Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Nov-2022 i Amateur Gardening

“It’s that time of year again, as late autumn begins its inexorable metamorphosis into winter. For some, the garden becomes a playground of new opportunities – for others, it’s a bleak shadow of its former summer glory. I see most AG readers in the first group. Of course, this is still (just about) bulb-planting time, and I was out recently replanting my tulips – the daffs and other bulbs are already in. There is something very satisfying about planting the same bulb again. It may just be a process to some, but it feels more like a relationship when you first plant them, then take them out, then carefully store them, then put them back. And I wonder if they will rise again, or will they go blind? You need…

IN a shocking case of ‘do as I say, not as I do’, I have only just got round to pruning our summer-fruiting raspberries. I know I am always telling you they should be removed as soon as they have finished fruiting, and indeed this is right, but for some reason I completely forgot to do ours until now. It is an easy and satisfying job – simply look for the fruited canes among the new growth and remove them at ground level. You can tell them apart from the newer canes because the leaves will be tatty and surrounded by the hulls of picked fruit, and the stems will be deeper brown and woodier than this year’s canes. Depending on their thickness, I use either secateurs or loppers to…

THE relatively warm autumn has meant that many garden plants have been flowering and growing long past their usual span. It has also created fabulous conditions for weeds and diseases such as powdery mildew. Now, however, the weather is closing down so it’s time for that final clear-up to empty the borders and get them ready for their winter rest. I spent a hugely satisfying morning this week removing the last of the summer bedding, digging up and binning several borage plants affected by powdery mildew, deadheading and cutting back the last faded perennials, weeding and thinning seedlings. I also used the break in the weather to lift and pot up some pelargoniums, which will spend the next few months undercover Climate change is having a marked effect on our…

POPPIES are instantly recognisable from the large papery petals on their summer flowers. Most have four broad petals cupping a mass of yellow-tipped pollen-bearing stigmas with, in the centre, a distinctive pod – rather like an old-fashioned jam pot. The cup-shaped or saucer-shaped flowers can be 2-6in (5-15cm) across and, in the most familiar corn or Flanders poppy, are vivid-red. The flowers come in a wide range of other colours, although not blue and rarely yellow, and the petals appear crumpled as the buds open but flatten out elegantly. The seed pods, which can be dried for winter arrangements, contain large numbers of tiny black seeds that spread as the wind agitates the stems and the seeds are flung from the pods through a ring of pores just under the…

This week it’s: WITH winter brassicas, parsnips and even lettuce, your Sunday roasts and winter salads are nicely catered for. But for your other daily meals over winter, what freshly harvested crop can give flavour, texture and versatility? The leek, of course. As a winter crop, leeks are flavoursome and easy to grow, but they do take a long time to mature, and you do need to be attentive with them. In spring, they are sown in trays or pots, or a ‘seed bed’ outdoors, then moved to their final position a few months later. If you sowed some leeks last spring, you’ll be harvesting your own delicious home-grown leeks, right through until late winter. Let’s look at what else the leek has to offer. A question of economy HOME-GROWN…

IF you are planning to add more woody plants to your garden, we are at the start of a five-month planting jamboree. The dormant months between now and when these plants start to green up again next spring is the perfect time to plant more trees, shrubs, fruit bushes and roses. It is the season of ‘bare root’ planting, when young trees and shrubs are lifted from their growing sites and sold as they are, without containers. They may not look like much, but with proper planting they will soon romp away and grow into impressive plants. Best of all, bare root planting is easy and – the holy grail of these cash-strapped times – economical to do. From reputable online sellers, a bare root fruit tree sold as a…

THIS year’s dry and mainly sunny conditions have largely been good for alpines and rockeries, even if they have needed extra water at the height of the summer. Things are more challenging for them now, however, as the weather deteriorates. The cold isn’t so much of a problem for these tough little plants that have evolved to survive high mountain passes and desert areas. It’s the relentless damp that will do for them. Because they are usually low growing, they are easily smothered by fallen leaves and by the weeds that continue to grow through winter. They are at risk from the constant contact of damp soil on their lower leaves, which can cause rotting and fungal problems. This becomes even more of a hazard if the temperatures stay mild…

WE ask a lot from our gardens and often aspire to good design, year-round interest, wildlife areas and home-grown produce all from one plot. This is rather like taking the essence of a country estate with its contours and lakes, shrub borders, parterres and walled kitchen garden and then cramming it into a postage stamp. Can you have it all? Yes, based on the French-style potager. Although this means kitchen or vegetable garden, the modern potager is usually a small, well-designed space. As Joy Larkcom suggests in her book Creative Vegetable Gardening “It seems to me appropriate to steal the word ‘potager’ and apply it today to any vegetable garden, of whatever size, which has been touched with the paintbrush of imagination.” A smattering of flowers Purely ornamental trees and…

Improving the soil and year-round colour Q How can we improve the soil in our garden? We have just moved in and want to create a garden that has colour throughout the whole year – what plants would you recommend? Natasha and Ben Williams (via email) A I suggest that you mulch your soil with well-rotted garden compost, which can be mixed with kitchen waste. Additionally, you could blend grass cuttings with garden waste to enrich it with beneficial nitrogen. As for accommodating perennial plants to colour your beds and borders throughout the year, I recommend the following: Galanthus woronowii: Snowdrop with large white flowers and broad greyish-green foliage; winter. Helleborus x ericsmithii: Reddish-pink blooms in late winter and early spring. Euphorbia polychroma: Acid-yellow blooms; late spring. Ipheion ‘Rolf Feidler’:…

JUST FOR FUN It’s time for our just-for-fun puzzle – AG’s Garden Wall. This wall comprises 12 bricks in three courses. Each brick has a different word, or phrase on it. The first brick in each course, with BLOCK capitals, is cemented in place and cannot be moved. Just rearrange all the other bricks, so that the four words in each course of bricks are linked. There are three different connections to look for, one for each course. You may find that some words have more than one connection to other courses, but there is just one correct answer. You’ll either find this puzzle fiendishly difficult, or incredibly easy! Answers below. Hint: In one of the courses, the bricks are all connected with the leek family. Answers: ONION = Shallot,…

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BY the end of this month the air temperature will have dropped, night frosts will be common and the soil will be wet and cold and inhospitable for new plants. So if you have any leftover spring bedding or bulbs hanging around, get them in the ground this week. Alternatively, if your soil is already saturated and frozen, plant them in pots or baskets. Keep fleece to hand to swaddle pots when hard frosts are forecast and store baskets somewhere sheltered if extreme storms arrive. I have already planted my border bedding but have some leftover plants that need a home. I planted a hanging basket for front porch and added the extras in an existing pot of bedding that has been flowering since this spring. After adding the new…

I’VE had my first glimpse of fieldfares and redwings in the past few days. They’re heading this way to escape the weather in colder parts of Scandinavia and Europe. I usually see them about a mile away from home, because the hedges there have been allowed to develop hips and haws. They have escaped the fate of most of our local hedges, a short back and sides massacre that reduces them to stunted twiggy structures. These shoulder-high, brush-cut blocks look even more incongruous now that our roadside verges are lusher and longer. That’s down to local authorities deciding to encourage diversity and wildflowers by mowing the verges less often. The problem is, our local authorities rarely own the roadside hedges. Most are privately owned and few of those owners seem…

This word search comprises words associated with leeks. They are listed below; in the grid they may be read across, backwards, up, down or diagonally. Letters may be shared between words. Erroneous or duplicate words may appear in the grid, but there is only one correct solution. After the listed words are found there are six letters remaining; arrange these to make this week’s KEYWORD. LEEKS WELSH EMBLEM ALLIUM PORRUM WILD POTATO SOUP APICIUS GARLIC LATIN NERO ONION RAMSONS SLEEK STALK STEM STICK VEGETABLE WALES WAR HOW TO ENTER: Enter this week’s keyword on the entry form, and send it to AG Word Search No 646, Amateur Gardening, Future Publishing Limited, Unit 415, Winnersh Triangle, Eskdale Road, Winnersh, RG41 5TP, to arrive by Wednesday 23 November 2022. The first correct…

MANY lawns took a real beating during the hot, dry summer this year but, now we have had some rain, most are starting to show signs of recovery. This process can be speeded up by providing some extra TLC over the autumn. Smart mowing Mowing at a slightly higher setting will help recovery, because the grass leaves manufacture food for the plants. Close mowing greatly reduces the leaf surface at any time, but just now, when the plants need all the help they can get, this will slow down the recovery time. Mowing is usually tailing off by late autumn and, traditionally, lawns were not mown during winter at all. However, the milder winters we are getting at the moment mean the grass will continue to grow and will still…

NOW that we’ve got to know each other, do you mind if I ask a personal question: have you ever had manure on your trousers? Thought so, and did you know (*whispers*) some of it’s still there? Just goes to show how sticky the stuff is… While you scrape that off, I’ve been making use of the extraordinary adhesive qualities of horse-doings to fix alpine rockrose, aubrieta and candytuft into the joints of a retaining drystone wall. Although alpines thrive in poor stony soils, and do not want or need well-rotted manure, there’s a huge difference between plants used to life in the Hindu Kush and their compost-coddled cousins in the garden centre. They might be genetically the same but, like twins separated at birth, one is born to a…