Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-May-2023 i Amateur Gardening

“This week, the AG team have been out and about checking prices for our next price guide, which Ruth will unveil in next week’s issue. It’s incredible how much you can save by smart shopping, and it’s heartening to see AG readers getting in contact to tell the rest of our readership about the great savings they have found in their local areas (see page 55). Keep sending those letters in — every penny counts these days, and I love the idea of you all helping each other out. Certainly, after such a miserable start to the year, and what I thought was a late spring, it is good to see the weather is now relatively stable, and conditions for growing are ideal. So why not make the most of…

HERE we are in the middle of No Mow May, a lovely initiative that encourages gardeners to leave their lawn – or some of it – to grow wild for a few weeks to benefit insects and wildlife and boost garden diversity. Of course not everyone is keen on the idea, so what should you be doing this month if you are trying to maintain a neat lawn when the grass and weeds are in riotous full growth? Mowing is the first obvious step, and as well as keeping the grass neat a regular trim will help keep weeds at bay. Perennial weeds such as dandelions are unlikely to be deterred by mowing, so the best way to vanquish them is to use a weed puller and take the whole…

CLARY is one of my favourite hardy annuals and I always make sure there is a place for it in our summer borders. Easy to sow and grow, it has a beautiful simplicity and lasts for ages, flowering all through summer and autumn and well into the winter too. Clary sage is a member of the salvia family. It has a pleasant fragrance and can grow to almost 3ft (1m) tall, usually producing pinkish purple flower bracts. This week’s free seeds are for a variety called ‘Bouquet Mixed’, which flowers in a range of pinks and purples as well as white. Because it is a hardy annual you could sow it directly into soil that has been cleared of weeds and debris, raked and dampened. I am starting mine in…

This week it’s: Miniature gardening Plants and gardens where small is beautiful SOME years ago, I was placed in charge of a group of hobbyist magazines, and one of these was The Dolls House – for adult collectors and enthusiasts, not children. I discovered that, in the UK, dolls’ houses (and the furniture and accessories to go in them, as well as many of the dolls themselves) are generally in 1/12th (or 1in) scale. Although I didn’t become an enthusiast myself, it did introduce me to the amazing world of miniatures. It also made me think about the possibility of creating miniature gardens (but not to the same 1/12th scale). I found out recently that, in the US, the month of May is designated Miniature Gardens Month, so what better…

NLESS you have studied horticulture or botany to any level, you may think of plants as being basically stable in form and structure. How they start is how they carry on, right? Not necessarily. Plants do change sometimes, but this can be so subtle that you hardly register it because the change takes place over a long period of time. You are probably familiar with variegated plants, but many of these have been specially selected from a mutation (or sport) of a plant that originally had entirely green leaves or flowers of a single colour. They are chosen because the new growth is at least as desirable as the original and can be reproduced in new generations by taking cuttings. Natural changes Most of these changes occur naturally and are…

AT this time of year it is almost impossible to visit a garden centre or nursery and not come home with a lighter wallet and heavy basket of plants. It is prime planting time and now the weather is pretty much reliably warm enough for summer bedding, many of which are frost-tender, it is time to fill containers and baskets with a bright and beautiful selection. Calibrachoa, Bidens, Lobelia (trailing and bushy), trailing pink Centradenias, petunias bushy and trailing, pelargoniums, fuchsias, osteospermum – we are spoilt for choice. Choose plants that look healthy with lush green leaves and lots of flower buds. Buy some with a few flowers in full bloom for instant impact, but it’s the buds that will provide the colour over the coming weeks. If you are…

WINTER took several plants with it and I thought that two of the casualties were our potted blueberry bushes. We have extremely chalky soil so anything lime-hating, such as rhododendrons, azaleas and blueberries need to be grown in containers of ericaceous compost and fertiliser. The blueberries had been thriving in their pots until this spring when it became clear that one of them didn’t make it through winter. I thought the other had gone too, but while the older stems were obviously dead, new growth is starting to shoot up from the base. To give it a helping hand I topdressed it with Sylvagrow ericaceous compost, added some ericaceous fertiliser and bought a second plant to keep it company. Although blueberries are generally self-fertile, they will provide bigger and better…

Choosing shrubs for shady borders Q Please could you suggest shrubs that will grow well in shady areas in my garden? These areas get the sun first thing in the morning, but by mid-morning they go into the shade for the rest of the day. I’m looking for something that will attract wildlife, and will grow to no more than 3-4ft (1-1.5m). David Smith (via email) A The following small shrubs should prosper in your garden which is shaded for most of the day:Aucuba varieties: Female plants of A. japonica enchant us with scarlet berries; A.‘Crotonifolia’ has large leaves speckled with gold; evergreen. Berberis ‘Harlequin’: Purplish-pink leaves with white speckles; deciduous. Berberis stenophylla: Wealth of orange flowers in spring; evergreen. Mahonia x media ‘Charity’: Cones of citrus-scented yellow flowers create…

I READ your editorial about the bulbs, fence and the canine food manufacturer. When I stopped laughing I thought what a society of snowflakes we are turning into. It’s becoming serious how everything is being turned round, history is disappearing at an alarming rate, words are being removed from books, some rightly so. I wonder if the woke society has read To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, they would have sleepless nights worrying who it’s going to upset. Peter Auty I READ your recent piece about receiving a warning about plants poisonous to dogs. If I may say I think you have made too light of it. I doubt anyone is suggesting dogs are going to dig up and eat the bulbs and I…

EACH year comfrey plants pop up in the garden and while they may not grow in the ‘right’ place, I have a great fondness for them. Insects love them and I use their leaves to feed other plants. Comfrey sends out thick tap roots that draw up a wealth of nutrients and minerals. These are stored in the leaves and released when they are harvested, which is why comfrey ‘tea’ is such a good, organic fertiliser. You can also use the leaves to line planting trenches for hungry food plants such as tomatoes and beans. Comfrey is invasive but a sterile variety called Bocking 14 is widely available and as rich in goodness as other varieties of the plant. This year our comfrey plants have returned with gusto and I…

I’VE been an organic gardener all my life and I’ve taken a lot of flak over the years. People used to tell me that it was impossible to garden organically and that was a commonly held view in the past. I sat in a meeting of National Head Gardeners way back in the mid-1990s, and many of them expressed such an opinion. That wouldn’t happen today. Then there are those who think you’re cranky and quirky, because organic gardening is misunderstood. The worst thing, though, is being doubted. One garden visitor asked me where I hid my slug pellets! Well, I am proud to be an organic gardener and I am pleased to say that our newly crowned King Charles III is also an organic gardener. Forty thousand people a…

■ This extract from AG 28 June 1975 is the eighth of a 12-part series on how to propagate a wide selection of indoor and outdoor plants. 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. IT is worth collecting seed of any true species plants in your garden because species come true to type from seed – the offspring will resemble their parents in every respect. It is not usual for gardeners to save seed of highly bred plants – hybrids, varieties and strains – as these do not come true to type from…

I ONLY popped into the garden centre out of curiosity, merely to while away a few moments and certainly not to buy more plants. Why would I? My flowerbeds and patio pots are already full to bursting and being a model of self-control, impervious to the impulse purchase, I am above temptation. But then I saw the climbers… Most garden centres and nurseries have a few climbing plants, but rarely hold a wide selection – because the window when they’re looking good and are easy to sell is short. They are difficult to keep, as all it takes is a week of warm weather and the rampant stems join into an unsellable tangle. So when I stumbled across this comprehensive range (Your Honour) from chocolate-scented akebia to wisteria, I ran…