Gardening promotions and competitions

Gunnera manicata

When you spot the first signs of growth in an established Gunnera manicata, you will know that spring is truly underway. Today, in our garden, we have just seen that our Gunnera has started to show signs of life. An established Gunnera can grow amazingly quickly and is a wonderfully ornamental plant. It has been honoured with the Award of Garden Merit by the Royal Horticultural Society. Originating from Brazil, it is also known as 'dinosaur food', it needs to be grown in a soil with a high moisture content (boggy areas or on the edges of ponds and streams are ideal – but not too wet) and fertilized with loads of organic matter. They can literally explode into growth and they take up so much moisture from the soil, that you can almost see the moisture being sucked up into the plant. On a warm spring day you can watch the plant grow over a few hours as the leaves unfold and the stems extend. Be warned though, if you are thinking of growing one, make sure you have plenty of space, for they can grow as high and as wide as ten feet, the leaf span is huge, and they spread.

Our Gunnera Competition:

First prize: £250 worth of plants for your garden

To celebrate the arrival of spring we are running a fun competition with a prize of £250 worth of plants for the person who can guess the time and day when our Gunnera reaches 60 centimetres from the top of the crown to the tip of the uppermost leaf.

Just email your estimated guess of day and time in hours and minutes and send it to us. gunnera@gardenadvice.co.uk . One entry only per email address. In the event of more than one winner, the prize will be shared. Fifty runners-up will receive a free gardening book, Bugs, slugs and other invaders by Sarah Ford. Prizes will be sent within 14 days of the competition's closing date – i.e. when the Gunnera reaches its 60 centimetres!

Good Luck! We will be publishing our Gunnera's growth progress twice a day, in the morning and early evening, which you can follow on our Twitter page.

http://twitter.com/mygardenteam

 

New How to Guides and online gardening video listings page

To Make it simplier to see all our guides in one place we have now produced a list of both our pdf how to and video guides. To view the guides listing page Click here

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