How I learnt to garden — from Instagram

I spent a lot of time in the garden as a child watching my mum grow and prune things, but it’s only now I’ve hit my thirties that my green-fingered instincts have kicked in. Where Mum might turn to Monty Don, however, I have social media to thank. At least 70 per cent of my Instagram feed is now made up of fellow horticulturists in the form of “plantfluencers” (you might know them as gardeners). Here are some of the top tips I’ve gleaned.
The garden writer Daisy Payne grows an array of flowers and vegetables from seed for her cottage garden. She explains everything from how far apart you should sow seeds (15cm), to what compost to use (seed sowing, specifically). Cosmos, verbena, marigold and cornflower are all easily started in seed trays or individual seed pots; Payne makes her own with empty loo rolls cut in half. Mine germinated well, and despite a few lost leggy souls, are now blooming happily in my flowerbeds.@gardentogarnish
Every month, the garden designer Pollyanna Wilkinson posts helpful bitesize guides telling you what jobs you should be doing in the garden, and how. She reminded me to prune my hydrangeas in spring — with lacecap and mophead varieties like mine, Wilkinson says it’s best to prune the old flowerheads to just above the first signs of new growth, and I now have beds full of fluffy hydrangeas.@pollyanna_wilkinson
A few years ago I began planting spring bulbs. Before I knew it, I had gone to town with tulips, camassias and narcissi. Little did I know you could combine them all in one pot. The gardener and broadcaster Arthur Parkinson introduced me to the “bulb lasagne” — building layers of spring bulbs in one big container, with the earliest flowering sitting at the top. The result is a succession of flowers from early spring (narcissi and hyacinth) through to the end of May (tulips).@arthurparkinson_
I’m not aiming to achieve golf club standards of turf, but I do want to fill in the bare patches created by shade or ants’ nests. The gardener Tom Strowgler suggests scarifying the lawn in spring, using a rake to aerate it, and then taking a garden fork to it to make lots of little holes. Sprinkle plenty of fast-growing lawn seed over patchy areas before topping with soil to keep the birds away. The key is to water well, and keep watering daily for at least a week. My lawn isn’t quite lnsta-worthy, but it didn’t take long for little green shoots to start filling in those patches. @garden_with_tom
• My big urban garden makeover
In true millennial style, my house is filled with plants, which also tend to host hundreds of pesky fungus gnats, which can be harmful to seedlings as they feed off their roots. Amy Chapman suggests bottom-watering plants to keep the top level dry, or covering the surface of the soil with vermiculite, grit or perlite to deter the gnats from laying their eggs. I successfully tried another of her tricks: creating a trap of water, apple cider vinegar and a few drops of washing-up liquid in a ramekin, and placing it next to my seedlings. @inthecottagegarden
The gardener and author Joe Clark’s canny garden hacks have helped me with a more budget-friendly approach to gardening. To make the most out of your supermarket-bought perennial herbs such as basil, coriander, parsley or chives, he advises popping the plant out of its pot and gently separating it into five smaller bunches (supermarkets pack large plants into one tiny pot). Plant these into individual pots, or directly out in the garden, and you’ll instantly have five times the amount of herbs [email protected]
Since I have an outrageous snail and slug problem in my garden, I’ve never considered growing salad or veggies. However, Jamie Walton taught me that there are plants you can grow alongside vegetables to protect them. An “ecological veg” gardener, he suggests planting marigolds with lettuce and spring onion, as they can be used as a “trap crop”, drawing slugs away from eating the good stuff. I’ve kicked things off with marigolds in my potting shed … bring on the veggie garden.@nettlesandpetals