Cleaning Duties

After this sodden winter, our garden furniture is in dire need of some TLC. I love the lived-in look of silvery teak when weatherworn but sanding and using products can take it back to that bright orangey shade it has when it's new. Using the pressure washer might not be conventional but it gets the tables back to that silver without lots of elbow grease and chemicals. I'm very careful not to blast joints directly with the jet of water though as it could weaken them.

Hedging Your Bets

It's time to give your hedges a gentle trim so they're looking their best for the summer months. For smaller hedges, a good pair of shears or a lightweight hedge trimmer will do the trick, but for larger, taller hedges I need something with a bit more reach. STIHL's KombiSystem is just the thing. The extra reach and rotating head of the hedge trimmer attachment means I can tackle even the tallest of hedges. And with another 11 tools to use with the engine, the KombiSystem has every corner of my garden covered.

Aromatherapy

My lavender gets two trims each year. Once at the end of the summer to tidy up all those stalky flower heads so all is neat for the winter and then again in spring to tighten up the shape of the lavender shrubs. English lavender especially tends to open up its shape, becoming leggy, woody and splayed as the years go by. A tough trim with shears or a handy little hedge trimmer will help to slow that process. I'm tougher in spring, cutting back harder to encourage shooting from lower down the stems, hopefully resulting in lovely mounds of silvery foliage topped with those iconic summer flowers. Depending on the size of my plant, I use either my garden shears or my STIHL hedge trimmer. You can treat the curry plant, Helichrysum, and Santolina in the same way.

Straight Hedges

Always remember when using a hedge trimmer to keep the blades sharp. If cut branch tips appear ragged or light in colour, or if blades snag on a hedge, the blades are most likely blunt. Take the trimmer to a local STIHL Approved Dealer for professional sharpening.