Innholdsfortegnelse for 23-Jan-2021 i Amateur Gardening

“Our report on Monty Don falling out with the garden trade (AG 5 Dec issue) generated a huge mailbag from readers, some of whom thought that anyone who saw Monty’s views as being unhelpful was anti peat-free. This is not true. Most people, trade included, want to cut down and eventually stop the use of peat. However, this will take time and it needs to be done in concert with the trade and producers. I would love to see Monty engage with the trade and work with them rather than against them. On pages 6 and 7, Ruth provides an update on where we are with peat replacements. All gardeners are natural environmentalists, so let’s all work together. Contact us: ■ Subscriptions: 0330 333 1113 ■ Editorial: 0330 3903732 ■…

Got a story? email ruth.hayes@futurenet.com WHILE our story about Monty Don and his views on peat in gardening caused a heated debate among our readers, it also shone a light on the problems suppliers face while trying to meet the demand for peat-free products. Your responses – and thank you to everyone who contacted us – showed that while most of you either garden without peat or with as little peat as possible, many people find the costs of doing so prohibitive. Although peat products can often be bought under ‘three for a tenner’ deals, peat-free substrates are often more expensive. And there’s the rub: Monty’s widely-shared views about peat are highly commendable, but not always easy to implement. Logistical problems It’s all very well suggesting that people make their…

LAST month I was playing with my pots, deadheading, weeding and moving them to a sheltered location at the side of the house because bad weather was forecast, when I noticed that the plants in one of them weren’t doing very well. I reached out and slightly moved a sad-looking cyclamen and the whole thing lifted from the soil. Vine weevils had eaten their way through the roots, and digging around in the compost I soon found a few of the dastardly grubs, immediately recognisable from their creamy, C-shaped bodies and brown heads. I thought it would have been too cold for them to still be active, but obviously not, so I removed the remaining plants into their own pots and spread the compost on the drive so the birds…

THE Best Beloved is a scientist through and through, and he has an obsession about frogs and toads. Occasionally I try to distract him by saying “Ribbit, ribbit”, but he just ignores me! He’s come up with some interesting information on the differences in the diets of frogs and toads, though, which I’ve found interesting. The adult common frog (Rana temporaria), described as an unspecialised and opportunistic predator, eats what’s available and consumes all moving objects large enough to be seen and small enough to be swallowed. It only sees moving prey that’s close by, because it has poor eyesight. A static fly within easy striking distance is not visible to a frog, unless the fly moves. Common frogs will also miss an earthworm that’s 10in (25cm) away. However, if…

ALTHOUGH there are many fine wall plants to be found among the great family of trees and shrubs, it is difficult to understand why many of them are not planted more freely. One cannot help but note, when passing a row of suburban houses, the monotonous similarity of wall plants. Many people, when contemplating the purchase of plants for walls, think only of true climbing plants, and while some of these are excellent, the great majority will be found to be better suited if planted in more natural surroundings, such as rambling over trees or large shrubs, or used as screens or grown up poles in shrub and herbaceous borders. When growing shrubs as wall plants, it is advisable not to attach a lot of wires to the wall when…

Growing Icelandic poppies Q I love Icelandic poppies, but have never had much luck either in raising them from seed or keeping plants for more than one season. How can I succeed with these lovely plants? Gemma Cairney, Aberdeen, Scotland A Although Icelandic poppies are described as short-lived perennials, they are mostly grown as biennials or even annuals, so it is quite natural for them to last only one season. Despite the name, these lovely poppies don’t come from Iceland but the sub-polar regions of Asia and North America. It is easy to imagine how they might last a little longer where cold, dry winters give way to definite springs, rather than the mild, wet and variable winters of the UK. There is no shame in buying young plants or…

ONE of the side effects of the pandemic was that everyone became very attached to whatever growing space they have. Gardens became so much more than somewhere for the kids to play football and the parents to drink a glass of wine on warm summer evenings. We became a nation of gardeners and growers, with people not just cultivating their own fruit and veg, but brightening their days by raising and nurturing seed-grown ornamentals. Last year you sent us photos of flowers grown from the free seeds and we were blown away by the beauty you created. Now they are back for 2021 and we would love to see how your growing goes. This year’s seeds are a mix of annuals, biennials and perennials, with veg seeds and herbs as…

ON a cold, dank day a couple of weeks before Christmas I was tidying up the garden muttering ‘come on spring’, when I stopped in my tracks and peered more closely at the ground. Spring had obviously heard me because nestled among a collapsing crown of tattered old foliage was a cluster of new hellebore shoots pushing up from the soil. On the other side of the garden I found another crown of shoots, this time with a more exposed flower bud, a blob of deep pink against the surrounding brown mud. Helleborus niger, also known as Christmas or Lenten rose, are one of the earliest and most reliable of spring flowers. Sturdy perennials, they grow to be sizeable plants with innumerable hybrids, so they flower in a stunning range…

THE other morning when I looked out of the kitchen window I saw a flock of 11 birds sitting in the tree opposite. They were larger than starlings but had less heft than bulky wood pigeons. They were collared doves, the smaller and more refined-looking cousin of the common wood pigeon. Usually they are seen singly or in pairs, but the winter weather and extra food on local bird tables must have brought this colony together. Collared doves are not native to the UK, arriving on these shores from the Middle East and first recorded breeding in the UK in the 1950s. They have since moved further west and have been recorded in areas of the US. They are pretty birds, with pink-buff bodies, darker grey wing tips and a…

EVOCATIVE, exciting eye-candy – that’s how I’d describe chilli peppers. Plus, eye-watering if you eat the wrong one raw! The heat we taste – measured in Scoville heat units (SHUs) – is due to capsaicinoids, plant chemicals held in the seedcoat. While milder chillies have a thicker seedcoat (known as the placenta) that protects the seeds from damage, hotter varieties like ‘Naga Viper’ and ‘Trinidad Scorpion’ have a thinner yet capsaicin-packed placenta. This protects the seed from rots as well as mammalian predators via its antimicrobial activity – and the fact that it tastes foul! “The thinner the seedcoat, the hotter the taste!” Some folk get a buzz from the ‘feelgood’ endorphins produced in response to the painful heat (the oils in full-fat milk or yoghurt dissolve capsaicin; use these…

THE old-time greenhouse gardener was always keen on handling and moving plants. In fact, he did it on every possible occasion and regarded it as part of his usual routine. Why, one might ask, did he do this? That he did it with something important in his mind was obvious from the way in which he found time to carry out this task. The truth is that by this moving of plants he was trying to emulate Nature, which in its own way keeps practically all foliage on the move by wind, thus keeping those which might be attacked by mould or mildew free of these pests. Apart from this, it has always been felt that this movement is good for the general health of plants. Now, in the greenhouse,…

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 What’s not to like? IT was really nice to read Val Bourne’s defence of ivy (‘The ivy league’ in AG, 21 November). The gardeners I know who prefer a manicured look are constantly warning me of the horrible fate that will befall my trees and walls once ivy gets hold of them. But like Val, I have kept it under control and I really like the way it can cover a multitude of horticultural sins and also help out wildlife. Plus, it stays green all year when everything else has lost its colour, and there are different varieties with plain or variegated leaves. What’s not…

HARDY annuals and perennials can be sown directly into the soil for most of the year, though the best times are autumn, when the soil is warm from summer, and spring as it warms up. Autumn-sown seeds may germinate before winter or get a head start on those sown later the following spring, as they are ready to go as soon as the temperature rises. If you sow some in autumn and some in spring, you will have a longer succession of flowers. Half-hardy annuals such as cosmos, cleome, nicotiana and zinnia don’t like cold winters and early springs, so you should start them undercover in March or early April. Start sowing directly by preparing a seedbed. Clear the soil of roots, weeds and other debris and then rake it…

TOMATOES are tops in people’s choice – they are easy to cultivate, heavy yielding and one of our most popular, healthy foods. Choosing which one to grow with so many different cultivars to choose from is difficult. There are four main types. The standard kind that we tie to stakes and grow tall on a single stem as cordons is called ‘indeterminate’. There are bush kinds called ‘determinate’ that we do not side-shoot and just leave to their own devices, forming multi-stemmed rounded plants. Third are tumbling tomatoes, a more pendula bush type for hanging baskets, the edges of windowboxes and containers. Fourth are the compact and upright growing cultivars to grow in windowsill pots and small patio containers. “One plant could feed a family of four all summer” There…

WITH more of us growing our own, those who have smaller (or next to no) gardens are growing far more in containers. Just bear in mind that there are both advantages and handicaps to this mode of growing. On the plus side: containers can be moved, so plants can be shifted to more light or warmth, and carried in and out; roots are warmer than down in the ground, so many plants crop earlier; before sowing or planting, next to no preparation or weed control is required; and there can be little waste of water or fertiliser. On the minus side: you cannot fill containers with soil and you need proper potting compost (richer and better textured than soil); you need to carry out considerable watering and feeding; the plants…

Has my Garrya been hit by blackspot? Q My Garrya elliptica, which is planted through weed-blocking membrane, started healthy but then developed what appeared to be blackspot. I thought I had beaten it with systemic fungicide but it has come back. The plant has lots of catkins; what should I do? Dave Gibson, via email A I think it’s unlikely that fungal leafspot is the problem at this time of year, but if it occurs in summer try removing affected leaves and improving airflow around your plant. Fungicides are not often effective against leaf spots. There are several reasons why your Garrya may be looking sickly. It may be the time of year as it will be preparing to shed old leaves to make way for new ones. The older…

This week it’s: TO most of us, a ‘conservatory’ is simply the uPVC structure we’ve plonked on to the backs of our houses, to give us more living space, a little more sunshine in our homes, and to enable us to enjoy the garden more while still being indoors. Modern conservatories are mostly squarish, ‘blocky’ and white, with sloping polycarbonate roofs. They’re quite boring, actually, and in design terms they have no commonality with the elegant conservatories of large stately homes 300 years ago. These were ornate, grand structures, made of cast metal. They also frequently had hot, warm and cooler sections for growing different kinds of plants. Let’s look at some conservatory stories, and a few plants to go inside them. Paxton and Chatsworth FROM the mid-1800s, every gentleman…

DO you have itchy sowing fingers? I get them every year, and when I started gardening I made the mistake of sowing hundreds of seeds far too early. They germinated fine on warm windowsills, but very few survived the low light levels and temperatures as I had to move them outdoors through lack of space. However, if you have some frost-free growing space, be it a bright windowsill indoors, a warm porch or conservatory, or a heated greenhouse, then some seeds that take a long time to mature are worth starting now. Onions were traditionally sown on Boxing Day, 26 December, but a month’s delay won’t hurt. Scatter the seeds thinly over a tray (or two – you’ll need lots of plants for a good crop) of moist seed and…

WHAT do you get when you combine lockdown with the UK’s appetite for avocados? Not stuck between a guac and a hard place (genius answer, though). Nope, what you get is a forest of avocado trees cluttering the nation’s windowsills. In the past few weeks, a chorus of concerned gardeners have contacted my show, reporting that the avocado they grew from seed in the summer is now blocking the view or diving Acapulco-style from the kitchen sill into the sink. And the big question is: can these fast-growing triffids survive in the garden? Probably not, is the truthful answer – but with gardening, anything is possible. I’ve spotted so many of these long-leaved tropical trees happily growing in sheltered city and west country gardens that it’s worth a go, especially…