Innholdsfortegnelse for 2-Mar-2024 i Amateur Gardening

Since re-launching late last year, we continue to be thrilled by the stream of delighted messages from readers, surprised and thrilled to discover Amateur Gardening magazine back on the shelves. This is such an important magazine for so many, so to be able to continue providing you with fortnightly support from our friendly family of experts, and indeed a fair few gardening legends, is an absolute pleasure and a cause for celebration. Speaking of which, it is our 140th anniversary in May 2024 and we would love to hear your ideas over the weeks ahead for how we should mark this most memorable occasion. Amateur Gardening is the world’s oldest gardening publication and as we look forward to the future, sustainability on every level will be at the fore-front of…

Step by step 1 Select a quick-to-mature variety for early greenhouse sowings (e.g. ‘Amsterdam Forcing’). Line a 25cm-deep box with old compost bags, fill with compost, water, and sow on the surface. Roots will mature from May to July. 2 As soon as soil is workable, create a stone-free seedbed in an open spot and sow a main-crop carrot (e.g. ‘Norfolk’). Protect from carrot root fly using insect mesh, thin out seedlings and water in dry spells. Pull these roots from July to September. 3 Finally, make an overwintering sowing using a very hardy type (e.g. ‘Eskimo’) in June. Water drills well, protect again from root fly and thin out as required. These roots will mature from October onwards, through until spring. Top tip Avoid veg seedling chills ✿ My…

Trees have been on my mind in the past few weeks, because I love their winter silhouettes. At this time of the year, as spring approaches, the buds are expanding. Some willows have developed an olive-green haze and the alders remind me of wild heather in the sky. I persuade the Best Beloved to drive whenever possible at the moment, so that I can gaze through the car windows in awe and admiration. Trees are without doubt, winter’s showmen. In rural Gloucestershire, where I live, we are missing lots of our trees because there’s been a massive cull of ash trees for health and safety reasons. Neighbouring trees, which weren’t ashes, have also been felled in the process. Admittedly some local ash trees were suffering from ash dieback, a fungal…

Colour influences many aspects of our lives. Alongside our plants, we choose clothes, soft furnishings, personal accessories and cars, firstly because of how they look, and then, just as importantly, their colour. A choice of colour can be very divisive. I really love blue, but others may loathe it. So how do we use colour in our gardens in a way that not only enhances its look and feel, but creates the right mood for us and reflects our own unique personalities? Let’s take a closer look at colour to understand how we can use it to best effect in our gardens this year. The colour wheel Let me introduce you to the Colour Wheel, a visual representation of all the colours of the rainbow and their relationships with each…

I am giddy with excitement most of the year to be honest, but I am particularly buzzing when I step into the halls at the IPM Essen in Germany, an international trade event for all things horticulture. On it’s 40th edition, with 1500 exhibitors and countless new plant and product launches, I have hand-picked 6 to watch which should be landing on garden centre shelves in the very near future! Tillandsia ‘Maya’ For many years, Bromeliads were only really available in the most ‘fluorescent’ of shades, often paired with an equally rainbow container. If such a colour explosion is not for you, then ‘Maya’ manages to tone things down a bit, with a more elegant appearance and bronze-laden shades. The perfect partner for your moth orchids, as they have similar…

A move towards a more sustainable global food system could create financial benefits of up to £7.9 trillion a year, improve human health and ease the climate crisis, according to the most comprehensive worldwide economic study of its type. Research has unearthed the fact that existing food production systems have massive environmental and medical costs. They create a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, putting the world on course for 2.7C of warming by the end of the century, causing more extreme weather patterns and crop failures, leading to societal disruption and serious health issues. Johan Rockström, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the study’s authors, said: “The global food system holds the future of humanity on Earth in its hand.” The report’s authors admit…

1 Plant any remaining bare-root fruit trees and bushes, now, well before any summer drought arrives. This gives them time to settle and root out, resulting in far more resilient plants. 2 Many of us still own stacks of old plastic pots, so re-use them rather than buying more. Wash off loose soil or compost, clean and use them to propagate your vegetable seedlings. 3 This is the perfect time to plant asparagus crowns. Choose a sunny, well-drained spot that’s free from perennial weeds, and expect your first gourmet harvest in 1-2 years time. 4 Reduce your food waste! Make sure you focus on eating up your winter brassicas, chards and leeks, because these crops will soon run to seed come the warmth of spring. 5 Comfrey is a great accumulator, with vigorous roots…

A greater risk of pest and disease unfortunately form one of the main threats of our changing climate. Extreme weather events can weaken plants. At the same time, warmer, wetter seasons can create conditions where new and existing pests proliferate, with potentially more breeding, overwintering, migratory opportunities overall. This means more pests and more weakened plants that may be more susceptible to attack. Whichever way you look at it, natural predators are going to be an important ally. The more you can create a more balanced ecosystem with plenty of these natural helpers around, the better your garden will be. It will be much harder for one type of creature to get out of control and cause damage to your precious plants. Wildlife, wildflowers, and even some weeds have a…

One of the greatest of conundrums in the gardening world is how something as small and delicate as an alpine plant, with its fragile flowers often in pastels and girly pinks…can also be as tough as old boots? Well, it’s an easy question to answer actually! Most naturally occurring alpines are small because they have to resist the ferocious winds and intense cold that one normally encounters up a mountain. Remember, the bigger the leaves a plant has, the greater their exposure to the elements. Most little alpine plants can hug rocks and mould themselves into crevices, which offer protection. And alpines usually produce brightly coloured flowers; this is because when growing in high places they are often hidden from view, and in order to attract the all-important insect pollinators…

Well known garden designer and grower Sarah Raven is turning her attention to shrubs and hedges for garden design and biodiversity, with plans to add 3,000 metres of hedging to her Perch Hill Farm. Since moving to Perch Hill in 1994, Sarah has planted roughly 750 metres of hedging, in the process creating safe nesting habitats for wildlife and providing food for bees, hedgehogs and birds. She recommends using shrubs for their self-sustaining and beautiful qualities and says that for new gardeners, hedges are the perfect choice, as many are low-maintenance and easy to care for, while also creating natural wildlife havens. Sarah’s plan to plant more in Perch Hill will make for a traditional yet easy-to-care-for garden thriving with life and scent. Sarah explains : “I think that hedges…

Favour single, open blooms, which are more easily accessible to insects than double flowers. Grow native wildflowers and species such as hawthorn, dog rose and beech. Plant a variety of flowers for different species and aim to provide sustenance for as much of the year as possible. Let ivy mature to provide a valuable source of winter nectar and think about autumn-flowerers such as sedum (Hylotelephium) and aster (Symphyotrichum). Deadhead regularly to encourage further flushes of flowers. Find space for larval food plants such as lady’s smock for orange tips butterflies, nettles for red admiral, comma, painted lady and small tortoiseshells, or ragwort and groundsel for cinnabar moths. Goat willow Salix caprea is also a food plant for several moth caterpillar varieties and its flowers an early source of nectar.…

John Seymour’s books on self-sufficiency convinced a post-war generation to drop out and grow cabbages. The movement even spawned a sitcom, The Good Life, the tale of Tom and Barbara Good played by Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal. Ask any gardener of a certain age what got them gardening, they will have a fondness not for Seymour but for the Goods. The romance of self-sufficiency overwhelms the reality of it, because even Tom and Barbara got old, and that is the pressure that self-sufficiency brings to the romance. I had a full-time job when I first took on an allotment with my wife, Carol. We struggled to make it work and felt guilty, and were made to feel guilty, when we had to hand back the keys after my spinal…

Q Last year a lot of our apples were affected by rough, hard patches on their skins. What caused it and how can I stop it from happening again this year? Sally Peters, Lincoln A Blame scab disease (Venturia inaequalis). Causing fruits to develop cracks and corky swellings, and leaves to develop greenish-brown blotches, it’s only skin deep so your crop can be harvested and enjoyed. Overwintering as spores on twigs and bark, the fungus attacks maturing fruits and, in extreme cases, can badly disfigure them. Unfortunately, showery weather, when blooms are opening, favours infection. Another point: some varieties, such as ‘Bramley’s Seedling’, are more prone to attack than others. No chemical sprays are recommend for amateurs to control the disease, anyway your best course of action is to practise…

Your lovely letters, emails and social media posts continue to flow in beautifully. I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying receiving them. Every message, poem, idea and comment matters. Please keep them coming. We will send out a thank you gift for every item published in the magazine so do please send your address and contact details when you get in touch. The Facebook account for Amateur Gardening magazine is now up and running again so we hope to see you there. Growing Gesneriads I was delighted to see the article by Michael Perry on gesneriads. I have several, including Saintpaulias, Streptocarpus and Petrocosmeas, and find them very rewarding and easy to care for. I attach a photo of one of my Petrocosmeas in bloom. However, even when not…

I’m sure you’ll share in my dismay at the number of pots that have either been dropped and broken, or have succumbed to frost these past months. We’ve all been there with terracotta pots, in particular, that promise to be frost-proof yet one harsh winter and they’ve shattered or cracked. They aren’t usually worth glueing back together because once their structural integrity is compromised, they’re likely to break again. Now, I’m not one to throw things away and if you’re anything like me you’ll keep hold of all of those broken bits, not really knowing what you’re going to do with them. Perhaps you save them to use as crocks in the bottom of your intact containers to cover the drainage hole? Or maybe they’re relegated to the bin. Luckily,…

■ Have you ever wondered what it might be like to grow a large range of plants for a show garden at one of the world’s most prestigious horticultural shows? Growing for such events is a huge commitment. Our recent involvement with Carol Klein’s ‘Iconic Horticultural Hero’ garden at last year’s RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival, helped us to gain invaluable experience and paved the way for our wonderful collaboration with Emma O’Connell and John Warland, designers of a garden for the charity Freedom from Torture, sponsored by Project Giving Back, which will be appearing at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May. Emma and John were looking for a nursery and team who would be capable of propagating and growing a range of drought tolerant plants naturally adapted to the…

Now that spring is really underway, it’s wonderful to be able to get out and really get stuck into the current list of gardening jobs that need doing this fortnight. Among all the ‘bread-and-butter’ jobs, the weeding and cutting back and mowing that take up so much time now, there is also planting and propagation to be getting on with; two jobs with a glorious sense of positivity that they warm the cockles of even the coldest, dampest gardener. One of these tasks that I have been meaning to do for ages, is planting out a gooseberry bush that is currently growing in a large container. A ‘Hinnomaki Red’ plant, it did very well when we first had it and produced a generous crop of delicious ruby fruits, but the…

Sow herbs for flavour and health Herbs are one group of plants that continually excite me. Just the mere waft of lavender, thyme, basil or lemon balm takes my mind away to holidays, spa days and delicious dishes – they literally are the most wonderful sensory overload! Buying plants to set up your herb garden can be costly, compared to raising the herbs from seed. You’ll ideally want a collection of at least half a dozen plants, which at a garden centre could set you back £30-50. So, how does a mere £15 for well over 200 seedlings sound instead?! And as a bonus, you get to give any spare plants away to friends and family – and who in their right mind wouldn’t want those? So many excellent herbs…

As the winter chill fades and days get brighter, insects emerge from their shelters to enjoy the floral offerings of early spring. Since many insects depend on external sources of heat to warm themselves, they will only emerge when temperatures are high enough. Once the right temperatures are reached, we will notice our green spaces filling with beetles, butterflies and bee-flies. So what are bee-flies? Bee-flies are fascinating insects that have mastered the art of mimicry. These agile, fluffy flying creatures look similar to bees, but are in fact flies. They have only one pair of wings, where bees have two, and their most unmistakable feature is a long, straight, straw-like tongue, known as a proboscis. One of the first bee-fly species seen in spring is the dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius…

To decide if something needs to be done about an insect - or whether said insect can just be left be - start by taking some time to look and learn from what-ever insects you see in your garden. This may seem obvious, but you can learn a lot just by paying close attention. What is the creature doing? Is it visibly damaging your plants? Are there a lot of said potential pests? Is this something that needs to be dealt with now? Can you leave them a day or so to see what happens Could this insect be beneficial in some way useful (e.g., a predator itself)? Are its numbers so low that arguably it could be left? Let common sense prevail. A bed filled with slugs or a…

In terms of where to grow alpines, they are incredibly versatile: Rockery/rock garden: This is the obvious place to plant alpines, but it need not be very big. Just a few well-placed rocks in the corner of a plot can look most fetching. But you should be careful how you build the feature, as a clumsily or unskilfully constructed rockery can spoil the overall garden. A properly constructed rockery provides a great many spaces between the rocks, and these form ideal homes for plants such as sempervivum, saxifraga, small dianthus, saponaria and sedum. Raised beds: As so many alpine species are tiny, it is worth considering making a raised bed dedicated to them. If you are disabled, or find stooping difficult, a raised bed enables you to appreciate the plants at…

All last summer, a steady stream of wasps were coming and going from the roof tiles below my bedroom window. By autumn there were probably at least five thousand wasps in there, but they caused no trouble, nobody was stung and I learned not to read with the light on and window open, or a few would wake up and fly in. The roof was in need of repair but we waited for the wasps to die naturally before booking the work. Lifting the tiles revealed an enormous nest 60cm (24in) across; the biggest our roofers had come across. I was surprised to read that we have 9000 wasp species in the UK, though most are tiny, solitary and often parasitic. Only 9 species are social and ours were probably…

6 of the best – curious bird facts ■ Spring is definitely in the air, and the woodpigeons I can see from my windows are constantly, er, let’s say, “interested in each other!” Let’s look at some amazing ‘birdy’ facts: 1. Birds dream when they sleep. Research conducted by the University of Chicago found that they dream about their songs, have dream rehearsals, and even sing the same songs better the next day. 2. Generally, birds do not sing when they are on the ground; they only sing when standing on something off of the ground, or while flying. 3. The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers. 4. There is a high mortality rate for robins in their first year of life, but once they have passed…

The latest raft of cross-border checks that are due to be implemented in April 2024 as part of Brexit regulations look set to have drastic knock-on effects for plant growers and fruit and veg suppliers here and in Europe. This will, of course, result in higher prices across the board, on top of already noticeably-increased prices in garden centres and nurseries everywhere - which is the perfect incentive to get us propagating more and buying less! We are at the start of the peak time for dividing plants and taking cuttings from healthy new growth and if you think you’ve already got more than enough of any one particular plant, exchange their cuttings or divisions for other varieties among your neighbours, or contact your local gardening group, Transition Town or…

Our houseplants slowed down over winter, but now is a great time to prepare them for spring. My houseplant collection has been gathered over a decade and I now share my flat with around 200 plants. They are living creatures, so get into the habit of checking on their welfare. Part of my indoor gardening routine is a daily tour to remove dead materials in the top of pots to avoid spreading disease, and inspect for ‘pests’. This includes scale insects, which can cluster on the stems and under leaves, and can be rubbed off between finger and thumb. Red spider mites can also puncture leaves, causing tissue damage that appears as small yellow or brown dots. Spray or wipe leaves with water to stop the problem escalating. This will…

If you can see meLook into my eyesI am your friendI am not a spyLook into my eyesYou will see a small friendly animal who would do you no harmLook into my eyesI can’t see a trimmerThese can make me go blindKeep your garden friendly and help keep me aliveLook into my eyesI will give you pleasureI am a hedgehogI want to stay alive Please send us your letters, poems and musings Your contribution is such an important part of this magazine for the future. AG is for you the people, for gardeners and proud custodians of gardens everywhere, so please do write in. We will send a gift for each letter, poem and musing published. Address: Kim Stoddart | Amateur Gardening magazine | Kelsey Publishing Ltd. | The Granary |…

Hooray for March. I made the mistake of looking up March on the internet and several hours later here I am! Things I learnt include; March is named after Mars, the Roman God of War. It’s the meteorological start of spring for the northern hemisphere, Its birthstone is aquamarine and bloodstone, and its birth flower is the daffodil which in Persian culture symbolises the New Year! We love the colour and joy that daffodils (narcissus) bring, and there are so many to choose from ranging in colour, size and form. Wikipedia note that historical accounts suggest narcissi have been cultivated from the earliest times becoming increasingly popular in Europe after the 16th century. This long history of breeding has resulted in thousands of cultivars. On a more earthly note, I…

Jos works as part of the retail and customer experience team, managing the direct sales orders and sales accounts, working alongside the garden and production team to achieve this. Jobs for this fortnight GARDEN: Jet wash any paths and steps that may have become slippery over winter Finish pruning roses Remove developing seedheads on daffodils but leave the foliage to die back naturally Cut cotinus and dogwoods back to a framework to promote vigorous new growth PROPAGATION: Keep an eye out for any pests on greenhouse and polytunnel grown plants Lift, divide and plant snowdrops ‘in the green’ Take cuttings from overwintered half-hardy plants ready for planting out when the risk of frost has passed…

This month our soil begins to warm and we can start sowing hardy plants in the ground. This can give us the very finest specimens as they grow without check from potting and planting out. Indeed some crops and many flowering annuals cannot sensibly be sown elsewhere and transplanted so must be sown in situ anyway. On the other hand, where possible, sowing under cover in cells or pots and planting out has huge advantages. We can start earlier, it is more certain, and there’s less risk from weather, birds and so on. As with much of gardening it’s swings and roundabouts, ideally we do both whenever possible, and in several batches. Generally the first sowings outdoors are peas, broad beans and roots, maybe the cabbages in a seedbed. All…