Innholdsfortegnelse for 2-May-2020 i Amateur Gardening

Got a story? email ruth.hayes@ti-media.com Opening delay: The RHS is delaying the opening of RHS Garden Bridgewater from this year until May 11, 2021. The charity’s director general Sue Biggs said: “While this is disappointing news, we know that everyone will understand why we had to make this delay. The health and safety of our employees and contractors is paramount.” THE Royal Horticultural Society has listed the 10 most common diseases faced by gardeners in the past 12 months. This was the charity’s 24th annual disease ranking, with honey fungus holding on to the top spot. It has held this position since 1995, though its percentage of reports dropped from 26% in 2018 to 18% in 2019. The listing was released along with the top 10 pests, which we covered…

Here at AG it is almost a case of business as usual. Although we are working from our homes, we are still getting the magazine out each week, packed full of all the usual excellent content. John Negus is still answering your questions and solving your problems each day, so do keep sending them into him, with pictures if possible, via the AG email at amateurgardening@ti-media.com. We realise that these days of lockdown and isolation can be lonely and frightening for a lot of people. It may be that your copy of AG doesn’t turn up as regularly as it usually does, and some weeks it may not arrive at all, due to restrictions imposed by Coronavirus. But please don’t feel alone. We are just as active online as we…

WE are all in dire need of a little lightness to brighten the current mood and there are few more cheery summer sights than a row of sunflowers nodding over a garden fence or towering over a flowerbed. This week’s free seeds are for sunflowers with a difference; instead of the traditional yellow they come in burnished tones of copper, red and bronze, and growing to a height of 6ft (1.8m) they will smile down on your garden like benevolent rising suns. As well as being fun and easy for children to grow, sunflowers are good for pollinators and, if left standing after summer, their seeds will feed birds through the thin days of winter. From next month the large, robust seeds can be sown outdoors in soil that has…

IF you buy a cottage on the top of the Cotswolds in a village named Cold Aston, you expect to get weather – and lots of it. The fact that my cottage faces south across the fields means there is little between us and the Bristol Channel when a southwesterly wind blows. The weather turned here last September and, apart from a few fine days at the end of that month, we had low pressure spilling in from the Atlantic and dropping hours of rain upon us day after day. Gardening has had to carry on, so I was togged up in every waterproof garment I own. Good thing, too, for the worst thing about all that rain was the savage wind that came with it. The cherry blossom on…

Go to: amateurgardening.com/blog AG’s Ruth Hayes is writing about what she is up to in her garden every day on the AG website (see address above). Ruth is joined by AG’s Lesley Upton who writes about her allotment veg plot, and AG’s Wendy Humphries. Share their gardening experiences and pick up some hints, tips and a bit of a laugh along the way. It’s not all about gardening: at the weekends, you can get their views on great books to read, music to listen to, films to watch, and whatever else they are doing to make the lockdown as stress-free and as much fun as they possibly can. Join Ruth and her friends every day and blow the lockdown blues away! Cover: Zinnia Elegans ‘Zowie! Yellow Flame’ (Garden World Images)…

AS garden centres struggle through Coronavirus lockdown, horticultural companies are working together to solve the problem. Yorkshire-based Johnsons of Whixley, a family firm of growers, has teamed up with Hedges Direct to come up with two ‘garden rescue packs’ of mixed shrubs and plants that can be delivered directly to your garden. A spokesman for the company said: “Hedges Direct has kindly offered to support us to ensure surplus stock can find a home and garden.” For details and orders go to hedgesdirect.co.uk, or you can call 01257 494007/494187. Hampshire growers have banded together to form Solent Growers, to deliver plants initially within an 10-mile radius of Lymington, but with hopes to expand over the coming weeks. The nurseries involved in the initiative are Pinetops, Mr Evergreen and The Plant…

WE all love that sweet, smell of spring, but did you know that it is caused by the relationship between soil bacteria called Streptomyces and tiny primitive insects called springtails? Streptomyces produce a compound called geosmin, that contains antibacterial chemicals to fight malignant soil microbes. Springtails are attracted by the scent of geosmin, which humans can also smell on damp spring days. Having been drawn in by the geosmin, the springtails eat the Streptomyces which pass unharmed through their bodies and are spread in their faeces, distributing protective compounds and spores over the soil. Streptomyces is toxic to nematodes and fruit flies but does no damage to the little springtails. “The fact that all Streptomyces make geosmin suggests that it gives them an advantage, otherwise they wouldn’t do it,” said…

Listen to Peter’s free podcast every Thursday. Search for ‘This Week In The Garden with Peter Seabrook’ on iTunes WE have a flowering crab apple, Malus ‘Van Eseltine’, growing in our front garden, the petals from which used to be falling the third week in May on our return from the Monday of Chelsea Flower Show. This year, the buds were opening on the first week of April, a good month earlier. Trying to write reliable gardening advice several weeks in advance and in unpredictable weather, as we are currently experiencing, is demanding to say the least. During the days between Christmas and the New Year, there were a tonne and a half of spring-flowering bulbs delivered for planting in the Floral Fantasia area at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden…

THE barn-owl may be recognised from its brethren by its prominently white underparts and sandy-brown back delicately patterned in gold. Its prominent black eyes are set in a round facial disc and the sexes are alike but, in common with the rest of the owl tribe, the female is the slightly larger of the two. Barn-owls favour living in the vicinity of human habitations, often taking up residence in barns and other outbuildings, but hollow trees are also used for nesting purposes or sleeping accommodation. Their roundish white eggs vary from four to six in number, and between the laying of each there is an interval of at least 24 hours. Their diet consists almost exclusively of rodents and they are among the most economic-useful of all our birds. B.…

Contact John Negus by email address below Email: amateurgardening@ti-media.com Worried about pruning a wisteria QWe are shortly moving to a very old cottage in mid-Wales. It faces south, and is crying out for a beautiful dark-purple wisteria, which I think would look amazing. However, the one thing that puts me off is the pruning. It always appears (to me) to be incredibly complicated, so perhaps I should settle on some beautiful climbing roses instead. What do you think? Marion May, Shropshire AA wisteria or a rose would look lovely, and maybe there is room for both. A repeat-flowering/long-season rose would give you flowers from May to October, whereas wisteria flowers in late spring/early summer, so if you grow both you would have flowers for the entire growing season. Young wisteria…

TWO of the most eagerly awaited summer crops are runner beans and sweet peas. They’re both quite easy to grow up a simple wigwam of bamboo canes, thrust into the soil and tied at the top. This method of support looks fairly robust and is usually fine for sweet peas, but not runner beans, which will rocket away in the warm weather spreading into a wall of greenery. The first gust of strong wind can knock them flat. Even without strong winds, the weight of bean top growth can have a wigwam leaning over alarmingly, and it’s almost impossible to return it to a stable upright position. Building the support To build a strong wigwam you need a central supporting pole. Treated timber poles are available from garden centres or…

SHARE YOUR STORIES TIPS AND PHOTOS and you will receive you in the garden. State small, medium or large with your letter. a fantastic pair of Town & Country’s Master Gardener gloves — the UK’s best-selling gardening glove and a perfect companion to help Oils to avoid in epilepsy THANK you so much for your articles around Purple Day (AG, 28 March) and good to see you helping with awareness. I’ve lived with epilepsy for over 30 years now and I find spending time in my garden helps me manage any stress, which is a seizure-trigger for me. l ve volunteered with epilepsy charities over the years, but learned something new from your article – that lavender is the international flower for epilepsy. Thank you also for pointing out the…

IMPERFECTIONS, so the Moors believed, were part of Allah’s great vision and that’s why, when the first Emir of Granada commissioned the construction of his Red Palace or Alhambra in the Spanish Sierra Nevada, faults were deliberately designed in. Thus restricted, his team of a thousand artisans got to work and they made the palace’s imperfections perfectly imperceptible. When I paid a visit, I couldn’t find a single one, but knowing that a sparkling canal might lack symmetry or that the carved filigrees over an Arabian arch had an errant curve gave the design extra depth. I mention this, as I’m spending so much time outdoors there’s a very real risk my garden will be over-preened. Like most chaps, I like tools left out where I can see them and…

Chop chop: There’s no Chelsea flower show this year, but you may still need to use the Chelsea chop. What is it? Find out in next week’s AG! 1 Start hardening off tender and young plants. Leave them outside somewhere sheltered by day and bring them back in at night. Alternatively, place them in a mini greenhouse or under fleece, and open or remove it by day. 2 Get rid of last year’s dead perennial stems. It should also be warm enough to cut back penstemons, though if your garden is exposed it may pay to wait another week or so. 3 I’ve planted out some hardened-off strawberries, and new plants created from runners, and also started my squash and pumpkin seeds. 4 If your lawn is looking peaky, you…

Top Tip Remove snug coverings when the days warms up as they can encourage condensation that may cause moulds and rots if it sits on leaves. IT is terribly easy to get carried away at this time of year and assume that the balmy days of summer are upon us. But stay your hand awhile, and don’t leave your more tender plants unprotected just yet. Late spring nights have a nasty knack of springing freezing surprises upon us, especially when they follow clear, sunny days. If late frosts happen where we live in the temperate south, they will be a lot harder further north and in more exposed areas. Late frosts damage the delicate new growth put on by perennials and can be devastating to anything tender that has already…

ONE thing that intrigues many gardeners is what earthing up spuds actually involves, why do we do it, and when? Earthing up is drawing soil from around each plant and mounding it around the stem, or haulm as it’s called. The reasons are many. Firstly, the soil mound supports the haulm, which is less likely to blow over and snap. Next, if we earth up regularly from soon after the haulm emerges, we protect much of it from light frosts, with only tips getting burnt. Then, very importantly potatoes produce their new crop on shoots that grow from the base of each stem, and with some varieties, further up the haulm as well. Now, if we planted our seed potatoes (sets) deep enough to save earthing up, these would be…

ONCE you’ve tried fresh, homegrown sweetcorn, nothing shop-bought will compare, but isn’t it tricky to grow? Not with the right treatment! Let’s look at what this must-grow crop loves… Back to school Sweetcorn is actually a massive, lofty grass. Its reputation for being fickle comes down to the way it photosynthesises. Giving you a quick biology lesson, most plants use the C3 pathway for this energygiving process but sweetcorn, having evolved in arid regions, uses C4. C4 is excellent in hot, dry summers but struggles in cool, damp ones. So a bad summer can result in poor corn. But don’t despair! There are loads of ways to combat this (see panel, right) that focus on starting plants off early, choosing the right variety for your locality, keeping things warm and…

This week it’s: IN gardening terms, the maples (forms of acer) are best known for their autumn foliage tints of gold, orange, ochre, copper, red and russet. But this is a diverse genus, from small plants for patio pots to enormous trees. It holds many rewarding species for gardens of all sizes, and for most of us the small and mediumsized Japanese maples tick our boxes. As acers are now in full leaf, at their freshest and best, it is a good time to look at some of the stories surrounding them. Although the Canadian flag contains what is supposed to be the leaf silhouette of a North American sugar maple (Acer saccharum), it is actually a stylised 11-point leaf. Normally, a real sugar maple leaf has 23 points! Dissected…

Top Tip Every plant is an individual, and it often pays to inspect their roots. Upend the pot, tap the rim against a solid post or surface, slide the roots out and check. Better potting skills for all needs Q I am new to gardening, but last year collected a few indoor and outdoor plants that are still in their pots. I feel some need a bigger container but I’m confused when I read the terms ‘pot up’, ‘pot off’, ‘repot’ and ‘pot on’. What do they all mean, and how do you do it? Ren Boswell, Canterbury, Kent A Gardening terms like these have been handed down since Victorian times. While they are useful, I wouldn’t get too hung up on them. To pot up – or even pot…