Innholdsfortegnelse for 8-Mar-2025 i Amateur Gardening

Who doesn’t dream of having an orchard some day? The idea of picking fresh fruits in autumn, maybe making some cider, is a strong and rather lovely image. It’s a classic River Cottage idyll no less. Whilst we don’t all have Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s budget, or space, it is perfectly feasibly to weave a few apple, pear, damson or other fruit trees into your garden. You don’t need to have a dedicated orchard either as these trees can be added around existing plantings, making the best use of the space you have available. As one who lives 750ft above sea level in the wilds of West Wales, I was told that fruit tree planting was an absolute ‘no no’ on my land. Fifteen years later I’m pleased to report that my…

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May and June are colourful months in the ornamental garden. Plenty of lush green growth provides a backdrop for some simply fantastic floral stars. Choose one or two star plants that create pops of drama in your garden beds, or fill your borders with showstoppers to create a feast for the eyes. Most of this selection are easy to grow and easy to care for and all earn a place on my ‘must-have’ list for their eyecatching qualities. Papaver orientale A clumping forming herbaceous perennial that has showy, but short-lived flowers, though luckily an established clump will continue to bloom over a period of weeks. They are easy to grow on all soil types. The Oriental poppy requires full sun and it will fail to thrive in very dry or…

I’ve been growing in polytunnels, both professionally and at home, for 15 years. Learning how to nurture even more food year-round using these large undercover spaces is an ongoing journey of discovery. There’s always something new to learn, especially in recent years with our increasingly erratic climate. My polytunnel is productive all year round In March I am picking salads, herbs, many kinds of greens for cooking and early carrots and spring onions, all sown or planted the previous autumn for harvesting through the winter and spring. Towards the end of April these are gradually replaced by summer crops including tomatoes, aubergines, melons and cucumbers. There are perennials too Peach and nectarine trees, pruned to keep them small, thrive undercover and are protected from winter rains that can cause diseases…

The National Amateur Gardening Magazine Show returns this July with a weekend of interactive gardening fun at the popular South of England showground in Sussex on the 12th and 13th July. It’s an opportunity for AG magazine readers and gardeners of all ages to come and meet gardening celebrities, browse lots of lovely plants and products and learn useful hands-on skills. As well as TV star Charlie Dimmock, the line-up of expert speakers across the weekend includes TV presenter and award-winning designer Manoj Maldé, AG’s Gardening Columnist of the Year at the GMG Awards and BBC presenter Toby Buckland, BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time’s Anne Swithinbank, YouTube sensation and best selling Sunday Times author Huw Richards. Plus, multi award-winning editor and climate change gardening expert Kim Stoddart, Lucy Chamberlain,…

I always celebrate the biodiversity of our garden, but this joyous acceptance of all creatures great and small has been tested to its limits of late. After a fierce late winter storm I lifted a drain cover to check for debris and discovered an almighty clutch of snails clustered round the edge like carbuncles. I said a rude word and relocated the critters in a field over the road, but the sight of so many snails in one place is a warning, perhaps, of how our gardening year is going to go. The tilting climate is often proving beneficial to potential pests, enabling more overwintering, breeding and the potential for problems especially when plants have been weakened by extreme weather events. But forewarned is forearmed, and the organic gardener has…

As the growing season gets closer it’s hard not to get excited about the wonderful organic food we raise from seed. It’s time to start readying our seed beds and propagators, and starting off some of the classics of the British dinner table: the root crops, which can be grown in deep containers and raised beds. Perfect parsnips Parsnips are full of flavour and it’s hard to imagine a Sunday dinner without them. Germinating parsnips is always patchy. The seeds have low viability in a short space of time and the crop can often be disappointing. As they need cooler temperatures, a propagator is out of the question – but the humble toilet roll provides the perfect solution! Sown directly into toilet rolls with a good peat-free compost, then packed…

As gardeners, all we really want to do is to look after our plants to the best of our ability and knowledge. But actually, even without our intervention, most plants would be able to fend for themselves – and quite successfully, too. Nature has enabled plants to develop their own strategies for survival. If you think about it, to varying degrees, plants can do their own pruning, or control their own pests. Some can even feed and water themselves. Some of the abilities are well known and fairly obvious, such as cacti and succulents being able to store water within their structures, to use when it is in short supply. Other phenomena are less well-known. But the one thing that can be said of them all is that they are…

Sometimes it’s the small things in life which bring the most joy. At this time of year, as we head out of the doldrums of late winter, our gardens yawn quietly, stretching slowly as they awaken from their deep slumbers, poised and ready to reveal the promise and glorious expectations of early spring. It’s now that our gardens share with us some of their most diminutive yet dazzling delights. Tiny white snow drops pushing valiantly through frost-encrusted bleak borders, the happy, smiling faces of winter-flowering pansies fluttering in chilly winds and tapestries of white, gold and purple crocus clustered cheek-by-jowl under the bare boughs of twisted trees, all heralding the much-anticipated arrival of a new gardening year. Alongside these much-treasured trinkets is one of my early-season favourites, the perennial dwarf…

The spring month of March brings longer days and beautiful renewal in the garden. It’s not just plants outside that begin to wake up after the winter months but houseplants also need some attention at this time of year ready for the brighter, warmer seasons ahead. How exciting! Just seeing plants in bud, the sound of birdsong and daylight hours shifting to provide more vitamin D, brings the sense of new beginnings, new opportunities and of course, new plants! There is no better time of year to be outside, breathing in the fresh air and observing the natural world stirring, to give you a jaunty spring in your step. This time of year is a reminder that things will come good and there are always possibilities and opportunities for new…

Garden centres are the lifeblood of the horticulture industry, and they have been celebrated at this year’s Garden Centre Association conference. Peter Burks, GCA Chief Executive, said: “Each year, our members go from strength to strength. All our worthy winners and runners up in each category should be very proud of the example they set. I’d like to congratulate every one of them.” Garden centres have evolved into much more than plant retailers, and the awards reflected this, with a range of accolades for ‘destination’ garden centres and catering. Among the winners were Squires Garden Centre, Reigate (GCA training award), Pyle Garden Centre (Dick Allen Award for most improved), Perrywood Garden Centre, Tiptree (Barton Grange Trophy for Commercial Creativity and Innovation as well as the customer service award), Castle Gardens,…

Whenever disaster strikes, the gardening world likes to pull together to help each other out and now experts from Kew Gardens in London are ready to help mend storm damage at one of Scotland’s leading botanic sites. Hundreds of rare and historic trees in the living collection of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which has four sites across Scotland, were damaged or felled when Storm Eowyn roared across the country in January. Edinburgh’s tallest tree, a 166-year-old Himalayan cedar, was toppled while 300 trees were lost at Benmore Botanic Garden in Argyll, with a further 142 damaged. As well as damage to the trees, plants growing under and around them were broken and crushed by falling trunks and debris, and experts believe it will cost an estimated £1 million to…

I know, I know, March is here and all we want to do is get outside and get stuck into some spring gardening, but spare a thought, please, for your houseplants. They are also responding to increased light levels and the rise in temperatures, and will be starting to grow again. I am always pleased to see that our houseplants have come through winter unscathed, and on days when it’s too cold and wet to do much outside I find it very soothing to potter indoors, caring for our domestic greenery. The first step is to wipe down their leaves with a soft, damp cloth. This removes all the dust and debris that has accumulated through winter and also gives me the chance to spot and deal with any pests.…

One thing I’ve learnt over the past few years is that there is no end to the list of plants that turn out to have edible qualities, let alone the common crops that have multiple harvest types. As a permaculturalist, my job is to try and find as many uses each plant can provide, in order to raise the total ‘usefulness’ of my garden, so any extra edible harvests s that cross my radar are always very welcome If we adjust our perspective on what is edible, suddenly every garden across the country jumps in productivity for no extra effort. Broad bean tops, cauliflower leaves, radish seed pods, calendula leaves and flowers, bramble shoots and hawthorn berries are all examples of lesser known potential foods, and I hope some of…

Take a breath - can you smell spring in the air? There’s definitely signs of life springing up all around us outside and, with that in mind, here are a few fun projects to encourage you to go outside and get ahead in the garden. Make heavy containers mobile How many times have you struggled to move a large container full of compost? It happens often in my garden, especially when bulbs have finished flowering, but they still need to keep photosynthesising for six weeks before they can be removed. During this time I want to see fresh flowers blossoming! I’ve solved the problem really easily by attaching heavy duty swivel castors to pots, which can be bought online or from any of the major DIY stores. Top tips ■…