Innholdsfortegnelse for 10-Jul-2021 i Amateur Gardening

Rock on: In next week’s AG I look at rockery care and suggest ways of keeping your alpine plants healthy throughout the summer A FEW weeks ago I cut back our early spring-flowering shrubs to give them time to grow for next year’s blooms, trimmed a flowered clematis and tidied some evergreens before their full summer surge of growth. Now it is the turn of trees and shrubs that flowered in early summer, as well as certain varieties that need to be pruned in midsummer to keep them safe from the spores of fungal disease. While I had my secateurs out I also made sure I took some semi-ripe cuttings of our bountiful Coronilla in the front garden. It is a robust shrub that produces a wealth of sweetly-scented blooms…

WE have one wonderful stand of pink Echinacea in the garden and each spring I nurse it back to life with all the care of a mother with a sickly child Its cheerful pink petals and goldenbrown centre have made it a star of the border and every year I hope it will return to glory. My fears that it might not are rooted in the fact that Echinaceas originate from the prairies of America, where winters are freezing and snowy. Our winters tend towards the mild and damp, creating perfect conditions to rot the crowns of more delicate perennials. Luckily we garden on chalky and freedraining soil, so plants are less likely to rot, and so far our echinacea has come back every year – but just in case,…

POTENTIALLY superb crops can be turned into mediocre, often time-consuming crops by neglecting the simple task of thinning. You see, the competition of more-of-the-same can be much worse than that from weeds or damage done by pests. More-of-the-same need precisely the same nutrients and resources as the rest of that crop – all of which would perform better if it were not for all of the self-same others trying to do similar. This is why sometimes an apparently appalling emergence of carrot, onion or beet seedlings can turn into the best you’ve ever grown. Given more space between each survivor, they then do wonderfully! Likewise, a hard frost can take off nearly all your fruit trees’ blossoms, and then those that escape swell and sweeten to a quality not seen…

John will reply personally to all your gardening questions every week While John sometimes advocates using chemicals against pests and diseases as the most effective means of control, organic options are sometimes available and we advise readers to go with their preferences Contact John Negus by email address below Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com Can I propagate my stunning sophora? Q I have a very healthy Sophora microphylla ‘Sun King’, which has just finished flowering. I would like to propagate it but tried last year from cuttings and seed with no success. Do you have any tips? Robin Gibson (via email) A I am sorry that you were unsuccessful in propagating your healthy Sophora microphylla ‘Sun King’. In future, before you sow the seeds, soak them in warm water for several hours to…

This is the last in the series by Percy Thrower on his ‘best buys’, which was originally published in Amateur Gardening in 1973. Part 10: Rock plants THERE are many kinds of rock plants with very different characteristics and origins. Some are small herbaceous plants and some are tiny shrubs. Some are genuine mountain plants or ‘alpines’, while others come from lower latitudes, even from the seashore, where they find congenial conditions among the rocks. About the only two things they have in common are their relative smallness and an ability to prosper in places too stony for most other plants. Both of these characteristics make rock plants of supreme interest to gardeners, and especially those numerous gardeners today who have only tiny plots. No difficulty should be found in…

WHEN you are cutting back summer-flowering shrubs, cherries and plums, you should aim to create an attractive shape with an open, uncluttered centre that allows good airflow to keep your plants healthy. Fungal spores and pests thrive in messy, densely clustered plant material with little access to light and air, so by removing those spindly, misshapen shoots that tend to grow inwards we are making our plants look better and also helping to keep them healthy. Start with the ‘three Ds’ and remove dead, diseased and damaged growth, followed by weak and unproductive shoots. When pruning, reduce branches back to a healthy pair of leaves or buds, or to an outwardpointing shoot that is growing in the shape and direction that you want. Shrubs with small leaves, such as box,…

TO my way of thinking, a summertime garden without a stand of sweet peas is sadly lacking, because they add so much and cause very little trouble. Most people opt for the traditional scented, climbing varieties, which add height and definition as they scramble up tepees and pergolas. Whether you go for pops of brightness or quieter pastel shades, hardy sweet peas will keep on going until they run out of steam well into the autumn. However, sweet peas do have a reputation for being a bit ‘tricky’, but if you are consistent in your care, and take a hands-on approach rather than leaving them to their own devices, they should reward you with long display and a stash of seeds for next year’s sowing. This year I sowed and…

I DO love the anglicised names of flowers and insects and, in my time, I’ve embarked on botanical forays due purely to a catchy name. Who could resist the fringed rupturewort (Herniaria ciliolata subsp. ciliolata), a red-listed rarity now only found on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall. This tiny prostrate plant with hairy leaves took some finding, and when I did find it, I was positively underwhelmed. Then there was the Cotswold pennycress (Microthlaspi perfoliatum), another scarcity. My search involved me shinning down a steep railway cutting, just as the railway police went along the track in an open wagon. Luckily, I wasn’t arrested. I needn’t have bothered, though, as it was actually growing near the road. Frankly, it seemed to resemble bittercress to my untrained (very untrained) eye. I’ve…

NEXT Wednesday (14 July) is Bastille Day, or the National Day of France, commemorating the Storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789 – the turning point of the French Revolution. To mark this, I thought we could look at some of the gardening connections to France. Whether you’re a Francophile like me, or not particularly fussed about the country and its people, you can’t dispute the fact that France has had a huge impact on gardening over the centuries. ■ Roses are an important part of French gardening history – and none more so than the beautiful wild rose, Rosa gallica, named by the Romans after the area of Gaul that they occupied (much of which is modern-day France). Latour-Marliac’s waterlilies BORY Latour-Marliac (1830-1911) was a French lawyer who…

You can listen to Steve on alternate Sundays 10am-2pm on BBC Radio Kent’s Sunday Gardening (BBC Local) ARAKE is a rake, right? Wrong! There are various rakes for the different tasks around the garden and I’ve broken them down to the different types below. Garden rakes Garden rakes have fixed, rigid teeth set on a straight head and are usually made of metal on a wooden handle, although there are also wooden and plastic versions. They have different head widths, number of teeth and handle lengths. These rakes are for soil cultivation, such as levelling or breaking down lumps to produce a fine tilth (particle size) ready to use before you lay turf or for a seedbed prior to sowing. Leaf rakes Leaf rakes come in different shapes and sizes,…

Toby’s trivia WITHOUT their aroma, strawberries would be as tart as wine. Scents are made from volatile oils that rise in warm air. That’s why sun-warmed strawberries have the best flavour. I DON’T think that youth is wasted on the young, but strawberries…? They’re a different matter. Like any fragaria aficionado, I love every part of the strawberry harvest, from the tantalising wait while the skins ripen, to glossy perfection and savouring mouthfuls of the sun-warmed flesh. But lately, whether it’s the tiny alpine ‘Baron Solemacher’ in the shady borders or the plump ‘Elsanta’ in the pots, it seems I’ve been getting the wait but not the reward as my teenage brood scoffs the lot. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m all for children eating five-a-day, but when they take…

WE already know that plants can help extract impurities from the air, but now green-fingered scientists are asking AG readers to help them trial a clever new scheme which uses specially chosen varieties to ‘mine’ impurities and metals from contaminated soil. If it goes ahead, Lorna’s Seeds will use plants, instead of invasive chemicals, to extract toxins from the soil around former warehouses and factories that are earmarked for housing developments. Once the soil is cleaned, anyone living in the new homes will be able to grow crops with peace of mind. The project has been developed by Dr Lorna Anguilano, a senior research fellow at Brunel University London’s Experimental Technique Centre. “The idea originally comes from mining – the harvesting of nickel from plants was patented years ago –…

Top Tip If possible, and to reduce water waste, stand your hanging baskets in a bowl before watering so any liquid run-off can be reabsorbed. PATIO containers and hanging baskets planted at the start of summer should be giving you a glorious riot of colour and scent by now. If you haven’t yet planted yours, don’t worry, there’s still plenty of choice left in the garden centres and with these later-flowering plants should keep on flowering until well into the autumn, given the right care. Containers and baskets do need ongoing nurturing throughout the growing season, as well as ‘running repairs’ should plants fall by the wayside leaving gaps here and there. I have a container of spring bedding planted up last autumn with pansies, bellis and a variegated Euonymus…

Listen to Peter’s free podcast every Thursday. Search for ‘This Week In The Garden with Peter Seabrook’ on iTunes TWO newly planted rose beds are establishing well, in spite of some quite demanding weather. Both are from bare-root bushes, set out earlier this year when the heavy soils were pretty wet and not in the ideal condition for planting. One in my own front garden replaces a rather worn-out bed of Rose ‘Bonica’ that had given good service for 40 years. In its place, I have planted one of the new disease-resistant, fragrant and ‘good for cutting’ varieties, Rose ‘Timeless Charisma.’ It is from the Florist Series, and to overcome the possibility of replant disease I swapped the soil with some from the vegetable garden. I could have saved moving…

Next week: Focus on sowing for autumn harvests, harvesting blueberries, sowing Asian vegetables, harvesting and storing herbs, try edible hibiscus. NO allotment or edible garden would be complete without raspberry canes, but how do you ensure that your yields are abundant, flavoursome and healthy? The classic red raspberry is a suckering shrub native to Europe, so it’s well suited to cool, moist garden conditions. Look also for yellow-fruited types such as ‘Alpengold’, and blackfruited American varieties like ‘Starlight’, which claim a richer flavour. Canes are either bristly or spine-free. There are two cropping types: floricane (summer-fruiting) and primocane (autumn-fruiting). Summer varieties, depending on which you choose, will be ready for harvest from now (like ‘Glen Moy’) to mid-August (‘Leo’). They bear fruit on canes produced the previous year, so prune…

Q I’m growing tomatoes for the first time this year. I sowed a few seeds and bought plants, but their behaviour and training is confusing me. What does determinate and indeterminate mean? Gemma Stanhope, Guildford, Surrey A The habit of tomatoes varies from one variety to another. Those we refer to as determinate are the bushy types. They don’t have an obvious main stem, but branch naturally and sprawl. Low on maintenance, they need neither supporting or pinching out and are ideal for growing in containers. Bush tomatoes are good for windy sites where canes might topple, and plants fit easily under cloches where more cosseting is needed in colder regions. They are not so useful for greenhouse growing, because they take up sideways space. Indeterminate or cordon types have…