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Gardening tips: plant hardy geraniums

<span>Photograph: Alamy</span>
Photograph: Alamy

Plant this Hardy geraniums are gutsy ground cover plants that stand up to all kinds of abuse, including periods of drought, while blooming all summer long. Cultivar ‘Ann Folkard’, with its magenta and black flowers, and ‘Rozanne’, with violet blooms, are hard to beat. Height and spread: 60cm x 60cm.

Control this Beating back a cloud of craneflies (aka daddy longlegs) tapping at your windows is a pain, but the greater damage is done by their larvae, which develop under the surface of lawns and can cause brown patches. Now is the time to act: Nemasys Natural Leatherjacket Killer, is a biological control that’s watered on to the lawn in September.

Hear this Join novelist Melissa Harrison and her dog Scout as they walk the Suffolk countryside in a beautifully constructed nature podcast, The Stubborn Light Of Things .