Innholdsfortegnelse for 9-Jan-2021 i Amateur Gardening

IT may feel like we are buried in the depths of winter, but we are well past the shortest day, spring bulbs are shooting and it won’t seem long before our gardens are springing back to life. I use these days for keeping the garden ticking over so it’s ready to go when warmer weather arrives, meaning (hopefully) that there are no nasty surprises in store. Pruning, turning the beds, weeding and checking that the plants overwintering undercover aren’t bothered by pests and disease are all tasks for these midwinter days. Keep adding to and turning your compost, too, letting rain get to it but also covering it with old carpet during cold spells to keep in the heat and speed up the decomposition process. One of the things I…

Top Tip Join your local gardening club or transition town and make the most of the free advice, seed and plant swaps, shared equipment and friendliness 1 Looking after plants from the minute they go in the ground keeps them robust and healthy, less susceptible to problems and more able to recover from pests and disease, saving you money on remedies and replacements. 2 Make sure all your garden tools and chemicals are properly stored and labelled. Keep tools sharp and clean, wash gloves and do the same with pots and modules so they last for more than one season. 3 Buy in bulk. Garden centres often have ‘three for two’ offers on compost (buy peat-free where possible and ask for it to be stocked if it isn’t). Larger packs…

LAST year I lost all my potted begonia tubers to vine weevils, which was incredibly annoying. This year I vowed there wouldn’t be a repeat and once the weather warmed up, our containers were watered with vine weevil nematodes, with success. When the temperature finally dropped after a ridiculously mild autumn (the begonias flowered until the middle of November) the corms and dahlia tubers were large and solid after their summer in pots. They are spending winter in the greenhouse on trays of compost and in spring will all be potted up to grow again and colour the garden in summer. If you have done the same, don’t ignore them through the winter. Check them over every week or so to make sure they are still sound, and do the…

IN AG 19-26 December 2020 I wrote about my leeks and the disastrous allium leaf miner. The larvae had mined upwards into the leek stems and there were lots of small brown pupae in the layers, waiting to hatch out in the spring. Yum! This was our first skirmish with the allium leaf miner, but wildlife in every form is dynamic (ie, constantly changing) so we may not be so badly affected next year if we can break the cycle and dispose of the pupae. Things come and go. The harlequin ladybird, once so prevalent here, is now in short supply. We have none in our house, for the first time in years, and last year we had only a few inside. It’s a nationwide decline and this suggests two…

This week it’s: ISLANDS may be a bit of a surprise subject to cover in a gardening magazine, but there are many links between plants, gardening and, yes, islands. Some of our finest gardens are on islands (one of my favourite gardens of all time is on my favourite island of them all – Tresco, one of the Scilly Isles). And there are hundreds of currently available plants listed in the RHS Plant Finder that have ‘island’, ‘isle’ or the plurals of these, or even specific islands, in their name. It also lists about six times more than this, the number of ‘island’ plants that were once available but are no longer. So, let’s take a look at some of the best links between our favourite pastime and islands. Changing…

Q We have moved into a new garden with a lovely wisteria against the house. I know I should prune it, but am scared about doing it wrong. Any tips? Christine Farley, Norfolk A A well-trained wisteria has plenty of kerb appeal, working wonders to transform ordinary houses into something special. The Chinese wisteria (W. chinensis) and its cultivars, with their shorter flower racemes, are more in scale with the lower walls of cottages and bungalows. On taller buildings, the long racemes of Japanese wisteria (W. floribunda) add style and lend older houses the appeal of grand Victorian residences. Walls should face south or west, but wisterias can also climb trees, scale pergolas or make elegant standards. These deciduous climbers’ fragrant pea-like blooms open in April and May. Your plant…

COMPARED to the off-the-shelf condiment, homemade horseradish sauce is atomic. So peppery and spicy, most cookery books recommend preparation in a ‘well-ventilated kitchen’! Still, making your own will clear your nose, and probably deal with any termite problems. Horseradish has been around for thousands of years. Long before Europeans had heard of a habanero, and Tabasco sauce was a twinkle in Meso-American’s eye, it was the go-to flavour-giver for bringing dull dishes to life. Unusually for a spice, it’s the roots and not the leaves or fruits that provide the taste. Now the leaves have gone to ground and the cold has concentrated the flavour, this is the perfect time to harvest and plant afresh. If you’re planting, think on. Horseradish is like the weed dock on steroids. It has…

SOME of my main jobs this week have involved keeping our fruit and veg beds healthy and ticking over. The garlic we planted in October is growing well and needs regular weeding as its thin, strappy leaves make it easy for weeds to shoot up in between bulbs. The same applies to onions, leeks and shallots, all members of the allium family. I’ve taken a couple of low-growing branches off the fig tree as they were getting in the way of the lawn mower. If I’d left it much later and the tree would bleed copious amounts of sap when pruned, weakening it and leaving it open to pests and disease. Our kale is still going strong. I have been removing yellowing leaves and feeding the plants with chicken manure…

WITH most of the garden snoozing under its blanket of winter cold, there’s time to devote to indoor plants. Admittedly there isn’t a great deal of feeding and watering to do for most of them during these dormant days of no growth nor flowering, but anything in bloom that you were given for Christmas is another matter. These need regular watering and feeding to keep them productive, as well as deadheading when necessary to encouraging longer flowering. Non-flowering houseplants can become stressed in dry, centrally-heated air and fall foul of pests (see panel, right). Some plants, such as peace lily, hate being overwatered but quickly get limp and droopy when they don’t get enough, so keep their compost just damp, but not soggy, even through winter. Some plants may need…

ONE of the great joys of winter, especially when there isn’t much else to observe in the garden, is watching the squadrons of little garden birds descending on the feeders. We usually get a ‘pick’n’mix’ selection of tits among the crew and most of them are readily identifiable: the long-tailed tits with their long tails (who’d have thought!), the blue tits with their cerulean skullcaps and the large, loud, black, white and yellow great tits. But there’s one that flies with the flock yet isn’t as gaudy as the rest, and that’s the coal tit. These are a small member of the tit tribe that is most commonly found in pine forests, though they do also visit tree-rich gardens that provide regular supplies of food. They are pretty little birds…

THERE is no fruit to match the intensity of flavour of a blackcurrant. The whole bush is literally bursting with fragrance – you can release the distinct aroma just by brushing past a plant. Robust, trouble-free and prolific, the bushes are also incredibly simple to grow; there’s not much going against them! Happy in sun or shade one bush is all that’s needed, because plants are self-fertile. If you have room, the vigorous and lofty ‘Ben Hope’ is very abundant and worthwhile growing. For those with tiny plots, compact ‘Ben Sarek’ is for you, and it grows happily in a pot as well. Blackcurrants crop best on vigorous two- and three-year-old wood, so an unpruned mature plant will ultimately become less and less productive over time. Worry not: this is…

Got a story? email ruth.hayes@futurenet.com MAPPERTON House and Gardens in West Dorset has won the prestigious Historic Houses Garden of the Year Award for 2020. The house was named winner in a public vote that saw more than 11,000 people cast their support for their favourite amongst eight nominated gardens, including Wollerton Old Hall Garden in Shropshire, Painshill Park in Surrey, and Montalto Estate in Northern Ireland. The awards are now in their 36th year, with past winners including Blenheim Palace, Castle Howard, Forde Abbey and Newby Hall. Mapperton’s gardens, set near the town of Beaminster a stone’s throw from Dorset’s world-famous Jurassic Coast, are well known as one of the most important and distinctive in the UK. Receiving a quarter of all the votes cast in this year’s awards,…

WHILE a steadily increasing number of gardeners are trading online, I still find printed catalogues quicker, easier and more convenient. When each one arrives, page after page can be checked and notes made either on the pages or at the front with page references. It is worth checking the small print, as a number of firms offer special deals to local allotments and garden societies, giving the member and – if the order is big enough – the society good savings. Currently, Kings Seeds’ catalogue is to hand and used for several reasons: it is local, it grows a large quantity of its sweet pea seed in Essex, and two of the bosses are died-in-the-wool seedsmen with exceptional experience. You may be interested in some of my notes. For asparagus,…

BVIOUSLY, it’s going to give us better results more reliably if we use brand-new potting compost each and every time. However, most of us want to re-use used compost, although we are not sure we should. Using all new compost is not inexpensive, weighs a lot to lug around, and means you have to dispose of old compost. If you have a garden, the last of these issues is no problem, as old potting compost makes grand mulch for almost anything. But without a garden or compost bin, you can only bin it – what a waste. So can you keep re-using compost? Well, first of all, compost loses fertility as plants grow – indeed, after the first month or so, most composts with growing crops or bedding plants need…

John will reply personally to all your gardening questions every week Can I propagate Sedum morganianum? Q Where can I get hold of a Sedum morganianum? I already have one but they are such pretty plants and I would love another. Mrs S Hough, Crewe, Cheshire A They may be sold in your local garden centre, or you could try online where there are several available including at Crocus (crocus.co.uk, 01344 578 000), Beards and Daisies (beardsanddaisies.co.uk, 0203 828 9600) and other suppliers. Sedum morganianum, which is also called burro’s tail, flowers in spring and summer with red-purple star-shaped blooms carried in clusters on the stem. They are quite small so you may need to look for them. As an alternative to buying a new one you could try propagating…

I HAVE a pragmatic view about gardening in an environmentally friendly way. By gardening we control the natural environment, altering it to suit our needs and whims, and in doing so we damage it because we don’t let it do what nature intends. That said, I love plants, wildlife and landscape in all their diversity and have no conscious wish to harm them. I only use chemicals in the garden where I feel I can’t protect or feed plants without them; my wife, Kathy, and I grow a wide range of plants and enjoy the insects that are attracted by them; we feed the birds; and I don’t swat wasps. However, I became aware that my efforts are uncoordinated, sporadic, even careless and a bit smug. An objective view was…

REGARDING ‘AG is your consumer champion’ (issue dated 14 Nov), thank you so much for this article. It wasn’t just me, a novice gardener, but people like SMP Sir Brian Donohoe – even he was given the runaround. 2020 has been an unusual year for me, and millions of others. Some of us have been unable to visit shops or nurseries due to ill health or Covid restrictions. I, too, sent for plugs and plants, (mobility is an issue – therefore, I thought plugs and plants were a better buy than seeds). Late deliveries of orders. Plants folded under a net to be squashed in transit. Then emails suggesting, “We advise cutting off the tops of plants”. Plugs without a sign of a green shoot. All excuses. Covid: we have…