Innholdsfortegnelse for 6-Mar-2021 i Amateur Gardening

“I apologise to readers in the North and Scotland who took umbrage at my editorial (Feb 20) on how mild the weather had been. This went to press just before the big freeze gripped the country! It does illustrate why gardening is a constant challenge, and more so in some parts of the country than others. That’s why I was interested in Graham Rice’s article about hardy gladioli (page 32): some beautiful examples, and you don’t have to lift them in autumn – they’re tough and low maintenance. What’s not to like? I’ll certainly be looking to plant some of these beauties this spring.” Contact us: ■ Subscriptions: 0330 333 1113 ■ Editorial: 0330 3903732 ■ Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com ■ Advertising: 0330 3906566…

HORTICULTURAL conservation charity Plant Heritage has accredited 13 new National Plant Collections, or ‘living libraries’ of plants, including two that were relocated during lockdown. A collection of Nerine sarniensis (known also as Guernsey or Jersey lily) and hardy Nerines formerly held in Devon have been moved to Cotswold Garden Flowers in Worcestershire, and RHS Garden Rosemoor in Devon. This means that more than 2,000 of the plants had to be prepared and relocated within lockdown constraints! The second rehoming was of an important collection of Ruscus. Also known as butcher’s broom, these unusual sub-shrubs can now also be seen throughout RHS Garden Rosemoor and in the site’s Bicentenary Arboretum. Vicki Cooke, conservation manager at Plant Heritage said: “We are delighted that after the challenges of 2020, people still found the…

POSTPONING this year’s Chelsea Flower Show from late May to the last week of September has really thrown all the balls in the air. There are exhibitors whose specialisms are completely out of season – Johnny Walker’s daffodils immediately come to mind – while others, including Jon Wheatley’s dahlias, are in natural season. Speaking to Raymond Evison, I hear he plans to cut all of his May show clematis back and get regrowth in flower for the autumn. Similarly, Simon Blackmore will cut back Blackmore & Langdon show delphiniums in May, and feed and water well to get new shoots into flower for September. The May cancellation was very frustrating for Blackmore & Langdon, as they had been growing their begonias under lights in heated greenhouses since last November. “Verbena…

MOST gardeners lose some plants or potential crops to frosts sooner or later. We can have damp grey years with late wet springs which seldom have a frost, or we can enjoy a bright sunny early spring and endure several. It’s difficult to tell if and when a hard frost will strike. If one does, the fruit enthusiast is struck hardest, as frost so badly damages the flowers of our earliest, most desired fruits. Apricots, peaches, then plums and pears are notoriously lost to frost as these flower earliest. However, in bad years, a hard frost may come later, when strawberries, cherries and apples are blooming. The problem is worse as it’s not just petals damaged by frost. We’ve all seen leaves scorched by frost – the same happens to…

John has been answering reader queries for 50 years How can I create a wildlife-friendly area? Q I would like to create a wildlife-friendly patch in an area currently planted with daffodils. I am planning on sowing grass seeds in the area below the daffodil area and retaining the upper part as a bit of a wilder area. What could I sow or plant? Mildred Hughes (via email) A I am sure your daffodils will be looking an absolute picture. To extend the wildflowers into summer, I suggest that you plant: Dusky cranesbill (Geranium phaeum): Deep purple, almost black, flowers. Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium): White, daisy-like blooms. Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea): Mauve, lavender-like flowers. Hedge woundwort (Stachys sylvatica): Pale purple blooms. Honesty (Lunaria annua): Purple or white blossom and papery seedpods.…

Q I’d like to start growing my own food, but I don’t have time for all the bed clearing, sowing, planting, or an allotment. What perennial veg can I plant for an ornamental garden – plants that will look after themselves and deliver food? Donna Thomson, Glasgow, Scotland A Incorporating veg, fruit and herbs into otherwise purely ornamental gardens is a great idea, because they make handsome plants as well as yielding edible crops. Before starting, take time to analyse your gardening style. Are you neat, tidy and keen on thoughtful combinations of colour and form? Or do you have a wild approach, with plants allowed to do their own thing, knit together and self-seed? A ‘yes’ to the first might lead you down the path of a potager, with…

THERE is a bulb, tuber, corm or rhizome for every season, but those that flower from late spring through summer and right into autumn are the most glorious. Think alliums, dahlias, lilies, freesias, canna lilies, ranunculus, Mirabilis jalapa, crocosmia and tuberosa, not to mention autumn-flowering nerines. Phew! They combine exotic, vibrant colours with interesting foliage and a generous nature that means that many varieties are as happy in containers as they are in the ground. Planted now, they should flower this year and then mature and multiply as the years pass, creating ever-better displays of colour and interest. Whether you buy your bulbs online, from garden centres or on impulse as part of the supermarket run, you will be spoilt for choice and may find your eye caught by something…

Top Tip Perennials and bulbs in containers can be planted out when they fade to live on in the garden for years. GIVING a bouquet of flowers is a lovely thing to do, but why not create a longer-lasting pot of joy for someone you love or someone who needs cheering up? Mother’s Day falls on March 14 and a container planted up with seasonal cheer will certainly be a welcome gift. Alternatively, give it to someone who you think would appreciate it; an elderly neighbour or housebound friend. At this time of year there is an almost endless range of plants to choose from. Spring bedding is everywhere, as are almost-flowering bulbs that will grow and bloom when the bedding may have started to die down. Set their colours…

I WAS thrilled to see Dahlia ‘Mignon Mixed’ as part of the free seed schedule because they are such simple and giving flowers to grow. Not only are the seeds large, making them easy to sow and germinate, but the flowers are beloved by pollinators thanks to their unfussy, single-layered open faces. Dahlia ‘Mignon Mixed’ are dwarf half-hardy perennials that produce a wealth of brightly coloured flowers with yellow centres above verdant green foliage. They bloom between June and October, attracting butterflies and other beneficial pollinators to your garden. And their generosity doesn’t stop there, as after flowering their seeds provide nutrient-rich goodness, to feed up the garden birds at the start of the colder months. If you leave the plants in the ground until the first frosts of autumn…

I AM not a great lover of power tools, I have to admit, ladies! The only ones I really value are my electric lawnmower and my shredder. I don’t use leaf vacs or strimmers: they make a lot of horrible noise and do quite a lot of environmental damage. It may look as though you’re gardening, armed with one of those gadgets, but you’re not. Gardening is a nurturing activity, and not an exercise in neatness. Much larger machines can really do some damage to the soil structure and the natural world. I often think back to a walk I took in my old village of Hook Norton in Oxfordshire, 20-odd years ago. It was a lovely April day that spoke of promise to come. I strolled across the river…

This week it’s: THERE is no disguising the significance that the colour yellow has in a garden. It is a primary colour (it cannot be created by using other colours), and as yellow is a component of green (present in leaves as chlorophyll), it naturally ‘belongs’ in the garden. Yellow is the most visible of any colours, and it grabs our attention – even if it is just a small patch of yellow in quite a large garden! However, it is not universally loved; my wife dislikes yellow flowers with a passion – except daffodils, as these ‘lift’ a garden after a winter of darkness. Let’s take a look at some gardening connections with yellow. Large expanses of yellow can be hard to look at – its brightness and high…

Star letter Digging for answers MANY older readers might be finding it difficult to manage a big garden especially if they have no one to help them with all the heavy digging. Here is a humorous anecdote of how one old man overcame such a problem: An 80-year-old man lived on his own, in a little village in Gloucestershire. He wanted to plant up his vegetable garden, but it was difficult as the ground was very hard. His only son Andrew, who used to help, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son outlining his predicament. “Dear Andrew, I’m very depressed. I will not be able to plant up my vegetable patch. I’m just too old for all the heavy digging. I know that if you…

CONSIDERING they give so much pleasure and will potentially provide months of beauty for years on end, bulbs are incredibly easy to plant. For the best results, choose a sunny place with free-draining soil that has been enriched with well-rotted compost or manure. Dappled shade won’t harm, and may help the flowers to last longer in summer’s brilliant sunshine, but most don’t take kindly to deep shade. Bulbs can either be planted singly in groups of individual holes or you can dig a trench and plant several at the same time. Whichever method you favour, place them pointed end up at 2-3 times their own depth and a bulb’s width apart. Some plants, such as anemone, don’t have corms with a ‘pointy’ end. Instead, their bulbs look like little shrivelled…

Top Tip Sow a succession of seeds every few weeks to prolong flowering from early summer right through until the autumn frosts. IT’S time to start thinking about sowing half-hardy (HHA) and hardy annual (HA) seeds for this year’s one-season color. Although hardy annuals can withstand the cold, I’d hold off sowing them outside for a few more weeks as the soil will be inhospitably cold and wet, and vulnerable little seeds are at risk of being washed away, of rotting and of becoming the next meal for hungry rodents and birds. Instead, sow them undercover in seed trays or pots and stash them in an unheated greenhouse, porch, cold frame or mini greenhouse. Annual seeds to start now could include sunflowers, clary, larkspur, quaking grass, honeywort (Cerinthe) and poached…

THEY steal root space, light, water and nutrients from your fruit and vegetables. They can also harbour pests, diseases and viruses – it’s no wonder we’re constantly waging a war on weeds! But more of us want to ditch chemicals in favour of environmentally sound control methods. So how do we get results? First, get to know your enemy – there are two main types of weed: those that attack from above ground, and those that strike from beneath the earth. Annual weeds These fecund plants thrive due to the ability to produce masses of seeds, and their short life cycles. Just one fat hen plant can yield 60,000 seeds, and these can remain dormant in the soil for 20 years. Annual weeds are often termed ‘ephemeral’, meaning they can…

SECATEURS are basic gardening tools and are usually taken along by the gardener regardless of the job in hand. They serve every purpose, from dead-heading to pruning, and a quality pair will last for years if you maintain them properly. In historic terms, secateurs are a relatively recent idea, having been invented in France in 1819. Early examples are cross-cut (bypass) types, with the anvil variation originating in Germany in 1923. Early models were made by local blacksmiths, so they varied from one maker to another. They shared a basic design and became known as ‘parrot bill’ secateurs, due to the shape and slight overlap of the blades. Choosing new secateurs should never be a spur-of-the-moment decision. You really need to test the feel of them in your hand for…

OIL and water, Meghan and the Royals, and… err, bath tubs and toasters: some things just don’t mix. And the same is true of builders and plants. When I heard the rumble of heavy machinery inside the old walled kitchen garden where I work, I knew there would be trouble. And sure enough, there it was, the garden equivalent of Kryptonite – a builder in a digger, clawing at the soil. His job was to level the paths, but being keen to ‘tidy’ the place up, he had also scraped the beds where, a year ago, I’d lovingly planted a row of rambling roses to clamber over the walls. And now, here they were – gone into the bucket of a JCB. I couldn’t really blame the driver (although I…