Innholdsfortegnelse for 15-Apr-2023 i Amateur Gardening

“Should peat-free compost continue to be labelled ‘peat-free’ in the future? After 2024 in England, compost will no longer contain peat, so this labelling will be irrelevant. So why say what is not in the bag when, more importantly, we need to know what is actually in it? Is it coir? Bark? Green waste? Not all producers are upfront about this. One producer doesn’t list the contents at all, but says why you shouldn’t use peat; lots of guilt-tripping and virtue signalling – but no details of content. How can you get the best out of compost if you don’t know what is in it? And it is of no help to those who object to coir for environmental reasons. When you next go to buy peat-free compost, take time…

ONE of my most time-consuming jobs right now is caring for the myriad seedlings on our windowsills. The latest batch to be potted up and moved into the greenhouse was a pot of morning glory seedlings grown from free AG seeds. I moved them into the greenhouse to start hardening them off before they go into their final position in a sunny spot. Annual climbers, such as Spanish flag, blackeyed Susan, canary creeper and cup and saucer vine, need potting on before their stems get long and weak. Water them before you start so you can slip the plants from their pot in one easy move, with the roots hopefully holding the compost together. Then gently separate them by working your thumbs into the compost and carefully putting it apart.…

LAST year I grew zinnias for the first time and wow, they were fantastic, brilliant pops of colour that lasted well into the autumn untroubled by pests and disease. This week’s free seeds are zinnia ‘Sunbow Mixed’, bushy half-hardy annuals with bright pompom flowers. Excellent as cut flowers, they do best in a sunny border with fertile free-draining soil and grow to 24in (60cm). Zinnias are half-hardy annuals so need warmer conditions for growing than hardy annuals. It should be warm enough to sow them directly into the soil by now but I am sowing some of mine undercover now, and will sow the rest outdoors in a few weeks’ time. I’ll germinate them on a light windowsill and pot them on when they have developed their first ‘true’ leaves…

Next week: Focus on winter squash, applying glasshouse biocontrols, growing romanesco, planting tomatoes in growing bags, planting comfrey. Top Tip You can reduce the number of stringy pods by choosing modern self-fertile varieties, watering frequently and thoroughly, and picking beans while young and tender. AN annual feature on any vegetable plot, runner beans can be sown and are utterly delicious when the pods are picked at a young and tender age. The pitfalls are easy to avoid if you know how, so let me divulge how to ensure a summer full of beans! Choices, choices… Plant breeders have done gardeners proud in recent years. While older varieties flowered late in the summer, modern types develop earlier blooms due to boffins adjusting the bean’s sensitivity to day length. Drought resistance is…

THE first daffodil to flower in my garden this year was on Tuesday 7 February (I keep records like that – don’t ask!). The cultivar is ‘Itzim’, a small-flowered Cyclamineus daffodil. In 2022, the last daffodil to come into bloom in my garden was on 12 April – and that was the so-called ‘old pheasant’s eye’ daffodil (Narcissus poeticus). From this, you can see that one could have three months of colour, if varieties are chosen wisely. This year we had a cold winter, so things have been delayed, but the later-flowering daffodil varieties should be giving us a final blast of bloom right now. Indeed, this Saturday (15 April) is a significant day in the cultural history of the daffodil – and if you want to know why, read…

THE prettiest plant combinations often occur when self-sown flowers find their way into unexpected places. Naturally, I take the credit for these happy accidents, but there is a price to pay. For every fennel umbel that stylishly rises through the roses, there’s a self-sown ‘cuckoo’ growing somewhere it shouldn’t. That ‘somewhere’ in our garden is the gaps between the paving of our garden steps. Seeds love the combination of warm stone and moisture in the joints, and sprout just as reliably as if sown in a propagator. In fact, so many flower seedlings have found their way from a nearby border that walking up to the house without standing on leaves is akin to playing hopscotch! I could hoe the lot away, but many of the plants are the precious…

Kindest cut: Next week I’ll be looking at taking cuttings, starting with how you can propagate plants in spring OUTDOOR plants aren’t the only vegetation to start growing as we see the back of winter. The longer days, warmer temperatures and improved light levels have sparked houseplants back to life, as many will have been dormant through the winter. I have far too many houseplants, though to be fair we are fostering several of them for younger family members currently on their travels. Luckily most of the plants are good natured and tolerate my benign neglect, responding well to a hasty watering when they start to look limp. But now the seasons are turning warmer, anyone with houseplants needs to be more proactive about their care. I have been making…

WE are midway through April and the temperatures are rising, making it easy to get carried away and fill the garden with summer plants. However, many bedding plants, cannas, dahlias, or anything kept undercover or indoors as they start to grow won’t take kindly to suddenly being moved into the colder and more uncertain conditions of the garden. The same applies to more tender vegetables such as runner beans, tomatoes, sweetcorn and squashes. They need to be toughened up and this is a process called hardening off. It takes a couple of weeks and helps plants build resilience to lower humidity and changeable weather conditions they will experience in a garden. There are several stages in the hardening off process. Plants overwintered in a heated environment should first go to…

SWEETCORN is a treat that is so much better when really fresh. Until you’ve had your own, cooked immediately after picking, you cannot know how good it can be. Admittedly, sweetcorn is a large plant needing a lot of space, and it has a proportionately large appetite. Native Americans put fish waste under their plants – and it pays to do similar, though manure, or high-phosphate fertiliser, will serve for us instead. Sweetcorn also loves plenty of water, so never skimp on their hydration, to which it’s good to add a liquid feed. The plants take about three months to crop, so to get our cobs ripening in the hot sun of July and August, we need to sow as soon as possible. It’s best to sow in several batches…

Contact John Negus by email address below Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com What should I do with my orchid? Q I was given an orchid as a present last year. It flowered very well and I kept it wintered in a cold room. It has thrown out three large shoots from the bottom. My query is, should I have cut out the main (old) stem or not? Cliff Leeds, Norfolk A Your bamboo orchid is probably Dendrobium nobile. Growing to around 2ft (60cm), blooms are borne in small groups on furrowed stems which, in time, may shrivel, die and then be replaced by new shoots. Well done for keeping it cool over winter, which it needs to flourish and flower profusely. Indigenous to south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, it’s normally easy to…

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 linked to daffodils! Answer: CORONA (cup) = Perianth(petals), Stigma(pollen-receiving tip of the…

Steve Bradley MA MHort (RHS) has written (or co-written) over 40 gardening books, including Propagation Basics, The Pruner’s Bible, The Ground Force Workbook and What’s Wrong With My Plant? He is resident expert on BBC Radio Kent, Sussex and Surrey, and he has built medal-winning gardens at both Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace. You can listen to Steve on alternate Sundays 10am-2pm on BBC Radio Kent’s Sunday Gardening (BBC Local) WHEN growing crops in a greenhouse or polytunnel, you have two choices: either you grow the plants in containers or you create a border with soil. One of the problems encountered when growing such crops in soil is the incidence (and gradual build up) of soil-borne pests and diseases. This can be further complicated by the fact that many of…

WE have reached a crossover point with our spring and summer bulbs, the early ones starting to die back just as the later-flowering varieties are growing fast and well. So we are saying goodbye, for this year, to the snowdrops, daffodils, crocuses and tulips among others while anticipating the blooming of the alliums, irises, ranunculus, bluebells and lily of the valley. All varieties need feeding and watering now – and watering feels especially important this year because we had such a dry end to winter and the start of spring. Food and water will replenish the bulbs that are dying back so they go into dormancy with ‘a full tank’. This means that come next spring they will have enough reserves to flower well and produce enough foliage to feed…

THE perfect lawn, however lovely it might look, needs a lot of chemical maintenance. So much so, that I remember reading once that most of the garden chemicals sold in garden centres were applied to lawns, be it moss-killer, broad-leaved weed killer or lawn feed. The trouble is they don’t stay on the lawn. The rain washes them into the ground and then, possibly, into our water supply. We know now that these chemical residues stay with us long after they’re applied in horticulture and agriculture. They linger on in our bodies, too. In the United States, DDT, an organochlorine insecticide, was detected in almost all human blood samples tested by the Centers for Disease Control in 2005, despite this chemical being banned in 1972. This has improved since, but…

■ This extract from AG 7 June 1975 is part 5 of a 12-part series on how to propagate a wide selection of indoor and outdoor plants by various forms of propagation. Note: peat will often be mentioned in these articles, and while many new peat-free alternatives are available, peat composts are still on sale for those who choose not to use peat-free. If using peat-free, please note that details of watering and nutrients will vary. BASICALLY, layering is a method of propagation that induces stems to produce roots, and eventually new plants, while they are still attached to the parent plant. This is accomplished mainly by pegging the stems down into the surrounding soil, but there are modifications. The stem, which is encouraged to root, is known as a…