Innholdsfortegnelse for 11-Jun-2022 i Amateur Gardening

“This week, Ruth Hayes asks Dr Anton Rosenfeld of Garden Organic for his advice on using peat-free compost and how to create your own mix for growing seeds (see page 7). Dr Rosenfeld has some useful tips for creating a good seed compost mix, which I think will be a great help to many who have had difficulty in finding workable peat-free options. If there is a benefit to the ban on peat, aside from the obvious environmental one, it is that we will have to have a better understanding of the growing medium we use to nurture our plants far more than ever before - and I believe this will make us better gardeners.”…

AS the peat-free debate rumbles on, many gardeners are looking for ways of improving their soil and raising plants in a planet-friendly ways. AG spoke to Dr Anton Rosenfeld, the knowledge officer at the horticultural charity Garden Organic who is an authority on how to make your own peatfree compost and how to successfully grow different plants in peat-free soil including watering and feeding regimes. He agrees that many gardeners have neither the space nor capacity to make enough of their own compost to enrich all their garden, but can offer solutions to the ‘peat-free compost gap’. “Homemade compost is the ideal, and the more you can make on site the better,” he said, “because it is made where you want to use it so there are no ‘compost miles’…

WITH their colourful faces open to the sun, daisies are the ultimate summertime flower. Easy-going and easy-growing, they add colour, cheer and interest to our summer borders. This week’s free seeds, Osteospermum ‘Limpopo’ are ideal for growing in dry, troublesome areas as they will flourish in most soils. However, they do need a sunny spot to put on their best show of pastel petals in shades of caramel, yellow and white, so sow them where they won’t be shaded by taller plants, trees or shrubs – towards the front of a sunny border would be ideal. The plants are hardy annuals and can be started directly in prepared soil that has been cleared of weeds, roots, stones and other debris. The seeds should take between two weeks and a month…

I WAS a great admirer of Christopher Lloyd (1921-2006), who gardened at Great Dixter in East Sussex for his entire life. I loved his articles, some of which have been re-published in AG under All our Yesterdays, because they conveyed a wicked sense of fun and lots of knowledge, too. I was lucky enough to meet Christopher and I also saw him in the garden in the late 1990s. It was a bitterly cold Sunday, but the tulips were out. The large oak door was ajar and out he popped with a dachshund at his feet. He was clutching a pair of scissors, to snip some herbs, and there was the smell of roast beef in the air. It was a golden moment for me. My friend Sibylle Kreutzberger used…

THERE are many reasons why you might prefer not to use chemicals to kill the weeds in your lawn. Such considerations include whether you have children or pets who play on it regularly or you want to keep the area environmentally safe to encourage wildlife. This means finding other methods of controlling weeds, because they will still take root and grow. Of course, you may choose to leave them, but they can spoil the overall effect of having a lawn. Most lawn weeds have a low or rosette habit of growth and can survive being mown over. The blade of the mower passes over them or gives them a light trim without causing real harm. Physically removing weeds from your lawn is best done as early as possible, as the…

WE’VE all heard it said – and maybe even said it ourselves – ‘There’s a patch in the garden that I can do absolutely nothing with’. No garden is perfect because only rarely will soil be naturally consistent across the whole area (you can even find different nutrient levels and pH values in the same plot), so there will always be places that are more tricky to cultivate than others. It may be a patch of heavy clay that puddles in winter, a spot of dry shade where the moisture is leached out by tree roots or blocked by a shadowing wall, or a bed of poor soil that simply fails to flourish no matter what you chuck at it. We have a couple of tricky patches in our garden,…

IN the April 23 issue I explained how I planted this year’s crop of seed potatoes in my border after enriching the soil with a mixture of leaf mould, well-rotted manure, wood ash and topsoil. I did this to replenish nutrients as they would be have been depleted after last year’s crop and I wanted to give the soil a boost. The good news is that this mixture of treatments appears to have done the job and many young leaves have poked their heads through the soil and are looking strong and healthy. Of course, growing potatoes does not end with soil prep and planting – there is still earthing-up, feeding and watering to be done. Earth up, feed and water Earthing up: ONCE the plants have broken the surface…

CHERRIES are the epitome of a British summer, and life could be a bowl of them if you are living the dream – so how do you get the best from these must-grow trees? In the early 20th century, you would have needed a huge garden in order to grow cherry trees – but with the introduction of self-fertile cherry ‘Stella’ in 1968, this all changed. Until this point, cherry pollination had been a bit of a conundrum, with self-incompatibility compounded further by incompatibility between varieties. Thank goodness for Canada! This is where ‘Stella’ and many other self-fertile varieties (such as ‘Sunburst’ and ‘Lapins’) were bred. “Just keep chills to a minimum” The UK, too, has introduced varieties that are better suited to our inclement climate (such as ‘Summer Sun’,…

PEONIES are classic garden perennials and shrubs. The flowers of wild peonies are basically bowl-shaped, with up to ten broad petals creating flowers that can be up to 10in (25cm) across, each with a golden mass of stamens in the centre. Flowers of garden peonies can have up to 100 petals and come in a range of often fragrant flower forms with extra petals of various shapes in the centre. Double flowers usually last longer than single flowers and are often good for cutting. The flowers come in a huge range of shades, from wine red and pure white with every tone between, plus some that are yellow or feature bold crimson markings. The flowers close at night to protect the pollen from dew then re-open in the morning. Some…

This week it’s: GARDEN pests – from minuscule insect nibblers to wild deer – are at their most active right now. Hibernators are fully awake and feeding, while adult insects and baby mammals are emerging. While this is happening, of course, the plants themselves are young, lush, full of moisture and at their most tender, making them more appealing than at any other time of year. Let’s look at some of the interesting facts about the plant munchers! ■ In Victorian times, gardeners would keep a toad in the greenhouse to deal with pests. Toads eat insects, grubs, slugs and even earwigs. They need dense, moist places under benches, but they must have access to ponds for breeding. Slugs are not pests – official! THE Royal Horticultural Society has decreed…

Q These days, we are encouraged to be more tolerant of weeds in the garden. What weeds do you now keep that once would have been pulled up? Evelyn Broderick, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire A The definition of a weed is a plant (usually wild) growing where it is not wanted to the detriment of cultivated plants. Turn this on its head, then, and when a gardener decides to value, accommodate and enjoy a patch of nettles, dandelions or goosegrass, they cease to be weeds. With a long-standing fascination for all plants, I welcome controlled numbers of a wide range of so-called ‘weeds’ in my garden. Many gardeners have designed wild areas into their plots, left as undisturbed as possible for wildlife to breed and flourish. Among short meadow grass, perennial cuckoo…

The reader’s poetry section is so popular, why not give it a go? Thank you Rachel, for this delightful description of your garden Our garden may be the sizeof a postage stamp And the back border isparticularly damp, But we love all of the joy thatit brings Especially when the bulbscome through in spring. Each year our ambitionsgrow more and more, We plant flowers, shrubs andvegetables galore! But the one thing that is mostimportant to me, Is letting the wildlife withinlive comfortably. The pond is home todragonfly larvae and frogs And the hole in the fenceensures entry for hogs. Birds swing from the feedersfrom dawn until dusk, And the bees enjoy theflowers’ heavenly musk. Our garden may be small butwe’ve crammed a lot in, Including a water butt,greenhouse and compostbin.…

HERE at AG we like to ask the big questions and when it comes to gardening, few come larger than querying the makeup of the very stuff we try and grow our plants in. Which is why scientist Anton Rosenfeld, who works for the horticultural charity Garden Organic, laughed when I posed the question. “That is a very big question!” he said, before going on to explain the various components and compounds that make up the soil under our feet. “There are the mineral components make up of whatever rock is below the ground, either sandy or clay. If it’s sand it has larger particles, whereas clay is made up of smaller particles.” Anton continued: “Then there is the organic matter, which is the important part for gardeners. The rock…

THERE is so much to do in the garden at this time of year that it can be hard to keep track of everything you need to do. I often set out with the intention of watering the greenhouse for example, then get sidetracked by a cluster of weeds that have popped up in a border, which leads to something completely different (maybe an ailing plant that I’ll pot up to see if that helps it) and before I know it the morning has gone and the greenhouse is still parched! The most pressing jobs at the moment are making sure our plants stay healthy and pest free, and the easiest way to do this is to keep on top of weeding and feeding regimes. A little bit of weeding…

ANTS irritate and annoy but, on the whole, they are probably beneficial. I know a lot of folk just want rid of them, especially when they’re finding their way into the kitchen or leaving dead patches on the lawn. Often this is their most obvious result: they excavate soil and spread this outside their nests along with their wastes. Although this looks untidy, and can cover and choke low-growing plants, it’s good manure, full of fertility. Admittedly, their excavations undermine the odd plant or paving slab, but usually these are minor worries. The big question is whether or not ants cause harm by farming pests. Amazingly, ants tend and guard aphids and other bugs, even moving these to more suitable sites – in return, they milk bugs for their sweet…

Q Please could you identify the plant in the attached photo? We bought it as a stick with a couple of leaves on as we were intrigued. It has gone from strength to strength this year, but we still have no idea what it is or what it should look like. Susan Tovey (via email) A The shrub in question is a Japanese angelica tree (Aralia elata). A native of Eastern Asia prized for its large, compound and architectural leaves and late summer and early autumn display of fetching umbels of small white flowers, it has great charm. There are two striking forms: ‘Aureovariegata’ whose leaflets are irregularly margined with yellow, and ‘Albomarginata’ whose leaflets are edged with white. I suggest that, initially, you consign your Japanese angelica tree to…

I AM a big fan of AG and eagerly wait for the weekly copy to come out. In the article about lupins (AG, 30 April), Graham Rice wrote an excellent and informative article that I enjoyed. I read the piece through twice and nowhere was there a mention of Russell lupins. I was disappointed. You simply cannot mention lupins without George Russell. Growing up, wherever we lived, our garden had lupins. One of my fondest childhood memories was listening to lupin seeds popping in the heat of the yard on lazy summer days. I am very proud of the father of lupins being a York lad. Generations of our family and friends have all talked about Russell Lupins starting in the allotments of York. I don’t want him to be…

PABLO Picasso was the most influential artist of the 20th century, spawning a revolution in graphic design and producing artworks that sell for millions. Even so, they’re not to everyone’s taste. My father-in-law (who didn’t study art or paint for pleasure) thinks Picasso should have stuck to conventional landscapes, and argues that if a painting doesn’t look like a photograph, it’s not worth the canvas it’s daubed on. I mention this after visiting the Chelsea Flower Show – an event that visitors and TV viewers couldn’t help noticing has a very different aesthetic from just a decade ago. Back in 2012, gardens looked like… well, gardens. They had crisp geometric designs and clipped topiary hedges, echoing the formality and control of the grand Italianate landscape of old. Expensive and aspirational,…