Innholdsfortegnelse for 22-Jan-2022 i Amateur Gardening

“From now until the end of October, every issue of AG will bring the gift of growth. Yes, the free seeds are back, and I do wonder if sometimes we forget just how extraordinary a seed really is. That such a tiny, seemingly insignificant object can grow into something so beautiful and so important to the progression of life on this planet. Indeed, it was the rise of flowering plants around a 100 million years ago that created the ideal conditions for the boom in terrestrial life. We owe a lot to plants and we need to pay our debt to nature by planting for wildlife. So use those seeds and get planting for the planet” Contact us: ■ Subscriptions: 0330 333 1113 ■ Editorial: 0330 3903732 ■ Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com…

A PERFECT storm of pests and diseases – as well as increasingly violent weather – is threatening the UK’s trees. Following the felling of hundreds of trees during Storms Arwen and Barra last November and December, the National Trust has now said it has to remove tens of thousands of ash trees infected by dieback disease. At least 30,000 trees will be felled, with more set to come down as changing weather and the climate emergency help new pests and diseases to thrive. A spokesman for the National Trust said that the combination of harsh weather, pests and disease could ‘bring dramatic change to British landscapes’. As well as the thousands of ash trees threatened with removal, 10,000 larch trees affected by the fungal disease Phytophthora ramorum are also due…

IT may not feel particularly warm and welcoming out there, but January is almost done and trees and shrubs will soon be starting to pop their buds. Once those little leaf nodules start to swell, it means the sap is coursing through the plants after its winter retreat. By then, it will be too late to prune as the cuts will bleed sap, weakening the plant just when they need all their energy, and creating an entry point for diseases and pests. So if you still have pruning to do, try and get it done in the next week or so. I generally do most of my winter pruning earlier in winter but this year managed to miss a few branches. Our ‘Conference’ pear is an extremely vigorous tree and…

I DO sometimes wonder what my grandfather would think of some of the vegetables we grow nowadays. For sure, he’d be very dubious about sweet potatoes. This apparently ‘new’ crop is proving more and more popular, yet it was introduced before our commonplace Solanum potatoes. Sweet potatoes failed to catch on – even though they’re tastier, more nutritious and have edible foliage like spinach. The main reason was that you grow potato plants from small potatoes that can be easily overwintered. You cannot do this with sweet potatoes. Instead, you must keep (fairly warm and dry) one of last year’s best tubers (or buy a good one) to pack now in warm, moist compost or sand. If kept somewhere really warm, it will soon sprout – and when the shoots…

John will reply personally to all your gardening questions every week What back-of-border shrubs should I get? Q I am looking to create a low maintenance garden with some plants at the back of the border. I am looking to put them in pots and get drought resistant plants no taller than 2-3ft (60-90cm). The wall is east facing with only a few hours of sun. Jan Schut (via email) A I suggest that you plant the following drought-resistant shrubs in pots to beautify your garden. All grow to around 3ft (90cm). If they become too large, prune them after flowering. If they bloom in autumn, tackle them in spring: Varieties of Abelia: Pink blooms from July to October. Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’: Silvery, ferny foliage. Caryopteris ‘Kew Blue’: Rich blue…

This week it’s: Flowers in winter We look some of the stories behind flowers that brighten the coldest season RECENTLY, I was asked a question I’d never considered before: which flower, for me, most symbolises the winter season? Goodness! Could it be white snowdrops? Or yellow winter aconites? Or perhaps one of the fragrant shrubs: viburnums, winter honeysuckles or sarcococcas? I had to say something so, after much deliberation, I could only come up with a group of plants, not a single plant. I chose the hellebores: they are easy, reliable, generally pest and disease-free and there are some amazing flowers in a huge variety of colours and styles. And I have mental images of them growing through a blanket of snow! What would you choose? Let’s take a look at…

Q I have been reading about permaculture, and wonder how realistic it would be to run my ordinary suburban garden along these lines. How do I start, and what are the basics? Maureen O’Donnell, Cheadle, Staffs. A Permaculture gardens are often of a ‘forest-garden’ style, with productive trees spaced around and under-planted informally with other useful and edible crops. Yet forest gardening is just one aspect of this intriguing design system, initiated in the 1970s by Tasmanian Bill Mollison and Australian David Holmgren. The word permaculture (permanent agriculture) was originally applied to growing food in sustainable, self-sufficient ecosystems – working with (rather than against) nature. Over the years, this theme has broadened out, with the same design principles applied to all walks of human life. The aim is for us…

WIN £20 The Gardeners’ Poetry series is proving very popular, please continue to send your contributions. It was lovely to hear from reader Peter Wilhelm, from Devon. “I am a 95-year-old retired nurse, who enjoyed gardening over the years. Moving around the NHS meant that we had many gardens in different places. I am a widower now, but my late wife, who used to garden with me, liked this poem, as it brought back memories. Incidentally, the garden in this poem was in a place called Wendy in Cambridgeshire, I worked at Church Farm for two years as a German Prisoner of War before obtaining civilian status.” Our Garden We once had a garden neatand small,Surrounded by a flintstonewall.We grew Snowdrops andCroci in the spring,And listened to songbirds onthe wing.…

AFTER many years on the planet and several years of gardening, I still think that seeds are one of the miracles of nature. How these comparatively tiny grains produce things of such beauty and usefulness never ceases to amaze me and one of the activities I love about this time of year is choosing the varieties I want to sow and grow over the coming months. So it follows that this week I am hugely excited about the start of our annual run of free seeds for all our UK readers. Each year we spend a long time carefully deciding what varieties of seeds to give our readers each week and for 2022 I think we have come up with the best selection yet. We have a mix of hardy…

A TELEPHONE call recently from Photographer Royal, Arthur Edwards, requested help in choosing and planting a tree, so he could be part of Her Majesty The Queen’s Green Canopy initiative. Our conversation revealed the surprising news to me that Arthur in his 80th year had never planted a tree before! He has a modest suburban garden with a couple of aged fruit trees in the back garden down to lawn. My suggestion was a new cultivar of apple, because the ultimate size of a tree can be controlled by the rootstock onto which it is grafted: Malling 27 and M9 for small trees; Malling Merton 106 (MM106) for medium size; and for vigorous full standards, the choice would be M25. “The size of a tree can be controlled by the…

GLASGOW’S COP26 Climate Change Conference involved 118 private jets that emitted an estimated 1,400 tons of CO2. On the upside, one thing became clear – the younger generation are extremely concerned about the threat of climate change on the human race. One of my granddaughters, Ellie, is butterfly mad and very eco-conscious, and I like to think we’ve encouraged her. I’m a member of Butterfly Conservation and, when you go onto its website, there is a course entitled Create your own Red Admiral Butterfly from Felt. It sent a shudder through me. First, I’m not good at embroidery, or cross-stitch. I’m not neat enough, or careful enough, and I can’t sit still for long enough because I’d rather be outside gardening. My mind strayed: I went into an imaginary world…

OUTSIDE jobs may be limited right now, but if the soil isn’t frozen or waterlogged you can move and divide perennials. These plants that reappear year after year are the stalwarts of the garden, but they eventually grow and sprawl out of their allotted space and, despite their increased size, create fewer flowers. Instead of hoicking them out, you can have fun and save money by dividing them. This creates several smaller, new plants and once the divisions get established they should grow well with improved blooming. Summer-flowering perennials are best divided in spring or autumn, while spring-flowering varieties are lifted and divided in summer after flowering. This week I have been dividing a large ornamental thistle. It is obviously happy in its spot as it has grown gargantuan and…

ONCE seen as exotic treats, figs are now widely grown in many areas of the UK, and with good reason. In a sunny, sheltered site they will happily – and quickly – grow into productive trees with an annual load of delicious, slightly naughty, fruits. Five years ago we planted a small ‘Brown Turkey’ tree, having laboriously excavated a pit for it (which took an entire day of carving our way through a solid bed of chalk). The hole took so long to dig because we wanted to line it with paving slabs as figs fruit more prolifically if their roots are constricted in a solidly-lined excavation or a large container. They do best in a sunny sheltered spot and in our case, the tree is thriving against a south-western-facing…

EVOCATIVE, exciting eye-candy – that’s how I’d describe chilli peppers. Plus, eye-watering if you eat the wrong one raw! The heat we taste – measured in Scoville heat units (SHUs) – is due to capsaicinoids, which are the plant chemicals held in the seed coat. While milder chillies have a thicker seedcoat (known as the placenta) that protects the seeds from damage, hotter varieties like ‘Naga Viper’ and ‘Trinidad Scorpion’ have a thinner yet capsaicin-packed placenta. This protects the seed from rots as well as mammalian predators via its antimicrobial activity – and the fact that it tastes foul! Some folk get a buzz from the ‘feel-good’ endorphins produced in response to the painful heat (the oils in full-fat milk or yoghurt dissolve capsaicin; use these to quell the fire…

FOR gardeners, winter can be the most beautiful and the most worrying time. Fragile flowers are suddenly blasted by sudden plunges in temperature and early morning sun can frazzle frozen buds. But even without a single flower actually in bloom, your garden can still be beautiful. Evergreens, hedges, trees, perennials, grasses – all take on a special sparkle in winter. Whether edging flower beds or bordering the whole garden, evergreens with small leaves shine the brightest. The frost shines most along the leaf edges and a large number of small leaves provides a greater length of leaf edge than a small number of larger leaves. Choices for low hedges Box is the classic, of course, especially for low hedges. Yet in recent years box has become less dependable, plagued as…

You can listen to Steve on alternate Sundays 10am-2pm on BBC Radio Kent’s Sunday Gardening (BBC Local) THERE was a time, not that long ago, when orchids were grown only by specialist nurseries, to be sold at high prices and mainly to collectors who would show off their exotic blooms to anyone they wished to impress. The advent of micropropagation techniques changed all this and made it possible to produce some species of orchids cheaply and in large quantities. One type in particular, the moth orchid (Phalaenopsis), has since gone on to become the most widely sold of all the flowering house plants. They come in a wide range of sizes, from miniature plants of just 6-8in (15-20cm) in height to large specimens over 20in (50cm). Most are hybrids, sold…

Write to us: Letters, Amateur Gardening magazine, Future Publishing Limited, Unit 415, Winnersh Triangle, Eskdale Road, Winnersh, RG41 5TP (please include your address). Email us: amateurgardening@futurenet.com Star letter Gardening is good for you GARDENING is very, very good for mental health. It encourages optimistic anticipation. One such joyful experiment resulted from my success in rooting an 18in pencil thick cutting from my favourite hybrid tea rose by keeping it in a wine bottle of water in the warm kitchen for six months. Long white roots eventually emerged and it was potted on and grew into a healthy bush. It is worth trying. Why not have a go this winter? Dr Rhoda Pippen,Cardiff In the pink! I PLANTED this pot of chrysanthemums for my daughter about three years ago. I feed…

I HEARD an interesting thing the other day from a seasoned vermin catcher – rats have a collective memory, so if one finds a source of food, then all the rest seem to know and they never forget where to find it. The same is true for bees: they also use their ‘hive mind’ to ward off any predators. If a bee stings your arm then you’d better run, as the whole swarm will go on the attack. Not forgetting the birds that somehow know to migrate to places they’ve never been. Even plants can ‘group-think’. Olives, for example, used to be rare but thanks to warmer winters and hardier plant imports they’re not just ubiquitous but fruitful. Melianthus major, a once shy-to-flower South African architectural foliage plant, is another…