Innholdsfortegnelse for 14-May-2022 i Amateur Gardening

“It’s interesting to consider how attitudes to gardening have changed in recent years. Not that long ago, the serious enthusiast aspired to create a manicured lawn of Wembley-like magnificence to be admired by all, but now many of us think very differently. A perfect lawn is a sight to behold but not cutting the grass in May to create a better habitat for wildlife is the new credo. I do a bit of both. Roughly a third of my lawn is left to grow wild while the rest is regularly trimmed — thus I enjoy the best of both worlds. Its what the charity Plantlife call ‘the Mohican’. I’m not convinced a punk haircut would suit me, but it works in the garden!” Contact us: ■ Subscriptions: 0330 333 1113…

WE are half-way through May and how are your lawns looking? If they are pinneat as a bowling green, go to the back of the class. If they are starting to look a little bit straggly and unkempt, then have a gold star because it sounds like you are taking part in No Mow May. No Mow May is an initiative launched by the charity Plantlife to encourage gardeners to let their lawns grow wild for a month – or longer - to help native bees, butterflies and other insects. At the bank holiday at the end of the month, gardeners who have taken part can join the Every Flower Counts survey and tot up the wildflowers that have popped up among the growing grass. In previous years the report…

THIS week’s free seeds are for a fabulous, low-maintenance plant. Echium vulgare ‘Blue Bedder’, also known as ‘blue devil’, ‘cats tail’ and ‘snake flower’ as well as viper’s bugloss, is a member of the borage family. Its nectar-rich flowers create a clump of brilliant blue, sometimes tinged with baby pink, and are a magnet for bees, butterflies and lacewing insects. If left after flowering in autumn, small garden birds will also flock to feast on its nutritious seeds and any seeds left will happily bed in and germinate around their parent for next year. I sowed mine in a sunny patch of border where hopefully they will flower well into September and October. I have also saved some seeds that I will sow in the autumn, as they are hardy…

From Premium Bush Rose 'Hot Chocolate' Its vivid, burnt-orange flower buds open up into incredible and uniquely coloured smoky chocolate-red blooms against a lush background of large dark green leaves. Each flower is accompanied by an intense old-rose fragrance that will fill the air, and they make wonderful cut flowers too! Rose iceberg' Produces wave upon wave of gorgeous clusters of lightly double, pure-white flowers in a wonderful contrast against its dark-green, glossy foliage. Purest white, sometimes with a tinge of blush pink in the heat, it has a sweet fragrance it keeps on going all summer, and into the nights of autumn. 'Peace' Rose Best rose of all time; Peace has beautiful primrose-yellow flowers that fade to blush-pink at the tips. Large, showy double blooms isaccompanied by a delightful…

AQUILEGIAS, also known as columbines or granny’s bonnets, are distinctive perennial flowers. They bloom in late spring and summer, but most live for only a few years before fading away. They are, however, very easy to grow from seed. Aquilegias are one of those few flowers that come in a literal rainbow of colours. There is even one with chocolate-coloured flowers. In many varieties the flowers bring together contrasting colours for a dazzling look. Aquilegias are also visited by bees and other pollinating insects. Typical aquilegia flowers have five flat outer petals. These petals surround five more rounded petals that make up the skirt, and which each have a slender tube at the base that contains the nectar and protrudes upwards between the outer petals. The flowers are usually nodding.…

This extract from AG 16 April 1966 is the first in a series that looks at hardy herbaceous perennials Aconitum (monkshood) Long narrow flower spikes are mostly blue or purple. Aconitum ‘Bressingham Spire’ has violet-blue flower spikes 3ft (90cm) high. A. fischeri [A. carmichaelii] flowers in September and October, is light blue, 3ft (90cm) high. All grow well in good soil, in sun or partial shade. Increase by dividing in spring or autumn. Anemone (windflower) The best anemone for the border is the Japanese anemone, A. japonica [Anemone x hybrida]. This has white, pink or rose flowers on 3ft (90cm) stems in September. It grows in most soils, in and sun or shade, but can be a slow starter and should be left undisturbed for as long as possible. It…

Q We’re new to gardening and wehave enjoyed adding plants to the garden. I know some will need to be propagated, but although I’ve read up and watched videos, I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any tips, please? Millie Bosnick, Winchcombe, Cheltenham A After the hard work of soil preparation and the excitement of choosing and setting out plants, comes the joy of watching them grow and knit together. Yet after a while, Mediterranean shrubs such as rosemary might suffer damage from cold, wet winters, while lavenders and pinks grow leggy. Clumps of herbaceous perennials spread outwards, leaving bare centres behind, and the crowns of lupin and delphinium turn woody and die off. When starting out, new gardeners often buy one of this and one of that.…

Please continue to send in your gardening-themed poems. JM Lindley from Manchester adds a note about her entry: “I do appreciate that it is not good to compress muddy soil by walking on it but I claim poetic licence!” It’s May, time to be in my garden.It’s May, and it’s pouring with rainIt’s May, and I long for my garden.But the rain falls, again, and again. The plants are all ready forplanting.The tubs and the pots sit forlorn.I do want to be in my garden,But that pond there once wasa lawn! “Don’t be a good-weathergardener,”By my green-fingered friend Iwas told.“Get out in your wellies andraincoat,It’s only warm water, be bold. So I wrapped myself up ‘gainst theweather,Took the trowel and the hoe in myhand,And with fast beating heart rode offthrough…

I SPENT hours of my childhood building with LEGO, making everything from lampshadescraping towers to giant ocean liners. Although I’ve long ditched the plastic bricks, I still love combining components to make something new, which probably explains my current passion for grafting. Just like LEGO, grafting involves fixing one part of a plant onto the roots of another. Although it might seem incredibly technical – with its own lexicon of names like ‘side veneer’, ‘whip and tongue’, ‘chip’, ‘T’ and ‘cleft’ – the principle of grafting is incredibly easy. Below the bark or ‘skin’ of all plants is a layer of green growth cells aka (should you need a conversation starter) vascular cambium. What makes this layer special is its ability to repair and meld not only within itself but…

THERE is something joyous about filling your beds, borders and containers with brightly coloured one-season wonders guaranteed to jazz up the garden for the next few months. Buying summer bedding is exciting and intimidating in equal measure because there is so much choice, and it is increasing every year as new varieties come online. An added bonus this year is the return of pretty Impatiens, or busy Lizzies, which largely vanished a decade ago thanks to a variety-specific form of downy mildew. Breeders have managed to create two resistant varieties, ‘Imara’ and ‘Beacon’ and hopefully these will be widely available in garden centres this year. Alongside these welcome returners there will be the traditional bedding stalwarts: the larger tuberous begonias, petunias, antirrhinums and pelargoniums, which pack a punch when planted…

THE earliest-flowering shrubs have finished blooming so it’s time to give them their annual trim. This week I pruned our forsythia, virtually on the same day the final flower started to fade. It flowered beautifully this year, a bright burst of yellow throughout April and a better show than last year when it was recovering from the very hard prune I’d given it the year before. Forsythia needs cutting back immediately after flowering because each spring’s blossom develops on new growth made the previous year. Therefore the sooner you cut it, the longer the period of time it has to regrow its flowering stems. If you leave it alone altogether the branches will grow lanky and congested, with flowers at the top and lots of bare wood at eye level…

THE principal entomologist of the RHS, Andrew Salisbury, has asked gardeners to think about slugs as garden visitors rather than garden pests. His advice came just before the sale of blue metaldehyde slug pellets was banned on 1 April 2022. Some gardeners will greet this statement with disbelief and anger, and they’ll wonder why these slug pellets have been banned. It’s because the active ingredient, metaldehyde, is very motile and gets into reservoirs and rivers. This toxin is impossible to remove, so levels in drinking water have been getting higher and higher. As a result, water companies pressured the British government to ban it. Metaldehyde is a toxin. It’s thought to inhibit breeding in amphibians and has killed many a pet dog, too. It’s almost certainly harmful to us. On…

John has been answering reader queries for 50 years What can I use to plant my raised bed? Q Wehave built a raised bed with a water feature in a sunny area. The soil is clay improved with compost. What should I plant in it? I do like heucheras. Helen Scot, Lincolnshire A There are various considerations when choosing plants for your raised bed. The first is the soil. Free-draining is good for most plants, but if it goes very dry in summer this limits the plants that will thrive. The second is the sun. There are many more plants that enjoy a sunny spot than those that prefer shade but sun on plants that are dry at the roots can cause problems. Third is the spray from the water…

OF all the plant groups we grow in our gardens, the euphorbias, or spurges, offer the most variety in terms of shape, size, habit, form and colour. There are nearly 2,000 euphorbia species, with almost as many cultivars, and they grow in the wild on every continent, except Antarctica. There are spiny, leafless succulents that look like cacti, and there are leafy plants with a sub-tropical look. You can grow tall shrubs, small perennials or pot plants! Euphorbias can have fat, fleshy roots, or a network of running roots, or long, hard tap-roots. The range is phenomenal, so let’s take a closer look. ■ Although euphorbias are not cacti, for many people they are the plants most commonly confused with them! Botanical curiosities THE flowers of all euphorbias are of…

THE cost of living is soaring and bills for household utilities are rising at a frightening rate, including tariffs for water. We use a lot of water on our gardens and although we can usually rely on rain during the spring and summer (often more than we would ideally like) there are still dry spells to contend with. On this page I suggest ways of harvesting and making the most of what water is available and look at practical ways of optimising water in the garden. It’s also important to highlight how and when we should water as this makes a huge difference to the amount we use during periods of no rain. Early mornings and evenings are the optimum times for watering as the air is cooler so water…

VERY few plants are more willing to crop than tomatoes. Yet our plants can give many more fruits with just a little more encouragement from us. First, we get them growing strongly, ideally in the ground – but where space is limited then large tubs or even bags can work just as well. The drawback with containers is they’re hard to keep watered sufficiently when plants are cropping. Any water shortage causes checks, especially if it is hot – this can lead to blossom end rot, when fruits develop with dark inedible bottoms. Planted in the ground, tomato plants seldom suffer this – however, the ground is colder and so slows growth. Make it warmer with a cloche while they establish, and grow through black plastic sheets, which also help…

WITH many of us trying to cram as much fruit, veg and herbs into our gardens as possible this year, what better time to look at spacesaving growing methods? Let’s make the most of our walls, fences, trellises, boundaries and beyond, as we make this the year we all grow our own food. Weather watching The past two years has galvanised a whole new gardening tribe to make more of even modest-sized spots. Existing gardeners already know what they are catching on to – that homegrown fruit and veggies are delicious! But with many back gardens getting smaller (and in some cases, nonexistent), are there any limits to home production? Not if you think vertically. “Make the most of your walls, fences and trellises” Vertical surfaces are often heat traps…

IF there is one thing a gardener never tires of, it’s the excitement of seeing seeds start to germinate or roots starting to emerge from a cutting. Success with these ventures can never be guaranteed, but a good propagation case will go a long way to helping you achieve germination. Lots of choice Propagators can be as simple or as complicated as you prefer and much will depend on how often you propagate plants, the quantities being grown and the space you have available. They range from a basic seed tray covered with a clear plastic lid, (ideal for the kitchen windowsill), through to largescale kits with a heating element (for use in a greenhouse or conservatory). You can even add supplementary lighting if you want to propagate plants all…

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 AFTER a cold wet start to the sowing and growing season your gift of tomato seeds was a tonic. I sowed them straight away in a mixture of seed compost and vermiculite and placed the seed tray in my small propagator. They started to germinate in five days. Why grow so many? I give them to my daughter who shares the plants when pricked out and growing strongly with her colleagues on the maternity ward where she works. They not only say thank you but ask where the seeds came from. She recommends AG to them for helpful advice on how to grow all the…