Baking icon Mary Berry has finally publicly pursued her second biggest passion in life: gardening. With her book, My Gardening Life, ready to be published in February, she's shared her biggest gardening lesson from her many years tending to her beloved plot.
Whether you're one to keep up with the garden trends or are debating trying out vegetable gardening for beginners, there's no denying that gardening is as popular as ever. And what better sign of that being true than the queen of baking herself, Mary Berry, sharing her love for the hobby with the world?
In the run-up to her book's release, Mary has shared some of her green-thumb wisdom with her Instagram followers (@damemaryberry). It's not only made us admire her more, but we're raring to get our hands on the book.
Mary Berry shares her greatest gardening lessons
Although the highly anticipated book has not released just yet (you can pre-order 'My Gardening Life' now on Amazon), we are more than ready to break out our essential gardening tools and join Mary in the garden.
The book is a collection of Mary's stories as she walks us through her love for gardening from her childhood to now. She describes the books as a 'very personal collection of my ninety years spent outdoors', and if it's anything like the TV icons' cookbooks, we're in for a real treat.
More recently, however, Mary has taken to Instagram to share her most treasured gardening knowledge, one of which is the power of knowing how to deadhead plants properly.
"There are so many lessons that I've learnt, what are the real ones? I think the most important thing is to deadhead, because we always think of just deadheading roses. But of all the other plants, the more you deadhead, the more you encourage growth," says Mary.
Just make sure you're not chopping any of the plants that should never be deadheaded in your garden.
"And the other thing is, when you have a new plant to begin with, water it really well in and continue in the first year for many plants. Keep watering and once it's found its way, found its roots, it'll look after itself," she adds.
Deadheading is one of the essential September gardening jobs, playing a key role in maintaining a thriving garden.
"Dead heading is removing dead or diseased branches and not only neatens your garden but also helps prevent the spread of disease. Removing these spent flowers also encourages plants to continue blooming by focusing their energy on new bulbs for the new season," explains Pheobe Cater, expert plant buyer at Cherry Lane Garden Centres.
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Deadheading is one of the best tasks to get done to sort your garden out both aesthetically and for your garden's overall health, both short-term and long-term.
We simply can't wait to see what other nuggets of wisdom Mary offers in her new book, and we look forward to learning even more about the life of the beloved British icon.
