Innholdsfortegnelse for 19-Jun-2021 i Amateur Gardening

“Gardening can be an extremely emotional experience. You get an amazing sense of achievement when things go right, but a numbing sense of failure when things go wrong. I think our emotions are heightened by the long gap between planting and the end result. The other day I hit one of those highs when I spied a dahlia poking its leaves through a woodchip mulch. Last year I decided to leave my dahlia tubers in the soil and not dig them up. It was a risk, but I mulched heavily – and waited and waited. We’d had frost and snow in April, and I thought the game was up. Then, at the end of May, eureka! And I still can’t stop talking about it!”…

THE Government is calling on AG readers to take part in a national survey to establish the future of garden-waste collections. The two relevant questions in the survey relate to what should be classified as ‘garden waste’, and whether householders with gardens would be interested in a ‘free minimum collection service for garden waste’. Rebecca Pow MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), told AG she is keen for readers to take part as they are the key target audience the Government wants to reach. Ms Pow, who used to write a column for AG, said: “We did the first consultation about garden waste in 2019, and we are now on the second one and getting down to the real nitty-gritty of…

SUMMERTIME, and the living is easy if you are a garden pest, merrily chomping your way through new plant growth. It is a constant battle to keep plants healthy and pest-free, but it can be won by consistent plant care and paying attention to what’s going on out there. I prefer to avoid chemical sprays, instead using careful husbandry and harnessing the power of natural predators (including birds, hedgehogs, ground beetles and hoverflies) to keep plants strong. On the rare occasions I do use chemicals I use organic sprays, such as the widely available Neudorff Bug Free or Vitax Plant Guard. I also use some of the newly released plant invigorators, including rose and buxus sprays made by Westland and GroGreen. These supplement the feeding and watering regimes, and help…

THE judging of Chelsea Flower Show Product of the Year 2021 went ahead as usual last month, with the winner announced on the virtual Chelsea output, but people will have to wait until the September Chelsea show to see all ten finalists’ products on display. The judges were Deborah Meaden from the Dragons’ Den TV programme, and Chris Harrop, group director of sustainability and supply chain ethics at hard-landscape materials company Marshalls plc. Both are committed environmentalists and well equipped to judge this year’s theme ‘Sustainable Garden Product of the Year’. I joined them in the judging and, as a child of the 1940s, was brought up in an age of make do and mend. I still find it difficult to walk past a skip and look, in horror, at…

WE’VE got medieval French monasteries and chateaux owners to thank for the potager concept – a creative and artistic design of fruit and vegetable garden that’s as easy on the eye as it is productive. I’ve always had a soft spot for them – to me, edible plots can be just as beautiful as ornamental gardens. So how would you go about creating your own? Add florals, shrubs and herbs Tap into your imagination, because anything goes when it comes to potager plants. Fruit, vegetables and herbs should supply the backbone, but because cut flowers and foliage are also key components, many ornamental plants can be chosen. Viburnums, peonies, irises, lilies, aquilegias – as long as it can go in a vase, anything goes. “Anything goes when it comes to…

BIOLOGICAL pest control is a ‘bug eats bug’ approach that involves the use of natural enemies to help control pests on your plants. There are predators for almost all situations now, not just outside in the garden but also in enclosed places such as indoor rooms, conservatories, greenhouses and polythene-clad structures where edible plants may grow alongside ornamental and tender ones. Selective organic control This method of pest control is suitable for organic gardeners and anyone who is reluctant to use pesticides, especially indoors or on plants being grown for food. The predators or parasites are bred to be host-specific, so they will only prey on the insect pest you wish to control and are harmless to other wildlife and pets. Management not elimination Dealing with pests biologically is quite…

IF you haven’t got round to planting your bedding, don’t panic, as there is still plenty of time and lots of choice available. In fact, the variety is so wide it can be quite overwhelming, if you also include perennials such as dahlias and cannas, lavenders and pelargoniums, as well as foliage plants and even edible varieties. Trailing herbs and tomatoes grow brilliantly in containers. Their scent adds so much to a warm summer evening, and I have even added ‘Cavolo Nero’ kale to a pot as a dark and striking foil for the more colourful plants! I also like to intersperse bedding with grasses and interesting plants bred for their foliage, as they provide a cool contrast to the colourful flowers. Silver-leaved plants including cineraria and the perennial stachys…

IF you have moved most of your seed trays of summer seedlings off your windowsills to harden off or plant out, you will have made room for more. So why not fill those empty spaces with this week’s free seeds, which guarantee a blast of long-lasting, early year colour? Mr Fothergill’s ‘Early Mixed’ pansies flower in a rainbow of shades, the blooms having either solid colours or blotched to bring variety and interest. The flowers are large and showy, and the plants grow to a height of 6in (15cm), making them ideal for baskets, containers and the front of borders. Although you can sow your pansies directly (they are hardy perennials, so can withstand the cold), you will get more reliable results undercover. Scatter the seeds thinly over pots or…

DO you remember Woolworths, the chain that sold lots of small household items? Among its lines it sold packets of seeds and annually announced the largest veg number sold, which, if I remember rightly, belonged to beetroot. I found this odd, but on examination it made sense. Other than birds eating their leaves, beetroot doesn’t suffer many problems. Sure, they seldom do well if overcrowded and may be miserable in poor, dry soil. However, they are easily grown to moderate size with little care and they are highly productive when fed and watered well. Also, in the days before refrigeration, beetroot crops stored for months (and years when boiled, peeled, sliced and submerged in vinegar). I reckon the main reason beetroot was (and still is) so popular is due to…

John has been answering reader queries for 50 year How do I grow on my Dutchman’s pipe? Q I acquired some Aristolochia macrophylla (Dutchman’s pipe) seeds and got them to successfully germinate. However, I find I cannot get any real information about growing them and wonder if you could assist, please? Second, I have a serious allergy to wasp stings and have to carry two EpiPens with me. Are there any plants that deter wasps? Dorothy Reeder, Co Leitrim, Ireland A I am delighted that you have raised some strikingly beautiful Aristolochia macrophylla from seed and have robust seedlings. Set them singly into 4in (10cm) pots of a compost mix formulated for seedlings, adding a quarter part, by volume, of coarse grit. Then grow them on in light shade in…

Gaps between roses Q We have moved house and the garden is planted with many rose bushes, but with gaps between them. What can we use to fill the gaps, thwart weeds and complement the roses, and are there any pitfalls to watch out for? We need a lot of plants, so could I start some from seed now? Alice Burke, Lowestoft, Suffolk A Beds planted just with roses used to be the fashion, but even those that repeat-flower are not continuously in bloom and the bushes or shrubs themselves are often ungainly beasts. Times have changed and most gardeners now aim for a relaxed style of planting, designed to encourage and benefit wildlife. A mix of plants to complement the roses and extend the season of interest will also…

ALWAYS Leave them wanting more,’ as the circus showman Barnum once said. Wise words… hopefully ignored by anaesthetists, but essential for gardeners growing tomatoes. And I should know, as getting tomatoes that hark from the warmer climes of Italy and the USA to fruit isn’t easy. This year, I’ve a colourful clutch of heritage varieties in my greenhouse, such as beefsteak ‘Golden Dixie’, the Russian ‘Black Plum’, plus yellow ‘Lemon Tree’ and the Italian ‘Grappoli d’Inverno’. I’m particularly excited about this last one. The name translates as ‘winter grapes’ because the oval, cherry fruits store for four-six weeks after picking. This can be even longer if the vines are hung as the Italian farmers do it, in a sunny window for the tomatoes to dry. “Getting the best requires restraint”…

A PERFECT storm of a week’s holiday, a pulled back muscle and almost comically unseasonal spring weather means we have been playing ‘running to catch up’ in the greenhouse. Mature plants that should have been moved out were still undercover and seedlings needing hardening off were also still waiting. I could almost hear them tapping their feet and tutting impatiently with every day that passed. We have caught up a little, and the lemon tree and tender perennials have been moved out, with the seedlings relocated to the coldframe and mini greenhouse. Our tomatoes have been divided, with some staying under glass and the rest going against a sunny wall. Plants in the greenhouse need as much, if not more, care as those outside. They experience higher temperatures and will…

MANY of you will know that I am a great fan of social wasps, because these stripy meat-eating bees rid me of lots of pests. Last year they cleaned up clusters of newly emerged large cabbage white caterpillars, because lockdown prevented me from getting proper butterfly netting. The only netting available had large squares, so the butterflies just flew straight through and laid their eggs. When I saw the clusters of tiny large white caterpillars my heart sank, and I tried to rub them away with my fingers. The messy green gunge took me straight back to my childhood, because collecting large cabbage white caterpillars was my first gardening job. I was assigned this responsible task aged four years or so, on a sunny summer’s morning, and my grandmother armed…

This week it’s: The qualities of rhubarb Let’s talk about these tangy stalks IT does not take someone with a degree in botany to see that rhubarb (Rheum x hybridum) is not a fruit. Yet it is now included in fruit lists in catalogues and books. It is eaten, 99% of the time, for dessert, although chefs now pair it with fish, such as mackerel. At one time rhubarb was used only for medicinal reasons, mainly as a laxative. It was several centuries after it was ‘discovered’ before it was eaten ‘for pleasure’! So, let’s take a closer look at this ‘fruit’. ■ Enthusiasts of companion planting use rhubarb to help their brassica crops. It is said the rhubarb deters clubroot disease and root-fly pests. Pieces of rhubarb are simply…

Star letter Bee grateful IDIDN’T know much about bumble bees until I read Val Bourne’s feature (AG, 15 May). Now I will give them the respect they deserve for all the hard work they do pollinating our plants throughout the year, sustained by regular sips of nectar as they go on their travels. I shall look out for the beautiful colours of each species and glory in their different markings. Without these little creatures of beauty, our gardens wouldn’t flourish. Mrs Gloria Wilding, Prescot, Merseyside Wendy says Don’t miss Val’s fascinating article about bees in next week’s AG, where she discusses the different ways bees store and transport pollen A good ‘do-er’ BIG or small, our gardens have been our haven and a place we have felt so safe during…