Innholdsfortegnelse for 31-Jul-2021 i Amateur Gardening

“Well done to the RHS for putting on a great event at Hampton Court, despite restrictions (see report on page 7). It was the first major show since the original lockdown in spring 2020 and a great relief to be almost back to normal. The only shame for me was what I can best describe as the ‘annual eyesore’. Do you remember the show garden of 2019 with rubble and coffins? Well, now we have a wrecked aeroplane fuselage to remind us that we need to be more environmentally aware. Does the message always have to be so ugly? And is this what visitors want to see at a garden show?”…

THIS year’s Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival was a great success, thanks to the tireless work of the RHS and its volunteers, writes Garry Coward-Williams. It was the first RHS show since lockdown 17 months ago, and the RHS should be applauded for having the belief and commitment to go ahead. This is especially so given the fact that the government put back the change to Step 4 restrictions by four weeks to 19 July, with the show planned to open on 6 July. Restrictions weren’t a problem Despite concerns over restrictions like social distancing, mask wearing in the marquees and visitors having to prove they had taken the rapid antigen Covid test, the event was very much back to normal. It was a delight to see so many people…

ONE of the mainstays of our garden, from early summer until well into winter, is a large clump of Shasta daisies. They start flowering as the weather warms up and are often still bravely blooming until around Christmas. They are cut back in late summer when they start to straggle and become unsightly, but you can guarantee they will soon start throwing out new buds to brighten the shortening autumn days. Shasta daisies are also easy to divide, which is a good way of keeping the main clump at a tidy, manageable size, so offspring of our original plant are dotted around the rest of the garden. If you would like these bountiful beauties in your garden, get sowing this week’s free seeds, which are for Shasta daisy ‘Alaska’, the…

LAST week, I wrote about slugs and the dangers of using slug bait, because it killed all your slugs whether good, bad or ugly. If I have a slug problem, I use a hands-on approach and arm myself with gardening gloves (those I can feel through), plus a torch and a jam jar. I make sure that I’m wearing something heavy on my feet, if you get my gist, and off I go, just as it’s getting dark. If that seems a strange time to be gardening… well, the bad slugs are just like dirty old men. They come out at night and prey on the young. That’s young plants, by the way! Emerging runner beans are very vulnerable to slug damage, and I solve this problem by planting tempting…

This week it’s: MUCH has been written about the best ways to water plants – that is, early in the morning, thoroughly soaking the soil around the roots, and keeping the moisture off the leaves as much as possible. Much has also been written about conserving water – such as using water butts, mulching to prevent moisture loss from the soil, and re-using household (or grey) water. But I thought we could take a look at some lesser-known facts and figures about water that will be of interest to every gardener – and, in fact, anyone with a pulse! ▪ People in Hertfordshire use more water than any other county in the UK (8% above the national average). The thirstiest vegetables WHEN growing vegetables, it’s useful to know what their…

Q My Scindapsus argyraeus has grown out of control from a small pot. There’s nothing to see on top and all the growth is lower down. How can I propagate and display this lovely plant? Joanne McGovern, Exeter, Devon A The silver vine, satin pothos or Scindapsus pictus ‘Argyraeus’ is a classy foliage house plant and one of my favourites. Neatly pointed heart-shaped leaves are a pale silvery green beneath, and on top they are olive green rimmed and splashed with silver. The leaves are perfectly poised against their stems to catch light, much as they would in their humid Indonesian rain forest home. They belong to the aroid family (along with Swiss cheese plant and philodendrons) but rarely produce their small spathe and spadix flower structures in cultivation. Silver…

I’VE met some amazing people on allotments in my time, none more so than Dr Ian Bedford – a man I ran into on a plot in North London who has introduced me to the wonderful world of entomology – that’s bugs to you and me. Ian is a man with an environmental conscience, a sense of humour and a love of telling stories – especially about invertebrates. Among my favourites is what he called the mystery of the disappearing painted lady butterflies that fell from our radar every autumn. No-one knew where they went, until the unexpected discovery that they flew towards the arctic circle gaining altitude, before turning south for Tropical Africa at the remarkable rate of 30mph. Then there was the ‘strigulating’ sound that insects like grasshoppers…

WE are at that point in the year when we enter a holding pattern, helping the garden to keep ticking over smoothly by carrying out a selection of simple tasks in rotation so that things stay looking their best. It isn’t an ideal planting time as the ground is too hard and dry, but you can still fill pots with fresh plants and add new ones to replace those that have turned up their toes or succumbed to pests and diseases. Weeds will continue growing even in the driest months, so keep them in check every time you are out in the garden. Run a hoe over the soil to cut off seedlings and pull out large weeds as soon as you see them. The same applies to pests, which…

BEARDED irises are some of the most spectacular flowers to grace an early summer garden. Reaching their peak in late May and through June, their sword-like leaves and flamboyant, ruffled flowers make a statement wherever they grow. Often seen in shades of purple and lilacs, bearded irises (Iris germanica) also produce flowers in yellow and assorted shades of russet, orange, white, salmon and blue. But if their clumps are not divided every few years, five at the most, they will run out of steam and flowering will falter. Divide their clumps around six weeks after they have finished flowering and been deadheaded, as this will give the replanted sections time to put on growth and get their roots established for future flowering before they enter their winter dormancy. Replant the…

I OFTEN refer to plant trials in my column, and while there are nowhere near as many trial grounds across the country as there used to be, they remain the best way to assess garden performance. My first job in 1952 was as a nursery hand on a seed trial ground in Essex, when there were at least 10 companies with similar trials across the county. Currently, in the Royal Horticultural Society Wisley Garden there is an extensive trial of nemesia, mostly cuttings-raised named cultivars, although there are a few seed-raised examples. These trials have moved and are in a new site, which previously held the container plant area for the Wisley Garden Centre. Visitors coming into the new area, from a pathway up the twin herbaceous borders, can be…

IT’S the ultimate no-brainer: pay £3 per punnet for currants, or buy a bush for less than £10 to give you 20 punnets per year for 15 years? Let’s think about that for a millisecond… Why anyone buys currants by the punnet is beyond me. Established bushes yield roughly 4kg (9lb) of fruit per year, plus the plants are self-fertile, easy to maintain and trouble-free. Modern breeding gives us resistance to big bud mite in blackcurrants, such as ‘Foxendown’, extra-long strigs in redcurrants like ‘Redpoll’, and many attributes in between – mildew resistance and frost-resistant flowers being two more to look for. Let’s not forget that you can buy white currants and pink currants, too. Ribes is certainly a diverse genus! “Growing them is the ultimate no-brainer” Growing essentials Growing…

WHILE watering remains a constant necessity for most plants in summer, feeding is not always essential as we draw closer to autumn. Indeed, it can be dangerous for plants to be fed much beyond the end of July. This is because the extra nutrients can spur plants into growth so they throw out lots of new shoots that don’t have time to harden before the arrival of the colder weather. The same applies to your lawn. Stop using summer feeds, as the nitrogen they contain will cause fresh growth that can be damaged in colder autumn weather. So while annual plants, such as bedding, and hungry crop plants that will be removed and composted once they have fruited, will thank you for feeding them, established perennials will be able to…

IT’S high summer and garden ponds are busy places, both in and out of the water. Our little wildlife pond is rippling with life – beetles and water boatmen fighting for territories, damselflies mating and laying eggs, birds swooping down to drink. We may not have frogs yet, but I can happily lose hours watching everything else going about its business! In ponds up and down the country, marginal plants and weeds, along with aquatic plants of all varieties, are growing fast. At the same time, water is evaporating and the warm weather may be causing the rapid growth of green algae and blanketweed. This is further exacerbated by nutrients given off by rotting plant matter, leftover fish food and fish faeces, which is why we need to cut back…

I RECKON relatively few folk grow strawberries, thinking it is made complicated with dedicated strawberry beds needing continual replacement. All this might seem like too much faff. Worse, if you make a bed but don’t replace that third each year, then the cropping becomes near-worthless. Of course, if you want huge quantities of fruit then a dedicated bed may make sense – if you have space. However for many, it’s more practical to grow a few plants in containers, but only if these are decently sized! A strawberry plant does well in a bucket (with drainage holes made). Smaller containers work out badly, giving poor crops and requiring too-frequent watering. Note: I said bucket. A tub of that size will do as well – but a bucket can be easily…

Q What on earth has happened to my tomatoes? They are cherry red and cherry orange. All was normal, developing normal fruit, then there was a sudden masses of flowers and the fruits have gone a pointed shape. Jane Campbell, Longlevens, Gloucester A Remarkable! Indisputably, your tomato plants have changed character. From producing normal trusses of round fruits to those that are pointed, together with immense flowering trusses, indicates that your tomatoes have mutated. This is not an uncommon occurrence. This crop is noted for gene aberration, when cells suddenly behave abnormally. There are varieties grown for their huge trusses of fruit. In this instance, your plants have ‘acquired’ this characteristic. Happily, the pointed fruits that result should be as tasty as the normal globular ones. I observed, too, that…

STEM cuttings can be divided into three main groups: softwood, semi-ripe and hardwood (there are also divisions within these main groups, such as vine eyes and mallet cuttings). These terms refer to the various stages of the plant’s growth at the time the cuttings are taken. Softwood indicates young, soft, sappy shoots (often shoot tips); hardwood indicates woody stems of 9-12 months old; while semi-ripe cuttings are made from shoots at an intermediate stage between these two. Selecting and preparing In many respects, the process of selecting and preparing a semi-ripe cutting is similar to that for softwood but, because the tissue of the semi-ripe is more woody, they usually take longer to form roots. They can be taken from late summer into the autumn, with late-summer cuttings usually…

AFTER moving into our Edwardian home during autumn last year (first house), our house plants suffered. It was perhaps the initial lack of warmth in a draughty house and this resulted in a few casualties along the way. But now they are pride of place and settled in the bay window which receives plenty of sun in the morning. As you can see, the Easter cactus has re-flowered with brilliant scarlet flowers. After living in an apartment with no garden for six years, I took the opportunity of installing a water butt in our new garden, as I find rainwater is best for tropical plants. The philodendron on top of the middle plant stand was a single leaf cutting from a relative, it is now a fully established plant (and…