Moving things from an 'unhealthy' garden to a new one

[lostindubai]

I'm moving soon from town to countryside and would like opinions on the following please.

Where I am I have never felt the garden was entirely healthy. While my flowers (all perennial) did bloom, there seemed to be a big aphid problem, and my apple tree had a rusty leaf problem which nobody seemed to know what it was (although we did get nice apples from it!) My honeysuckle too seemed to suffer problems where it was too busy fighting something to actually bloom last year.

We did get lots of bees, some butterflies, but nowhere near enough ladybirds. Lots of slugs and snails but no visitors such as frogs, hedgehogs or birds.

I always garden organically so maybe that's why the pests got problematic. I was hoping for natural predators but they never came

Been here just over four years so I know it pretty well.

I'd like to bring a couple of pots (sentimental reasons) to my new garden but I'm worried about introducing potential problems.

Advice welcome please!

Those all sound like fairly normal gardening problems, to be honest. I can't see that there are any 'nasties' in there that you should be worried about transplanting to a new site. (You'll be hard pushed to find a garden that doesn't have a few aphids in the summer). I wouldn't take any of the plants that seem to be struggling, but that's more because of the hassle and chanciness of uprooting and moving them than because of worries about taking terrible diseases with you.

Populations of pests often boom - and there is very often a lag for predators to show up and deal with them (when you think about lifecycles, you can see why this would be). There are organic ways of dealing with aphids in the meantime, e.g. a bit of Ecover in a spray bottle. Or you can buy things like nematodes to combat slugs! Giving a plant a little bit of a helping hand at the start of a problem can really help.

Often, when things don't seem to be thriving, the problem can be the soil. Some city gardens have quite poor soil that needs a lot of improving - putting plants in without enough compost to help them out can lead to stresses, which can make them more vulnerable to pests, viruses, fungi etc. (Over- or underwatering can have similar effects). But, having said that, even healthy plants can be decimated by pests if they are having a bumper year!

Good luck with your new garden!!

Moving from town to country could sort out quite a few of your concerns.

Ponds=frogs, and you can have this and not drown your children.

For hedgehogs, check your fences; are there ground-level gaps they can move through? They have quite big territory, so you might want to get neighbours onside.

Birds need a variety of trees and shrubs to give different levels they can safely perch on. Can you see/hear birds in other gardens? Provide water in a number of places in the garden.

Thank you both. Very reassuring! Move has been made and some of the plants came with us.

A pond is in the pipeline and yes there are loads of birds around already, it's amazing how loud they seem after so long without them. Bliss! Will also ensure there is a hedgehog hole (did that in the last one to no avail - I think they're very rare now where I live sadly).

Thanks for the ecover tip - hadn't thought of that!