Innholdsfortegnelse for 17-Jul-2021 i Amateur Gardening

“Congratulations to the Royal Horticultural Society on the completion and opening of Hilltop, their new centre for horticultural science at Wisley. This extraordinary futuristic-looking building houses three research laboratories with state-of-the-art facilities in which the RHS will aim to find solutions to the key environmental challenges that we gardeners face today and in the future. This isn’t a ‘behind closed doors’ facility – readers will be able to visit the centre and see work being carried out. There’s also an exhibition area for talks and demonstrations to create a truly interactive environment. Read our full report next week.”…

MAJOR supermarket Waitrose has pledged to stop selling bagged gardening compost made from peat by the start of 2022. The move comes several years ahead of the Government’s intention to ban the sale of compost containing peat to amateur gardeners by 2024. Marija Rompani, director of ethics and sustainability at the John Lewis Partnership, the parent company of the supermarket chain, said: “If rainforests are the lungs of the world, then peat bogs are its armour, helping to create a vital balance in our atmosphere by storing over a fifth of the world’s soil carbon. “Peat bogs are the planet’s armour” “Peat bogs have been plundered for decades without fully understanding the consequences and this simply cannot continue. This is something that many of our customers feel strongly about and…

IF you are thinking of ways to keep your garden interesting and full of colour right through into the autumn, look no further than late-flowering bulbs. There are bulbs for every situation and soil. Autumn crocuses and Sternbergia, plus cheerful yellow winter aconites look stunning naturalised in lawns and under trees. Borders can easily be brightened by ever-reliable and dazzling dahlias, jolly Hesperantha, tall nerines with their clusters of trumpets in shades of pink, as well as white, and hardy Cyclamen coum that take over flowering duties during the darkest days and glow out from shady nooks. If you have left it too late to plant bulbs, scour garden centres, nurseries and browse online for ready-grown plants that will flower this year. Leave them to die back naturally, feeding and…

LEADING Japanese seed and young plant company Sakata replaced its usual new plant launches in Holland last month with a series of regional displays, including one for British growers at Pershore, Worcestershire. Most of the plants on display were subsequently transported to the Floral Fantasia area at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden, Hyde Hall, Essex, where they are now planted and on public display for all to enjoy. There are three new colours in the Petchoa BeautiCal Series, a cross between a petunia and a calibrachoa; a hybrid showing great promise not just for the unique colours, but also weather resistance, very free and long flowering, less stickiness than found on petunia, and remarkably good garden performance. The original four, launched at the last BBC Gardeners’ World Live Exhibition in…

SPRING may be the major sowing season, but don’t put away those seed tins just yet – by starting off certain crops now, you’ll ensure that harvests keep rolling in for months to come! The secret to running a productive vegetable garden is never to take your eye off the ball – always anticipate gaps emerging on the plot, and take steps to fill them as quickly as possible. Early sowings made undercover in February allow us to hit the ground running. But with many quick-growing veg maturing in six-10 weeks, summer can find you looking at an increasing number of bare patches. Depending on where you live, we have another eight-10 weeks where night-time temperatures remain in double figures. That’s a lot of cropping potential! After this time, growth…

Q We recently moved house and the garden has lots of fruit trees and bushes (apples, plums, a grapevine and gooseberries). They all seem to be carrying a bumper crop, but there are now almost too many fruits. Should I have thinned them out and is there time to catch up? Helen Stanley, Oadby, Leicestershire A It is a truth that if you left mature fruit trees and bushes alone, never pruning stems or thinning fruit, they would survive quite well. Their aim is to live long, disperse plenty of seeds and ensure a good gene pool for survival and spread. Our agenda is different, because we don’t want masses of small fruit, snapping branches or exhausted trees going into ‘biennial bearing’ where they produce a monster crop one year…

A WISE man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer. Not my words, but the pearls of sagacious kung fu king Bruce Lee. And they’ve come to mind because my purple sage – a plant long associated with wisdom and health – looks like it’s been on the wrong end of a karate chop! After years of struggle getting the herb to grow, I’d thought I’d cracked the recipe for sage success after positioning its roots next to a path, where its leaves sunbathed in the reflected heat and sunshine off the stone. The spot had clearly been to its liking, and in just one year it had grown into an armadillo dome of steely blue leaves topped with purple candelabra-like…

SUMMER is a good time for rock garden plants and alpines. Although they are used to inhospitable climates, they dislike our winters, when wet ground can cause low-growing varieties to rot. They usually thrive in warmer weather, though the cold, wet spring and sodden middle of June won’t have done them any favours this year, so they may need some extra TLC. Low-growing, mat-forming plants such as aubrietia may have collapsed outwards after flowering, leaving their straw-like heart exposed. Cut them back hard and water well and they should soon recover. If you look carefully, you should be able to spot new foliage developing from the centre. Keep replenishing the gravel around the plants as it keeps the rockery looking neat and helps lift lower shoots off the soil, reducing…

HOLLYHOCKS are known as ‘the backbone of the garden’ for a reason. Usually standing at least 3ft (240cm) tall, they tower over other summer flowers adding height and colourful definition. This week’s free seeds are for a variety called ‘Giant Single Mixed’, and the resulting plants will produce a spine of single-petalled open blooms in a variety of colours on tall, robust stems. You can sow them now, planting out the seedlings when large enough in autumn. Although they are hardy perennials, use cloches to protect your young plants from the worst winter weather. Alternatively, save them and sow next spring and they will flower later next summer. Sow undercover for the best results, scattering the large seeds thinly onto seed compost that has been tamped flat and dampened with…

MANY things threaten our crops, with harsh conditions and all sorts of pests resulting in poorer yields. We can protect our crops to some extent from both of these – but a third threat, disease, is harder to avoid, potentially more disastrous and often more difficult to diagnose. In years when potato blight (which also affects tomatoes) is prevalent, we will all suffer sooner or later. And because blight can wipe out our crop, we rightly fear it. Blight is a fungus that spreads fastest in warm, humid conditions, much less when it’s drier. Blight tends to commence in the south-west region in early summer and move north-eastwards over the following weeks. The blight infection causes dark spots and lesions, mostly on the leaves, then runs in streaks down the…

How can I grow Madonna lilies well? Q Could you please advise me how to grow a Madonna lily? I have tried for many years but to no avail. Maybe it is too cold and damp here in North Leitrim, Ireland. We get a lot of rain each year and I live at an altitude of approximately 918ft (280m,) which is above the winter snow line. Dorothy Reeder, Co. Leitrim. A I am delighted that you wish to grow Madonna lilies (Lilium candidum), but are having trouble getting them to survive. The only evergreen species of lily – clumps are readily visible in winter – it’s best grown in free-draining soil. Set bulbs in autumn, just covering them, in fertile soil augmented with a liberal quantity of coarse grit. While…

In this extract from AG 13 June 1957, Christopher Lloyd, of Great Dixter fame, looks at cuttings from clematis IT is generally realised that the majority of clematis species – and this includes the much coveted C. florida ‘Bicolor’ [C. florida var. florida ‘Sieboldiana’] – may be easily rooted from half-ripe cuttings taken in the summer. Coldframe conditions will give rise to a high take. Less well understood is the fact that the large-flowered hybrids may be similarly propagated. These are such glorious shrubs that most possessors of a good specimen must, from time to time, have been filled with longing for another or, indeed, many more like it; to have them clothing every spare bit of wall space and twining among the branches of every other kind of shrub…

Write to us: Letters, Amateur Gardening magazine, Future Publishing Limited, Unit 2, Eelmore Road, Farnborough, Hants GU14 7QN (please include your address). Email us: amateurgardening@futurenet.com I’M hoping readers might be excited to visit or indeed perhaps, inspired to follow suit, about my 11th year of opening Driftwood for the National Garden Scheme. I confess to feeling so proud, that as a real novice I have created such a garden of interest, that has seen over 21,000 visitors to date and raised a staggering £140,000 for charities. I’ve been so lucky too, as the garden has facilitated two visits to Buckingham Palace in recognition of my volunteer work organising garden trails, especially for Macmillan Cancer Support, appearances on Gardeners’ World and Good Morning Britain, with over 120 5-star reviews written on…

IF you like your sward to be bowling green-pristine, look away now. In the height of summer our lawns, front and back, are largely left to grow long and are full of assorted wild flowers, native grasses and insects including many species of bees, butterflies, grasshoppers and beetles. This is the first season where the front lawn has reached something approaching natural maturity, and for all its apparent wildness, it has taken a fair bit of research and several years to get where we are today. You can buy ‘off the shelf’ wild seed mixes from many places but you are better off, and will get a more authentic result, by purchasing a grass and flower seed mix specifically designed to flourish on your soil’s pH and nutrient load. Generic…

I DELIBERATELY choose plants that attract insects into my garden and, over the years, I’ve got to know which flowers attract which pollinator. My early flying queen bumblebees prefer open flowers, because most have short tongues, so I provide them with winter-flowering clematis, hybrid hellebores and crocuses. Once the cowslips flower, I know I will find fast-flying, black, female hairy-footed flower bees all over them. Sweet rocket and honesty draw the orange-tip butterflies into the garden in April and early May. I also provide one of their food plants, Jack-by-the-hedge or garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). Once summer arrives, there will be red-tailed bumblebees on my annual blue cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus). Speckled wood butterflies generally descend on earlier flowering asters, and small tortoiseshells love an August-flowering marjoram. These pollinators are actively…

THIS Friday (16 July) is National Cherry Day – celebrating not the Japanese flowering cherries, but the various types of fruiting cherry. If you’re like me, you can scoff juicy red cherries almost to the point of feeling ill! They have an amazing blend of sweet flavours, often with a hint of sourness, and their colour adds a perfect ‘pop’ to desserts. Cherries can be eaten raw, or used in pies, cakes, tarts and cheesecakes. They make a great topping for a bowl of yogurt, or breakfast cereal, but don’t forget to remove the stone first! Let’s take a sideways glance at these delicious fruits. ■ National Cherry Day was started in 2008 as part of CherryAid, a campaign to save the British cherry. Importing cherries: from the Romans to…

INDOOR plants were enjoying a resurgence in popularity before lockdown, but last year sales went through the roof as people who were at home all day began to yearn for contact with nature. Foliage plants, in particular, have become hugely popular, thanks to the vast range of sizes, shapes and textures that mean you can have a whole mini jungle indoors. The only issue that has been raised, especially with plants that come directly from abroad, is that the pot label sometimes contains very little cultural information other than a few symbols. This means that getting things right can be tricky but, when you succeed, the plants can grow very well indeed. Interesting foliage and regular flowers One plant that ticks the ‘interesting foliage’ box and flowers regularly into the…