Gardening Services Close to You in North Finchley

Most new shrubs and trees that die do so in their second summer rather than their first, and almost always because of how they went into the ground. N12 sits largely on London clay, which if planted into carelessly becomes a sump through the winter and a sealed pot by August. Planting well on this soil is a matter of technique rather than of buying larger or more expensive stock.

The hole, and the glazed sides nobody sees

A spade drawn round the wall of a planting hole in wet clay polishes it into a smooth surface that roots struggle to cross and water struggles to leave. The result is a plant sitting in a bucket. The fix is simple: break up the sides and the base with a fork so the surrounding soil is opened rather than sealed, and dig wide rather than deep, since most root activity happens laterally in the upper soil. A hole three times the width of the root ball and no deeper than it is a far better shape than a narrow pit.

Depth, and the reason a tree drowns at the collar

The point where the trunk flares into roots belongs at or fractionally above the finished soil level. Buried deeper, the bark stays permanently damp, rots, and the tree declines slowly over several years for reasons nobody connects back to planting day. Settlement makes this worse, which is why the base of the hole is left firm rather than loosened and refilled. Checking the level with a cane laid across the hole takes seconds and prevents the single most common long-term planting failure.

Backfill: the case against a rich planting mixture

Filling a hole in clay with bagged compost creates a pocket of easy, fertile material that roots circle within rather than leaving. It also acts as a sponge collecting water from the surrounding clay. The better approach is to backfill with the soil that came out, improved modestly if at all, so there is no abrupt boundary for roots to refuse to cross. Organic matter goes on the surface as mulch instead, where worms will take it down gradually and improve a far greater volume of soil than any planting hole contains.

Staking, ties and knowing when to remove them

A stake exists to stop the root ball rocking while roots establish, not to hold the trunk upright. It therefore goes in low - roughly a third of the way up the stem - and at an angle into the prevailing wind, driven clear of the root ball. A tall rigid stake produces a tree that never develops taper or strength and snaps when the support is finally removed. Ties are checked annually and loosened as the trunk thickens, and the whole arrangement comes off after a couple of growing seasons.

Establishment watering

New planting needs volume rather than frequency. A thorough soaking that wets the full depth of the root zone once or twice a week does far more than a daily sprinkling, which only encourages roots upward into the layer that dries first. The critical period runs through the first two summers, not just the first few weeks. Water here is hard, and while that matters little to most garden plants, anything lime-hating in a container is better given collected rainwater than tap water over the long term.

Choosing stock: bare-root, rootballed or container-grown

Bare-root plants are lifted in the dormant season, cost considerably less for the same size and establish quickly because roots meet the surrounding soil immediately. Rootballed evergreens and conifers are lifted with soil intact and planted in autumn or early spring. Container-grown stock can go in at any time, but it comes with a block of a different growing medium and often a circling root system that needs teasing out before planting. Delivering heavy rootballed stock and bagged topsoil to a rear garden is a haulage job in itself, arranged through our Southgate team.

What a planting job includes

Planting is usually quoted as supply and labour, with plants priced by size and specification and the work priced by the number and size of planting positions. Spoil from planting holes on clay is bulky and has to be removed or used elsewhere, and it gets walked onto drives and paths in the process; restoring those surfaces afterwards is covered by flexible pressure washing services in North Finchley. Newly planted bulbs are regularly dug up by squirrels, and where that has become persistent it is dealt with under North Finchley pest control team. Wildlife-conscious planting in the next district is described through gardening throughout Southgate, and aftercare arrangements are set out on local weeding and tidy-ups.