Innholdsfortegnelse for 5-Sep-2020 i Amateur Gardening

“This week, we report on how mail order plant and seed companies coped during the lockdown (pages 6-7). I know it was frustrating for some AG readers when plants didn’t arrive, or arrived in poor condition. I thought it would be useful to hear what the companies had to say and explain the problems they faced. From my perspective, I know that any complaints that came my way were dealt with in a very professional manner. I’m sure that lessons have been learned.” Contact us: Editorial: 0330 390 3732 Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com Advertising: 07817 629935…

WHEN the Coronavirus lockdown came into effect in March, the horticultural industry was one of the sectors hardest hit by the global pandemic. Occurring during a peak time, as people returned to gardening after winter, it was exacerbated by the fact that everyone decided to take up gardening to fill their lockdown hours and the garden centres were forced to close. This put pressure on major suppliers and online retailers to up their game and meet the unprecedented demand. They implemented round-the-clock packing and dispatching schedules, but even so it was almost impossible to keep up with demand, and some companies were forced to briefly close their websites to catch up with orders. 500-fold increase in orders The knock on effect was that plants were sometimes in transit longer than…

I DON’T really like ‘fussy’ flowers. Blowsy begonias and over-the-top tulips do absolutely nothing for me (apologies to their many fans), but I’ll make an exception for fuchsias. Their extravagant appearance belies a laid-back approach to growing, and there are fuchsias for every situation: borders, containers, trailing for baskets and even climbing fuchsias. They like fertile, free-draining soil and are happy in sun and partial shade, though they do like a bit of respite during the hottest part of the day and protection from cold north winds. If yours are in containers, deadhead them when needed and keep them regularly watered and fed with liquid tomato feed. We have a hardy and a half-hardy plant (I am planning more!) that successfully overwintered in the greenhouse, much to my delight. They…

SHADY areas of the garden can be some of the trickiest to cultivate, because they suffer from a combination of lack of sun and the potential to be in a rainshadow so they are prone to ongoing dryness. This week’s free ‘Wildflower Woodland Mix’ seeds are perfect for such a spot as they are for plants that thrive in places where sun and rain are infrequent visitors. These mixed native wildflower varieties will also attract all sorts of insects to your patch. Created by Mr Fothergill’s, they are a mix of colourful annuals, biennials and perennials that you might easily spot during a summertime woodland walk. The added advantage is that they can also handle life in dry borders. The packet contains a variety of seeds that could include foxgloves,…

THE word spinach encompasses all manner of leafy veg – spinach beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, also known as Swiss chard) and annual spinach (Spinacia oleracea) are two very hardy examples. But look also for mountain spinach (Atriplex hortensis), New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides), Chinese spinach (Amaranthus tricolor), Malabar spinach (Basella alba) and even water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica). Just bear in mind that these latter five species won’t readily grow through our winters. “These plants can give you leaves all year round” For simplicity, I’m focusing on the main hardy types: Swiss chard, perpetual spinach and annual spinach (see panel on page 20). Given a steady supply of moisture, these plants can give year-round leaves (see my top tips on page 20). Annual spinach is ideal for quick crops in…

WIN £30 No: 534 This word search comprises words associated with pears. They are listed below, and in the grid they may be read across, backwards, up, down or diagonally. Letters may be shared between words. Erroneous or duplicate words may appear in the grid, but there is only one correct solution. After the listed words are found there are nine letters remaining; arrange these to make this week’s KEYWORD. PEARS PYRUS PERRY COMICE CONFERENCE WILLIAMS ONWARD BABYCHAM BLOSSOM FRUIT JUICY KEEPING ORCHARD RIPE ROOTSTOCK HOW TO ENTER: Enter this week’s keyword on the entry form, and send it to AG Word Search No 534, Amateur Gardening, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF, to arrive by Wednesday 16 September 2020. The first correct entry chosen at random will…

My courgettes are going rogue Q I sowed some courgettes in spring, but they have produced long trailing vines and rounded fruits. What has happened and can we eat them? Alison Roberts, Spalding, Lincolnshire A Courgettes, or zucchini, are summer squash usually forming compact bushy plants, though there are ‘climbing’ varieties. Fruits are usually long, but there are round ones for stuffing and they can be green, pale, striped or yellow. A number of squash, including courgettes and many pumpkins, are all varieties of Cucurbita pepo and will pollinate each other. This has been a strange year for courgettes, with reports of bitter fruits containing higher than normal levels of cucurbitacin. In nature, this bitter-tasting compound deters hungry animals. Only a tiny percentage of one batch of courgette seed has…

IT only seems like days ago that we were belatedly planting our summer bedding and sowing our annual seeds to brighten the gardens over the summer. Now they are reaching the end of their span and it’s time to look ahead and think about brightening up the so-called‚ ‘dark’ winter and early year months. I say ‘so-called’ because these months can be rich with colour and interest if you plan ahead and start getting your garden ready now. Winter bedding, also called spring bedding, should be planted now or sown for the earliest flowering next year. Pansies, violas, bellis daisies, primrose, polyanthus and wallflowers should be planted now, and the garden centres and online retailers are also selling their packs of winter and spring-flowering bulbs. Combine the two to ensure…

GARDEN wildlife was a lockdown winner, according to a leading garden designer. With people spending more time at home and outside, wanting to do their bit for the natural world, demand for wildlife-friendly garden additions soared. “A common requirement in the design brief is for planting and features that will attract wildlife,” said Andy Kirman of Kirman Design, a garden designer in Cheshire. “It has always been popular, but now more than three quarters of enquiries feature this.” However, you don’t need garden designers to make your surroundings more wildlife-friendly. Adding a water feature – even if it’s just a birdbath or sunken bowl with a few pebbles and plants – is a great start. Grow some native, nectar-rich plants in order to attract pollinating insects. Leave an area of…

SEASONAL bedding traditionally consisted of autumn-planted forget-me-nots, or wallflowers under-planted with tulips and polyanthus with muscari, all stripped out late May, to be followed by frost-tender summer-flowering begonias, zonal geraniums, petunias, salvias and so on. The arrival of winter-flowering pansies and violas changed things, flowering well into summer. The shrinking size of gardens in new housing, wider use of patio pots and the longer flowering season provided by modern hybrids have changed things. The latest pansies such as ‘Cool Wave’, ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Premier’ flower for much longer (well into summer) and were still flowering freely in July this year. Similarly, Primula ‘Everlast’ (from Suttons), which may look like a free-flowering wild primrose but is far from it, and double Primula ‘Belarina Series’ are hardy perennials flowering from September through to…

OF the five species of owls in the British Isles, the tawny is the one whose nocturnal hooting calls are so familiar – it is the owl that has most often inspired poets and is also known as ‘wood owl’ and ‘brown owl’. Its plump body wears a chestnut dress striped and mottled with varying shades of grey, buff and brown. In common with all members of the owl tribe, the tawny feeds mostly on small rodents, most of its captures being swallowed whole. Indigestible portions of fur and bones are afterwards ejected through the beak in the form of pellets. To dissect these is to get positive proof of the owl’s menu. The tawny owl’s five or six (sometimes more) white eggs are laid in a cavity in a…

John will reply personally to all your gardening questions every week Why hasn’t my sunflower flowered yet? Q My sunflower has reached 12ft (3.6m) and the flower is not yet open. It seems to have been attacked by wasps. Can you tell me what to do? Bryan Hotchin, via email A I have never heard of wasps attacking plants like this. The only use they have for other plant material is the wood they pulp to construct their nests in spring. Have you looked at the base of the stem to see if there are any signs of damage? Is there any other insect activity that might attract wasps? Sunflowers have a predetermined growing season dictated by the time taken from seed to flowering. Some varieties do flower in the…

THE autumn greenhouse clean-up is an essential job to prevent pests and diseases from overwintering in nooks and crannies, and let the maximum amount of light through the glass. The traditional way to do this is with a smoke fumigator to kill pests and their eggs, followed by a scrub down with a cleaning agent. Smoke products claim different benefits. The chemical-based Deadfast smoke in this trial kills flying and crawling insects, while the Battles candle disinfects but will probably also have a negative impact on pests. Organic smokes (Pest-Stop and BioPro) use garlic oil to boost plants’ natural defences against pests and stimulate growth. Whichever one you use, you have to clean windows and surfaces inside the greenhouse to let in light and kill disease spores. I’ve also tried…

BEDDING plants are available from garden centres and online retailers now, and will work anywhere – in borders, baskets, containers and window boxes. Planted now, they will give you some glorious colour while summer’s blooms are fading. Plants then stop growing through the worst of the winter weather before springing back to life when conditions improve and the weather gets warmer in spring. Bedding uses the weeks between late summer and the onset of seriously cold winter weather to put down roots, mature and bed in properly. Having dotted a selection of pansies, violas and bellis daisies grown from seed around the borders, I decided to use the leftovers in a patio pot. I used peat-free multi-purpose compost and added a couple of handfuls of granular fertiliser to keep the…

AS we emerge from lockdown, a couple of gardening shows are appearing on the horizon. This year, the National Dahlia Society is holding a Socially Distanced Dahlia Show. Taking place at the Abercorn Garden Centre in Chelmsford from 10-14 September, 30 growers will be exhibiting their plants. Show spokesman Dave Gillam said: “Abercorn Garden Centre has offered the use of its coffee shop, currently closed, to stage the best competitive display of dahlias in the country this year. The garden centre is at Beehive Lane, Great Baddow, Chelmsford CM2 8LX; further details are available from 01245 257398. The Malvern Plant and Garden Fair, which takes place on 12-13 September, hosts 36 award-winning, UK nurseries and growers, including Fibrex Nurseries, Hare Spring Cottage Plants, Kitchen Garden Plants, Palm Exotics, Pheasant Acre…

IF you have a little nut tree, nothing will it bear… Well, it probably will bear nuts, but as everyone knows the squirrels get there first. Sadly, this is one of the few difficulties with most nuts, which are remarkably simple to cultivate and come into crop from as early in life as an apple or pear. (True, walnuts can take ages, but they’re an exception.) Indeed, hazel, cob and filbert nuts are the most superb low-maintenance, high-protein, high-fat crop that also produces faggots, firewood and sustains many native insects. We should all plant some nut trees, but most people are put off by the rightly held belief that squirrels will take the lot, helped by other rodents and larger birds. Our problem is that we traditionally gather the nuts…

I CAN’T believe there’s an R in the month already and that we’re into autumn. However, once the nights become chilly, I will be comforted by memories of this year’s wonderful lockdown spring and some super summer days full of butterflies and bees. The small tortoiseshells – the males and females of which look the same – were everywhere in June, flashing their blue, orange and black wings as they visited flowers in the garden. The small tortoiseshell is one of my favourite butterflies and you’re likely to see it throughout Britain, in town and country, because it relies on an abundantly common food plant. Like many Latin butterfly names, Aglais urticae provides a clue as to what the small tortoiseshell caterpillars feed on. They feed on nettles, including the…

This week it’s: ALL a pear needs to grow is a deep, well-drained soil capable of holding moisture during dry spells. But if you want it to produce lots of fruits for the majority of its useful life, then you should be aware of the idiosyncratic nature of pears (see below), particularly in relation to their close relatives, the apples. We’re well into the perfect period for picking pears, so let’s take a sideways glance at these delicious, sweet, succulent fruits… he says, with pear juice dribbling down his chin! ■ The word ‘pear’ is a corruption of the Germanic word pera, itself from the Latin pira (or pyrus), which derives from the Semitic pirâ, meaning ‘fruit’. If you see anything described as ‘pyriform’, it means ‘pear-shaped’! The best of…

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@futurenet.com Making more Hot Lips! MY garden, like thousands of others, became my focus during lockdown. Diligently pruning, sowing and planting, closely following advice, I had hopes of future improvement. Pruning my ‘Hot Lips’ salvia, I stuck stems into a pot of spent compost and some flowering stems into water to open indoors. The pot stems all took root, and to my surprise the flowering stems grew roots, too – something I have found happen with houseplants in the past. Even after planting some elsewhere, I have a dozen to share with friends and family, whilst the original is bigger and better than before. As you can…

Jeyes Fluid Outdoor Cleaner ready to use £3.50 at B&Q 0845 4900176 for stockists jeyesfluid.co.uk Features Ready-to-use 750ml trigger spray bottle containing multi-purpose disinfectant that kills 99.9% of germs. Spray on, leave for 20-30 minutes and then wipe clean. Plants must be removed before application. Performance Spray area to be cleaned, let it soak in and then rinse off. Jeyes fluid is a traditional garden disinfectant. It has a distinct smell, but it’s not unpleasant. Removes grime, slime and mould effectively, and disinfects thoroughly. Care is needed around electrical sockets/fittings – turn off the power before spraying! Value Ready-to-use and a reasonable price. A powerful cleaner and disinfectant, and I doubt many crawling pests and their eggs would thrive after a dose of Jeyes. So if you want to use…

ACCORDING to my uncle Jim, the indestructible pink sorrel that grows in almost every garden in our town arrived in the 1950s hidden inside an elephant. ‘Nelly’, as the locals unimaginatively called her, was the main attraction of a travelling circus and the weed seed, according to sleuths on the allotment, was in her feed. Weighing in at 4½ tons, Nel consumed a lot of food – dozens of bales a day – and produced almost as much manure. It made her both a cultural attraction and a serendipitous source of soil improver, which the town’s resourceful gardeners collected by the barrowload and spread on their veg plots. But what a mistake that turned out to be. Just as the memory of the circus was fading, a souvenir of Nel’s…