like elongated blueberries and are delicious raw or in a compote.&nbsp;

A Sweet Scent

Domestic garden strimmer - differential focus  sharpness on trigger

A strimmer is an asset in any gardener’s arsenal but using one incorrectly can lead to issues in your garden and with the machine itself. If you pay attention to these things your strimmer will run well, and your garden will look great.The biggest mistake people often make in the operation of a strimmer is usually strimming over or around hard objects. If you strim in areas where there are hard objects, you risk hitting them and this can damage your strimmer. Yes, plant guards usually protect against this kind of thing, but it makes sense to avoid impacts where you can. The same goes for tough organic material, if you’re up against brambles you may want to make use of a bladed strimmer rather than one with a line. Overly tough foliage can cause issues with certain types of strimmers because it can overload the engine and damage it. And if you’re using a bladed strimmer, make sure that the blade is properly tightened.In terms of strimmer maintenance, always remember to clean your strimmer thoroughly when you’ve used it. Like it can with mowers, the build-up of cuttings can severely affect strimmer performance. &nbsp;If you have a strimmer with a line, be sure to have a replacement and soak your line for a day before use no matter what.And don’t forget, always wear something to protect your eyes. Happy strimming!

Strimminy Cricket!

3d illustration of hanging plant isolated on white background

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and like five of the other Wonders it is lost to us. The Pyramids of Giza, in fact, is the only one of the Wonders that can be seen in our time. Confused accounts of classical era writers have made it difficult to pinpoint an exact location for the Hanging Gardens and describe its exact appearance. Nevertheless, there are some very interesting theories about how the garden was constructed and what it’s location may have been.&nbsp; One theory, posited by Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley, suggests that the gardens may not have been in ancient Babylon at all and that the writers who associated them with the city may have been referring to some gardens in Nineveh built by a king called Sennacherib. Sennacherib conquered Babylon and famously destroyed it, but he is also noted for commissioning several groundbreaking building projects in Ninevah. The story about Nebuchadnezzar building the gardens for his wife because she was homesick was perhaps a poetic fabrication because Nebuchadnezzar left no records of commissioning such a project. Theories that locate the garden in ancient Babylon suggest that it may have simply been left to go to rack and ruin and that valuable materials that went into the building of the palace may have been repurposed and used in other building projects. There does seem to be agreement between the Ninevah and Babylon camps about what one of the methods of irrigation used in the garden may have been. A screw type system like Archimedes Screw might have been used to push water up to the gardens. But which river the water came from we cannot know.&nbsp;

Wonder

There are millions of bees on earth. Of the 20,000 different species of bees on earth, only a little more than 250 species are native to Britain. Furthermore, most of the species in Britain are the single pringles of the bee world, solitary bees. Solitary bees do not produce honey and tend to be more mild-mannered than other types of bees. Apis mellifera, is the only species of bee that makes honey in Britain and their hives are mostly kept and maintained by beekeepers. Wild hives of honeybees are a rarity.What may surprise you is that honeybees’ ability to produce the sweet and sticky stuff isn’t really correlated with how effective they are as pollinators. Actually, solitary bees bear the buzzing bell when it comes to pollination, so it’s important to give them just as much attention. All species of bees, however, regardless of their characteristics, have been suffering from decline in recent decades due to environmental changes and the use of pesticides.The average gardener can do a lot to support the bee population and reduce some of the effects of bee decline. Bees of course need pollen and nectar to have a healthy diet so filling your garden with plants that can provide them with that like buddleias is the easiest way to support them. Avoiding the use of pesticides is another good thing to do. If you want to go further, you can buy or build a bee nest box for solitary bees to nest in. However you decide to do it every small action helps with the maintenance of our precious pollinators.

Oh What a Glorious Thing to Bee

Gardens and Mowers by Clive