Innholdsfortegnelse for 11-Feb-2023 i Amateur Gardening

“The beginning of this year saw some pretty awful weather from a gardener’s perspective: torrential rain for days on end twinned with mean, blustery winds meant that many of us didn’t venture into our gardens as much as we would have wanted, and one can hardly blame us! Hopefully, we are past that and can start to try and get the gardening year back on track. Now is the time to get into nuturing mode by preparing soil and plants for spring, and that means feeding. This week on pages 4 and 5, Ruth Hayes explains what you will need to feed, and why. Let’s get gardening!” Contact us: ◼ Subscriptions: 0330 333 1113 ◼ Editorial: 0330 3903732 ◼ Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com ◼ Advertising: 0330 3906566…

RETURNING home from a weekend away with family last month, we discovered scenes of chaos and devastation on the patio. Two hefty containers containing shrubs had been knocked over and our mini greenhouse had been whisked from its usual spot and was lying prostrate among the carnage. How I wish I’d heeded David Alberts’ advice of two weeks ago and made time to secure the greenhouse to the house wall! I was, however, relieved that I’d moved most of the plants out to make way for my hardy annual and vegetable sowings. The strangest part of the incident was that the base of the greenhouse remained in place, weighed down by a large lump of stone and two wooden blocks. It’s almost as though a mini tornado whipped down the…

THE prolonged cold spell that ravaged most of the UK just before Christmas laid waste to many plants in the garden. To my surprise, one that survived was a clump of antirrhinums, which are half-hardy perennials that by rights shouldn’t have been able to withstand the cold This is not the first time snapdragons have successfully overwintered in our garden. The same happened last year, and a clump of the popular bedding plants came through winter. I cut them back and fed them in spring and they bloomed for a second year, so hopefully the same will happen this time. I am adding to my antirrhinum collection with this week’s free seeds, variety called ‘Snappy Tongue’. A robust, multicoloured variety that grows to 18in (45cm), it can be grown for…

I’VE always loved sowing seeds and my earliest encounter was planting a packet of night-scented stocks that I’d acquired with my pocket money from the emporium that was once Woolworths. Oh, how I miss it! This was the place to acquire plants, before the advent of the garden centre, and on Saturday mornings it was chock-a-block. Most children headed for the pick-and-mix sweets, but I used to rummage through all the cyclamen corms, looking for the odd one out. I’d invest in a trillium that would never grow. I’d rustle through the seed packets, admiring lupin breeder George Russell’s picture. He was wearing a white collarless grandad shirt that held a special fascination for me. I’m a clothes person: I must be the only one who came out of a…

This week it’s: Quince and flowering quince We look at the fruiting and flowering quinces IS a quince really a quince? And when is a quince not a quince? Read on to find out! This week’s subject has different meanings to different people. To a fruit grower, the quince is Cydonia oblonga. To a flower gardener, the quince is Chaenomeles speciosa. To older gardeners, however, either quince could also be known as, simply, ‘Japonica’. Regardless of where your affiliations lay, both the fruiting or flowering quinces are good productive and/or decorative garden plants. And they are valuable for their flowers, sometimes as early as late winter, but also through spring and into early summer (depending on variety). Let’s take a sideways look at some of these useful plants. ◼ Quince…

IT has been a very hard winter for our gardens, battered by extremes of weather for the past few months. Hard freezes, torrential rain, gales and snow – even here in usually balmy Dorset – have given the garden a pummelling, so it was with no small sense of relief that we spotted the first new shoots breaking through the soil. This is a critical time for plants and the best way you can help them is by giving them a feed to promote healthy growing and set the tone for the year ahead. Garden centre shelves, and their online equivalents, are groaning under an ever-expanding variety of feeds. Liquids, pellets, sprays, soluble and scatterable powders… the list is long and it can be bewildering. So keep it simple by…

I’VE been thinking about what to grow where this summer and for quick, cheap cheer I’m starting to sow some hardy annuals. Because they are pretty weatherproof, the seeds can be sown undercover or directly into the soil where you want the plants to grow and flower. I’m going about things the first way, because the soil is so wet and cold I’m concerned that even larger robust seeds with a hefty outer coatings might rot or be eaten by birds and rodents. Hardy annuals are plants that germinate, grow, flower, set seed and die in a single season. They usually like a sunny spot and can tolerate poor soil, as long as they are watered. These varieties are generally easy to grow and as an added bonus, often self-seed…

A FAINT fuzz of green is starting to appear in woods and hedges, which means time is running out for taking the current season’s hardwood cuttings. This is a slow-growing form of propagation for deciduous trees, shrubs and soft fruit bushes and the cuttings are taken in the winter months when plants are dormant. Hardwood cuttings can be rooted in the ground or in a pot of cuttings compost mixed with sharp sand or perlite, and as long as they don’t dry out or get waterlogged they should be ready to pot on in 12 months’ time. The cuttings should be grown from healthy lengths of the past year’s growth that has had time to mature through summer. Remove the wood’s soft tips, cut into sections 6-12in (15-30cm) long and…

RECOGNISING honeysuckles can be difficult because there are two types – vining honeysuckles and bush honeysuckles, some evergreen and some deciduous – and, superficially, they all look very different. But what this prolific summer-flowering vine and this bushy winter-flowering shrub have in common is the structure of their flowers. They are trumpet-shaped, but split into five with four upper segments and one lower one. The flowers vary in size from ½in (12mm) to 2in (5cm), often changing from white to yellow as they mature, many have a wonderful fragrance and the flowers are often followed by black, blue or red berries. Difference in the flowers Vining honeysuckles have clusters of flowers, one immediately above the other, opening in succession towards the tips of the shoots, while shrubby honeysuckles usually have…

SOMETIMES overlooked and often lost over time, plant labels are an essential part of the gardening kit. Originally made from metal or lead strips with the plant name stamped on or engraved into them, or wood with the name inscribed in pencil, they have been the means of identifying plants, from seedlings to mature trees, for hundreds of years. Labels are important It is always worth writing a label for a new plant because you can’t rely on the original label that came with it lasting the distance. Some only have a sticky label on the container and many stick-in labels are biodegradable, so will decompose – taking the name of the plant with it. Now more commonly made of plastic that can be cleaned and reused, plant labels, tags…

WIN £20 Thank you to all those who have sent in poems. This week, Vivienne Doncaster from Falmouth, Cornwall anticipates the joy of springtime… I really love spring, do you?Everything seems shiny andnew.Colours appear sharper,clearer, and brighter,Nights even become lighter. Winter has at last gone.So the blues no longer belong.Buds on shrubs begin toappear,Wherever you turn a daffodil isnear. Their yellow sunny smilingfaces,Sway gently and in all sorts ofplaces.First, peruse a favouritemagazine or catalogue,Then dream of the future as youwalk the dog. Make time to sweep up leaves,pull out weeds,And into the greenhouse, sowwonderful seeds.Hoping that each one will growinto strong little fellows,And any impatience you mayexperience, mellows. As you await summer and itssunny rays,With the hope, she will last fordays and days.I really do love spring, I hopethat you…

BUYING plant feeds can be daunting as every year the manufacturers bring out new formulations or simply rebrand what they’ve already got. The general rule of thumb is that the faster a plant is growing, the more feed it will need. This is why liquid feeds such as potassium-rich tomato feeds are so popular in summer when everything is flowering and fruiting. They are easier and quicker for the plants to take up and use. However, because they are liquid they are used up quickly and they are also more easily washed away in rain. For this reason, we advise starting the year with a granular fertiliser such as Growmore, and topping it up fortnightly with a liquid feed during peak growing in the summer. Spray-on foliar feeds are also…

OUR roses had a great year in 2022 and flowered almost right through the winter – a ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ flowering three times, the last in November. This week I’ve been giving them some late-winter love, getting them ready for when they start to grow again in spring, although some new growth buds are already starting to swell. They don’t need much, just some simple care to tide them over until the growing season starts properly. Cut back the stems of shrub roses by a third to protect them from late winter storms, then weed around them. While you are busy in the soil, collect and dispose of fallen leaves that show signs of black spot. This is a serious but very common fungal disease that weakens roses and can completely…

How can we hide an unattractive wall? Q We have an unattractive garden wall that I’m desperate to cover. I think an evergreen shrub or climber, or a mixture of several varieties, would do the job perfectly. Are there any you could suggest? Martin Headley, Lancashire A Evergreen shrubs or climbers are an excellent idea as they will provide cover and interest throughout the year. Luckily, there is a wide range of varieties to choose from, many of them with colourful, variegated leaves. A few examples include: Euonymus fortunei (this will grow upright close to the wall), pyracantha (will grow upright close to the wall and produce sweet flowers in spring and fiery berries in winter), Cotoneaster conspicuus ‘Decorus’, aucuba (also known as spotted laurel), photinia, ceanothus, brachyglottis, Viburnum tinus,…

In this extract from AG 9 March 1968, we look at a man who discovered 500 new species of plants TO have both Christian name and surname remembered in different plants is a rare honour. But it is no more than just recognition of the work of Dr Augustine Henry, who was born in Londonderry in 1857. Rhododendron augustinii is the best blue rhododendron of all the species, tall and willowy in habit, and Lilium henri has rich orange-yellow flowers sprinkled with red spots. But perhaps his greatest achievement was to discover the true Chinese tea plant in the wild. Henry began life as a doctor, having studied at Queen’s University, Belfast, but the life of an ordinary general practitioner did not appeal to him. He took up an appointment…

BY failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail – so said 18th Century polymath Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of The United States. He uttered the words (my theory) when co-Founding Father George Washington rocked up late without his quill to sign the constitution. However, this wisdom could just as easily apply to planting a tree. I was shocked to read that up to 60% of trees planted in some council carbon-offset schemes last year had died. Yes, the summer was exceptionally hot but, even so, this high fail-rate reflects poor preparation and planning for aftercare, not to mention a laissez-faire attitude to wasted effort and time. As Franklin also pointed out, time is money and lost time is never found again, which is apt when planting…