Innholdsfortegnelse for 4-Jul-2020 i Amateur Gardening

“I’m just about to harvest the 27 containers of potatoes I planted in March, and I find this a really nerve-wracking time because I have no idea of how successful my crop is until I turn out each bag. All those weeks of waiting, watering and feeding, and I’m still none the wiser! Does anyone else share that anxiety? At least with tomatoes, chillies, courgettes and sweetcorn, you know what you’ve going to get. Oh well, courage, my boy!” Contact us: Editorial: 07814 905439 Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com Advertising: 07817 629935…

NE of the plants I feel is a must for any garden is the salvia, or sage. These versatile beauties are as happy in a well-drained border as they are in a decentsized patio container and they bring so much to the party. Not only do they have a seemingly endless variety of shapes and colours, their spires of florets ranging from the darkest purple to the palest pink and even black, but they are also great for attracting bees to your patch. And once the pollinators are in, they will help everything else flourish. The best-known sage is Salvia officinalis, the one we use in cooking. Give it a sunny spot and it will romp away, often growing to a large size even when kept in shape by annual…

NINETY different cultivars of rudbeckia were planted for the FleuroSelect Year of the Rudbeckia trial at the RHS Hyde Hall Garden last month (there will be a duplicate planting at Harlow Carr). Who would have thought there were that many? This includes a number of new introductions. I had already seen some of them in the Rudbeckia Enchanted Series, bred by Charles Valin and planned for a Thompson & Morgan Chelsea Flower Show 2020 launch. When the Chelsea show was cancelled, some of the show plants were carried forward to help clad my 50th Anniversary Sun pyramid display at RHS Hyde Hall. Enchanting they certainly are; very free-flowering doubles in five eyecatching colours, with lime green R. ‘Enchanted Forest’ a particular beauty. Each and every plant has the same flower…

NO allotment or edible garden is complete without raspberry canes, but how do you ensure that your yields are abundant, flavoursome and healthy? The classic red raspberry is a suckering shrub native to Europe, so it’s well suited to cooler, moister garden conditions. Look also for yellow-fruited types such as ‘Alpengold’, and blackfruited American varieties like ‘Starlight’ which claim a richer flavour. Canes are either bristly or spine-free. There are two cropping types: floricane (summer-fruiting) and primocane (autumn-fruiting). Summer varieties, depending on which one you choose, will be ready for harvest, from now (ie ‘Glen Moy’) to mid August (ie ‘Leo’). They bear their fruit on canes produced the previous year, so simply prune out fruited stems immediately after cropping and tie in the new stems to replace them; they…

This week it’s: THIS Saturday is Independence Day in the USA. The ‘Fourth of July’ is when the whole country celebrates the signing of its independence, in 1776, from British King George III. In those days, the US comprised 13 British colonies that sat along the Atlantic coastline. The rest of the massive country was to the west. Today, the US is around 9.6 million square kilometres (50 times larger than Britain). It has a wealth of native plants, as well as a very large and progressive horticultural industry, with many new plants coming from the States. Let’s look at some of them. Not all US imports are good. Remember the Colorado beetle? Native to America, it’s a major pest of potato crops, and came to Europe in 1859. In…

How do I protect broad beans? Q My broad beans were feeble to begin with, and the tops covered in blackfly. I know you are supposed to nip out growing tips but they hadn’t flowered. In the end, I scrapped them. What went wrong, and is it too late to re-sow? Jennifer Tollings, Castle Donington, Leicestershire A Although broad beans are generally easy to grow as long as their needs are met, black bean aphid is a common problem. Over the years, I’ve tried many solutions, including nipping out growing tips, but now I rely on a more holistic approach. This consists of growing healthy vigorous plants and then relying on naturally occurring biological control to fix the aphids. Broad beans like to grow in cool weather on good, hearty…

NOW I’m no Elon Musk, but my lumberjack gardening shirt is always so stuffed full of seeds, if it was planted on the Ghost Dunes of Mars I’m sure it would only be a matter of time before the Red Planet turned green. Recently, though, disaster struck at Buckland Mission Control imperilling the precious payload in my shirt pockets, including a newly collected clutch of salsify seeds. Lisa, oblivious to my Martian plans, washed the shirt on a rocket-hot temperature, giving the newly collected seeds a broiling. Being a modern man, I knew that complaining about this might mean that my clothes would never be laundered again. So instead I have produced a homemade poster that Lisa can study at her leisure, showing easy-to-follow pre-wash pocket checks and protocols. Meanwhile…

ACHIEVING year-round interest in the garden is the holy grail of horticulture, and while most people think that winter brings the drabbest days, this point of the summer can also create a ‘colour gap’. The spring colours are fading and we are still a week or two away from summer’s boisterous riot of colour. So, what can we do? An immediate solution is to plant a container of ready-flowering plants or pop a few bedding annuals into your borders, but such a piecemeal way of gardening isn’t ideal. The most sensible option is to design your garden as a whole rather than area by area, so you get a seamless run of colour and interest. Focus on the gaps in the borders, see what is growing around them and plan…

Tubers from seed: Bedding dahlias grown from seed will make tubers by the end of the season. These can be lifted in autumn and stored through winter for replanting next year. 1 Keep deadheading dahlias, as this will encourage a profusion of flowers. It is fine to cut blooms that are diseased or have been attacked by pests. 2 Varieties with large flowers need staking to prevent stems snapping. One support per plant should be enough, though large ‘dinner-plate’ heads may need more. 3 Water dahlias regularly, especially if they are in pots and during dry spells. It keeps the plants healthy and helps prevent drought stress and powdery mildew. 4 Protect dahlias from earwigs by filling a pot with scrunched-up paper and inverting it on a stake next to…

JULY is when our real harvest begins. Oh sure, we will have had the first pickings – but now, everything comes in a rush. With the long days pushing growth, some crops can go over before we even notice, and then all our work is wasted. Garlic is a classic example: it looks great today, but it can be gone tomorrow. Dig your garlic up before the leaves detach themselves, or you won’t find them all. Lift just as leaves start to wither, then dry more thoroughly under cover. Likewise, harvest onions and shallots once their leaves wither and fall naturally – never try to ‘help’ by impatiently bending these down, as that may initiate rot at the necks during storage. “Some crops can go over before we even notice!”…

A COUPLE of weeks ago I wrote about the dunnock’s nest in the winter clematis on the south-facing wall (AG 20 June). The Best Beloved and I abandoned our favourite seat to allow the dunnock to fly back and forth untroubled by us. Since then, the dunnocks have fledged. But I don’t think we’ll be using that seat for some months because wasps have suspended a nest underneath the wooden slats. The wasps’ nest is hanging down right in the middle of the seat, and growing larger day by day. It proves the old adage that nature abhors a vacuum, a phrase attributed to the Greek philosopher Aristotle some 2,000 years ago. The great man wasn’t keen on wasps – he said that the wasp has few virtues and no…

Mine’s a pint – for the slugs AS someone who always enjoyed the old ‘amber nectar’ I used to be in that perpetual quandary – beer for me or the slugs, as I could never understand the concept of ‘leftover beer’ for the slugs. So the slugs got to live another day and never fell to their boozy doom. Now we are in the depths of Covid-19, we are in the reverse situation. Pubs with no consumers and surplus beer being poured away, and I just know there is an army of welcome customers lurking under those pots and hedges, all just waiting for that first rain so they can start rampaging across the plot. Oh, for the odd gallon or two of free beer – I promise it isn’t…

Water talk: It has been an extremely dry spring and in next week’s AG I talk about watering well and how to make your supplies go further. January: The first colour will be coming through, with snowdrops and cyclamen in borders and shrubs such as Daphne odora, winter jasmine and wintersweet creating an elegant framework. February: Crocuses and other early spring bulbs will be flowering now, as will hellebores and early violets. Witch hazel and winter heather helpfully provide nectar for the earliest bees. March: Shrubs including forsythia, chaenomeles and camellias will be ablaze with colour, with daffodils and spring bedding bringing life back to borders, pots and baskets. April: Delicate epimediums and bleeding hearts add a pop of colour to shady places, while cowslips are lovely in a spring…

The latest stories from around the Uk AS families are encouraged to get out into the garden and get their youngsters growing food and flowers instead of going to play in the park, some parents are worried that this could exacerbate any existing childhood allergies. Now writer, designer and allergy expert Jackie Herald has come up with a series of measures to help reduce allergic reactions. She said: “Many people who love gardening suffer from hay fever, but the good news is that gardens can be designed to reduce exposure to allergenic pollens and mould spores. “The less children sneeze and wheeze, the more fun they’ll have, and while Coronavirus exists, avoiding itchy eyes is very important – to prevent the natural instinct of rubbing one’s face.” Pollen highest in…

FRENCH lavender is one of my favourite summer plants, for its elegance, variety of shades and glorious evocative scent. It is not as hardy as our native varieties, so if your garden tends towards the chilly or waterlogged or has an exposed aspect, you may be best off growing your plants in pots so they can be moved to shelter in winter. They will still thrive in warm, free-draining soil in a sunny site, though they may require mulching or cloching or, as they grow, covering with fleece during very cold spells during the winter. Also known as Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas has larger flowers than English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and comes into bloom earlier, sometimes even in May. The leaves are an elegant silvery green and the flower heads…

How can I help my camellia thrive? Q I have two camellias in the same area of the garden. Both get the same amount of sun and food. One is very bushy, but the other resembles a stick. They are next to a rose bush. Is there anything I can do to help the ‘stick’? Wayne Taylor, Pudsey, Leeds A It looks like the weaker of the two camellias is growing in grass, a competitive plant that can outcompete young trees and shrubs for water and nutrients. Although the camellia looks healthy, it might benefit from a reduction in competition for a year or two. Remove the grass from around the main stem for at least a 1ft (30cm) diameter, ideally 2ft (60cm). This will expose the soil, which will…

THERE’S a good basic principle to follow when using plant ties: never tie living plant material tightly. It should be secure, of course, so first your tie should be fastened tightly to the supporting cane or framework, and then loosely around the living stem you’re supporting. As the plant grows its stems thicken, and a tight tie will literally strangle it. Two types of ties A range of materials is used to make plant ties, some better suited to particular jobs. Some designs can be useful for particular projects, or to speed up the process of tying-in lots of stems. Ties fall into two categories: those made from organic material that decomposes over the course of about a year; and those made from inorganic material that will last for several…