Innholdsfortegnelse for 7-Mar-2020 i Amateur Gardening

IT’S the first week of March and we’re all hoping that the worst of the winter is over and we can finally – finally! – enjoy some extended gardening time. There are plants and bulbs to get in the ground, trees to feed and seeds to sow, but we also need to set time aside to take care of the structures around the garden, such as sheds, decking, fences, summerhouses, trellises and patios. I know these aren’t the most exciting things to be thinking about, but tackling them now will save time, effort and money later. Winter weather can wreak havoc on woodwork and plant supports, so make an inventory of what needs doing and deal with it bit by bit, to avoid ‘job fatigue’. Over the past few days,…

THE Scotland Gardens Scheme 2020 has been launched with a new guidebook and more than 500 gardens open to raise money for charity. Almost half of the plots include wildlife areas and the charity is asking visitors to embrace the natural world and create nature-friendly features in their own gardens. “Every little helps, whether it be planting flowers to attract pollinators or using natural pest controls; making a garden pond or keeping bees,” says the charity’s president Camilla Parker-Bowles, HRH Duchess of Cornwall, known as HRH The Duchess of Rothesay in Scotland. Special wild gardens opening this year include a biodynamic farm on the Island of Lismore in the Inner Hebrides, Barochreal in Argyll with a wild garden and 40 species of moth and over 70 species of wildflowers and…

IS it better to either sow and raise your own seedlings of salads and vegetables, or buy seedlings ready to plant? This was the question posed recently. The simple answer is: it is cheaper to raise from seed, but will take longer to harvest a crop. Of course, there is much more to it than that, and on a garden centre mid-February viewing of vegetable seedlings I could see challenges. First of all, nice sturdy seedlings of broad bean and garden peas were a good buy; hardened off to outdoor conditions, they would be off to a flying start and be cropping by late May. It would be another month before soil temperatures were warm enough to sow them direct in the soil, where they would germinate, grow and crop…

I WAS born in Bend It Like Beckham territory, in Southall, London, and my working-class roots and northern ancestry are partly responsible for me being an organic gardener and an outspoken woman! Grandmother Lucy from Yorkshire, 70 years my senior, taught me how to garden organically because she’d known nothing else. The outspoken bit came because I was the only girl in my family age group, so I had to fight my corner or go down. I think I may have developed a mind of my own (code for obstinate) in the womb, which I shared with my much larger twin brother. Coming from humble stock has been an advantage because I haven’t fallen prey to garden snobbery, and the highest form of that revolves around choosing historical roses purely…

Top Tip Homegrowing means you can harvest veg while it is young and thin-skinned. Many only require a wash or light scrub before slicing, and the skins provide a variety of texture and colour. Q For Christmas, I was given a gadget for slicing and spiralising vegetables. I would like to make a bed for growing my own crops to eat raw in various ways. What do you suggest? Veronica Patten, Leatherhead, Surrey A Several years ago, I accompanied a group of gardeners on part of their holiday touring around South Africa, and we visited Babylonstoren (under the same ownership as The Newt in Somerset). Here, you can explore the beautiful productive gardens and eat in the restaurant. We were served a wide variety of raw veg and edible flowers,…

THE ancient art of coppicing involves felling a tree to stimulate new growth from the stump, and it dates back to prehistoric times – long before Percy Thrower had picked up a pipe and pruning saw. To our bucolic ancestors, the woodlands were workshops, where the straight poles of coppiced hazel, oak and ash were fashioned into homes, fences, spears and spits for the barbeque. But even before then, when mankind was a twinkle in a monkey’s eye, coppicing was the work of woolly mammoths and giant mastodon that knocked over trees and ate the regrowth for breakfast (see the panel below). A benefit of all this felling was that the dense canopy of our deciduous woods was opened, and the light that flooded the woodland floor encouraged spring-flowering celandine,…

THIS year will see the first garden inspired by Christianity at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Designed by RHS gold medal winner Sarah Eberle, the plot’s themes are taken from Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd’) and will include a hanging rock, foxgloves and cow parsley to represent a typical English pastoral scene, plus a hawthorn tree, gorse and thistles convey the obstacles in life. Previous shows have featured gardens inspired by other word religions including Hinduism and Islam. Sarah said: “It does not matter if you are religious or not, it’s about spirituality and finding humanity in nature.” Bible Society spokeswoman Hazel Southam said: “We visited Chelsea last year, and saw that banks and gin companies had a presence and decided there was no reason the Bible Society should…

(National Trust Books, £9.99) I CAN understand why people like to break certain aspects of their life down into five- or 10-minute chunks – but gardening, really? Yes, we all know there are ‘five-minute’ jobs such as deadheading, weeding and tying back, but does anyone honestly just spend the allotted five doing them? Does anyone actually stop after five minutes without being drawn into the next job, and the next…? I certainly don’t, but if you are that disciplined with your horticultural timetable, then this is the book for you. It is a call to arms to encourage you to leave the house and get working in the garden for a few (well, five) minutes. It takes you through each month’s necessary tasks, and even if they aren’t possible in…

Top Tip To maximise your carnations’ flowering, plant them in a sheltered, free-draining spot that gets a minimum of four-six hours of sunlight daily. I USED to think that members of the Dianthus family – carnations and pinks – were rather old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy and didn’t really have a place in my garden. Luckily, I had the sense to revise this opinion and now have several plants dotted around at the front of borders. What made me change my mind? It was a combination of their good nature (it’s a simple case of plant-and-go in our sheltered, freedraining soil), and the fact that they flower for ages and are easy to propagate. This week’s free seeds are for a very special variety of carnation that are longer-stemmed and produce larger…

DECIDING what fruit, veg and herbs you’re going to grow on your plot this year is the most exciting part of having an edible garden. But making a list of what you like and then shoehorning it in willy-nilly is just setting yourself up for disappointment. We know that ornamentals such as rudbeckias enjoy the sun, rhododendrons need acid soil, and clematis like cool roots – but what do our edible crops thrive on? This is where savvy planning is essential. A place for everything Fruit, veg and herbs have their preferred growing conditions, just like ornamental plants do. Head gardeners of estates years gone by would assess their walled kitchen gardens, then plant accordingly. Identify your warm sun-traps and place heat-loving tomatoes, chillies, sweet peppers and aubergines there. Fan-train…

This week it’s: THIS Wednesday, 4 March, is World Maths Day. This online international mathematics competition was first held in 2007 and takes place every year on the first Wednesday in March. Participants across the world solve age-appropriate mental maths problems to test their accuracy and speed. I was never much of a whizz with numbers, but I’ve come to realise they are everywhere – even in the garden. So, let’s take a look at some of the amazing numerical stories as they relate to our favourite pastime. In 2017, around 568,700 jobs in the UK were connected to horticulture and/or landscaping. That works out at one in every 62 jobs (Horticultural Trades Association report, 2018). How many plants exist? NOBODY will ever know the total number of plants growing…

Write to us: Letters, Amateur Gardening magazine, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hants GU14 7BF (please include your address). Email us: amateurgardening@ti-media.com I HAVE come late to the wonder of composting, but decided to give it a go when a neighbour gave me an unwanted Dalek-style compost bin. Last autumn, this was full of garden and kitchen waste, but during the winter the contents have been magically transformed into this beautiful rich compost. This has now been spread over the borders to allow the worms and the frost to do their bit, too. It has cost me nothing and has saved a lot of unnecessary kitchen waste heading to landfill, and I feel I’ve done a small thing for the environment while being richly rewarded for such…

RARE and heritage crops have been given a chance of survival thanks to HRH The Prince of Wales. Well-known for his interest in gardening and his fabulous gardens at Highgrove, the future king is growing two endangered varieties. He has tended a number of varieties of heritage seeds over the years including the ‘Mrs Lewis Purple Podded’ climbing French bean. The Prince of Wales has also grown ‘Black Valentine’ dwarf French beans, which have a lovely flavour. Horticulture charity garden Organic is now asking the public to grow seeds from its Heritage Seed Library. Charity spokesman Chris Collins said: “Growing seeds from the Heritage Seed Library is an important way to support conservation as you will be helping protect rare vegetables for generations to come. Anyone can take part and…

1 Keep rockery plants free from weeds and debris that quickly smother them. Give them a gravel mulch so lower leaves are away from wet soil, which can cause rotting. 2 Rockeries are ideal habitats for herbs, shrubs and bulbs such as Iris reticulata, mini daffs, Chionodoxa and crocuses. Spreading plants such as Vinca help block out weeds. 3 If you don’t have room for a rockery, create an alpine garden in a sink or trough. Use John Innes No3 with added grit and mulch with gravel. 4 Take cuttings as rockery plants put on new growth. Use healthy non-flowering growth and grow on in a coldframe or greenhouse. What’s on Things to do near you 7 Grow to Eat Workshop: Bowery Visual Arts, 54 Ottley Road, Headingley, Leeds LS6…

GENERALLY, we want earlier harvests. After all, soon we’ll have little left in store, and fresh will be expensive until the new produce starts coming in. Now, each crop takes a given amount of time to mature. Breeders have worked on this, and almost all crops have faster and slower maturing varieties – these are usually referred to as ‘earlies’ and ‘lates’ or ‘maincrops’. But, of course, there is a trade-off: the varieties bred to be early seldom give the same sort of yields as the slower lates or maincrops, so generally it’s best to grow both. Worse, sometimes to get an earlier crop, sacrifices are made in flavour, sweetness or texture. Very rarely are the earliest varieties the very finest! However, they are good enough, and all the more…

What plants are good for wildlife and us? Q We are slowly turning our garden into somewhere that we, and the surrounding wildlife, are happy to spend time in. Could you suggest some wildlife-friendly, shallow-rooted evergreens and perennials that would work against a warm south-facing wall. Lucy Duffy, Telford, Shropshire A I suggest that you plant the following, which will attract birds and insects, including butterflies: Small flowering and berrying shrubs: Border perennials: Growing pot lilies Q Will lilies grow well in pots? Marcus Dowling, via email A Asiatic lilies are among the easiest to grow and the earliest to flower. For the best results in a container, place a layer of crocks in the base and use a mix of loam-based John Innes No3 and multi-purpose compost. Add some…

GROWING flowers and vegetables from seed is a thrilling experience, but aspects of it can be challenging. Many people find the very first step, sowing seeds, difficult. In recent years arthritis and rheumatism have made my fingers clumsy, and sowing things like carrots is a real problem. Once I could accurately drop a single seed every half centimetre, but nowadays great splodges of seed cascade from my fingers. It’s a waste of seeds and the subsequent thinning a few weeks later is a nightmare. Seed tape is the answer Seed tapes solve this problem. They are also a brilliant device for introducing children to growing from seed – toddlers find it much easier to handle a tape or mat than small, individual seeds. Seed tape is a paper tape with…