After today, we’ll all feel a bit flat but let’s not pile on the agony by brooding on any garden problems. I never mind about moss, a ‘weedy lawn’, turning the compost heap, sap-sucking aphids or powdery mildew, and urge you to do the same.

Take moss, the gorgeous lush green that shows up the grass beside it, so should I labour to get rid of it? Spend many back-breaking hours wielding a tine rake or lashing on deadly moss killer that destroys all the microorganisms working tirelessly to improve the soil?

Moss loves wet or shady places, so you’ll only get rid of it by cutting down any offending trees or digging ditches.

As some of our hardwoods by the burn have grown up, the shaded grass has steadily become mossier.

In the early days after moving here, I used to high cut broad paths and a seating area beside the gently running water. But the moss doesn’t need cutting, so I’m certainly not complaining about abandoning a tiresome chore to let me do more gardening.

What, thankfully fewer folk now call a ‘weedy’ lawn is crammed with many beautiful wild flowers and busily buzzing bees.

That’s scarcely a problem in my book. An occasional high cut where we’re not walking or sitting, is all we need.

But I do cut short some grass and, as an avid composter, value every blade. The clippings heat up the compost heap and make it work much faster while also killing off some weed seeds.

Our large garden generates a massive amount of waste. I’ve got several large New Zealand boxes and some small units in different parts of the garden.

When I ran home composting and gardening courses, I always urged people to turn their compost to mix the pile and inject air to speed up the process. But I confess I have started sinning and broken my own rules. I rarely turn the heap; it just takes a bit longer to make the compost.

Although gardeners can never make enough compost, I always assign some to my precious roses. It helps them to grow strongly and withstand those greedy aphids keen to devour their yummy sap.

Aphids are a horror story and the very thought of them makes me itch uncontrollably.

Of the 500 species, the peach potato aphid is one of the worst. It’s their equivalent to ground elder, preying on lots of different vegetables and ornamentals such as begonias, carnations and lilies.

And it’s one of the seven species that feast on roses.

When you first look at a stem, you’ll see one or two of the little wretches, but in no time, they’ll smother the foliage. The females are parthenogenic, so give birth to other females that mature in a week and repeat the cycle. In ideal conditions, one female could be parent to 10 million tonnes of descendants in 100 days.

Scary stuff that doesn’t worry me a bit. Ideal conditions never occur and there’s no shortage of tits, ladybirds, lacewing, and hoverfly grubs queuing up to devour them. A sustainable, herbicide-free garden has more than enough predators to keep them in check.

Although I rarely see an aphid, I confess I couldn’t escape powdery mildew during the hot dry spell we had in August. As I’m sure you know only too well, this fungal disorder paints our ornamentals an unsightly white.

Courgettes are also victims, but, unlike downy mildew, powdery has no lasting effects. I just shrug my shoulders and focus on the beautiful blooms. And the courgettes keep fruiting as usual, so what’s the problem?

The one thing that makes me break out in a cold sweat is the slithery slug.

Plant of the week

Peltigera hymenina is a handsome lichen, so not a plant but an alga cohabiting within a fungus. Shiny olive green above when wet it produces smart tan coloured fruiting bodies.

Subscribe to The Herald and don't miss a single word from your favourite writers by clicking here

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19496323.subscribe-herald-just-2/