Innholdsfortegnelse for 3-May-2025 i Amateur Gardening

I’m often moved by many of the lovely emails and letters you send in. It’s so good to know what you especially like about the magazine, to hear your ideas and suggestions going forward. I’ve had a few emails recently suggesting Amateur Gardening mag founder Shirley Hibberd would be so pleased with the direction the magazine is going in, and I can’t tell you how thrilled we were as a result. This magazine has such a rich history and was created all those years ago as a down-to-earth gardening guide for the masses. It’s so important for us to honour this legacy and to carry forth the ethos of providing welcoming, up-to-date expert advice for keen gardeners everywhere. It’s also important to remember the past and connect with it, bringing…

You’re like a child in a sweetie shop! said Mr Hayes as I excitedly browsed the selection of plug plants on display at the local garden centre. And he wasn’t wrong! The range of ornamental and vegetable plug plants available in late spring is as seductive as the old Woolworth’s pick’n’mix counter was to the severely sweet-toothed, and once you start filling your basket it can be hard to stop! These little plants, a halfway house between seedling and fully mature, are a gift to gardeners, a relatively inexpensive way of filling your summer pots, baskets, borders and veg patches. Garden centres and online retailers have them in abundance now, very often with decent discounts for the more plants you buy - I bought eight including a fuchsia, two petunias,…

Don’t you just love the vitamin-packed leaves of spinach and chard? And before I start, I should clarify that here I’m talking about annual spinach, perpetual spinach and Swiss chard (although confusingly, these belong to two different botanical groups). Annual spinach is the diva of the trio, because it has a tendency not to stand well (i.e. it runs to flower quickly). Regular watering and repeat direct sowings every month or so get over this issue – you can also source slow-to-bolt varieties such as ‘Medania’ and ‘Helios’. These transplants that I have here were sown early under cover to ensure good emergence, but you can sow direct from mid-April onwards. They’ll go in a shadier position, because the cool and moist conditions encourage lush, abundant leaves and deter premature…

A few weeks ago I got a new houseplant for the kitchen and then I got another, and another, and I seem to be in a bit of a pickle with them at the moment. The problem being that I can’t stop buying new houseplants! With windowsill space at an extreme minimum in my house, these poor plants are being relegated to far forgotten corners and as a result are suffering, however there is a solution! Instead of adding them to every window in your house, have you thought about taking them up in the world? And before you look to the skies for the answer, allow me to show you how to make a surprisingly super-simple but extremely satisfying hanger for your plants. Step 1 - form the base…

I love tulips. I know you feel the same. There’s just something about them, isn’t there? Is it the range of colours, or shapes, or patterns- or indeed all of the above? The scent too, it’s always worth stopping and smelling the tulips, as many cultivars have a nice sugary scent. I simply adore them. As soon as I could, I booked my first trip of 2025 to the Keukenhof Gardens in The Netherlands. Originally a test garden for suppliers to grow their bulbs, this garden has developed into an international tourist destination over the years. My favourite spot is the Willem-Alexander Pavilion, where new and existing tulips are showcased in trial beds. The plant hunter in me couldn’t help but browse, and here I have chosen some of my…

Peas are one of those crops that folk too often forget, perhaps thinking the frozen ones are the same. Yet when peas are fresh they can be among the best gourmet experiences. Plus, these plants are rather easy to grow, consistently productive and they enrich the soil with nitrogen after they die off. Perhaps it’s the perceived eived faff of podding that puts people off, though I’ve an answer to that, picked up in France, which I’ll come to later. First, sowing peas - right now is fine for all varieties. A wide drill is often still recommended and was once perfectly good advice, when peas were to climb up through a hedge of twiggy sticks planted over them. However as many, if not most, folk who grow peas train…

May is a beautiful bean month for me. Whether it’s broads (sown in early spring), runners or climbing French – these crops are a must-have at my allotment, providing a regular dose of tasty, nutrient-rich harvests. What’s more, the flowers and resulting beans can come in a striking ornamental range of colours and patterns. Beans are also perfect for pots Dwarf varieties of French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) only grow to 30cm (12in) tall. They can be interplanted and supported with twigs and flowers, while taller types can be trained up a wigwam. And if you go for heritage varieties with colourful blooms that are brilliant for bees, they’re as good as any ornamental – but with fresh food to boot. I like to sow dwarf and French bean seeds 5cm…

Our large garden makes a lot of growth, has wild edges and will ‘eat’ tools if they are carelessly left lying about. Smaller tools such as rakes and hoes don’t stand a chance, while bundles of canes and even ladders have disappeared for months or even years at a time, swamped and woven with long grass, nettles and the tentacles of ivy and brambles. I’ve been driving myself mad trying to find an ancient and odd-looking tool resembling a giant metal pin, over a metre long and with a bluntly pointed end. I think it is a short, thick type of digging bar which if hefted vertically at our flinty clay soil and then wiggled to and fro, is the best way of making deep holes for hazel poles or…

There are two things that gardeners are always short of: compost and water. Although rain in the UK is generally not in short supply, our ability to collect it has waned over the past few decades. Nationally, we need more reservoirs - modern lives with our power showers, washing machines and dishwashers and so forth are rapidly draining us dry. However, there are ways of saving water inside and out of our homes. You can set up a system that recycles your greywater (water that has been used for light washing up or collected from the shower) or you can pump bath water out of the bathroom window and into a water butt. This ‘grey’ water can be used on the garden as long as you haven’t added anything to…

I have to put my hands up here and say I’m not a massive fan of most bedding plants, but I’ll make an exception for cosmos. I’m an absolute sucker for their open, generous flowers and delicate foliage and I love the way they bring light and air to the summer garden. They are a half hardy annual, so aren’t the greatest fans of our cooler climate, but once they get going in warmer weather they will flower right through to the autumn. We sometimes receive letters from readers wondering why their cosmos have grown well with lots of verdant leaves, but haven’t flowered. The reason is probably because they need more potassium around their roots - the nutrient that prompts flowering and fruiting. The easy way to get round…

How do you read your copy of AG? Dear Kim, Reading Sarah’s letter in the 5th April issue prompted me to tell you how I enjoy my AG. I’ve been a subscriber for many years now, so my copy arrives on a Saturday, usually when I’m busy with shopping, sport, and family. Sunday is MY gardening day, after which I have a nice long soak in a bubble bath, with ‘the works’, scented candle, a nice chocolate, a G&T and of course my AG. The family know it’s more than their lives are worth to disturb me. Sorry, no pics as the world just isn’t ready for that! Ha ha. Regards, Sue Sullivan Kim says; we love it. Thank you so much Sue for sharing how you AG with us.…

There’s a wonderful warmth that orange flowers can bring to the garden, often more subtle than bright pinks and reds and less cool in tone than yellows. But if subtle isn’t what you are looking for, there are some strong, bold orange flowers that can add striking notes to the scene as well. Team orange flowers with purple, blue or hot pink to make all the colours pop, or group with apricot, yellow and cream for a more blended, restful result. Calendula officinalis Common or pot marigold is one of the easiest to grow plants. Scatter seeds where you want them to grow and within a few months, they will be flowering. Usually grown as an annual, they are hardy throughout most of UK and Ireland. They self-seed freely and…

Happy Birthday to us! 141 years of practical advice 1884 The world’s oldest gardening magazine 2025 With this issue of AG – being dated 3 May – we are marking exactly 141 years of (more or less) continuous publishing. AG has survived two world wars, countless crises, financial crashes, changing monarchs and governments, and, of course, the rise of TV, radio and the Internet. AG was there before it all. When the magazine was launched, in 1884, William Gladstone was Britain’s Prime Minister, Chester A. Arthur was US President, and Oscar Wilde was being outrageous. Queen Victoria was 65, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (not yet a ‘Sir’) was just 25! It is truly amazing that, with all of today’s modern commercial pressures, AG is still here, 141 years later.…

How can I help our bromeliad? Bromeliads are fussy characters and can fail unexpectedly Q I bought a bromeliad several monthsago. The leaves appear healthy but the plant has remained looking the same as the day I bought it. It hasn’t flowered and the flower spike looks quite dry. Will it recover? It is in my bathroom which is quite cool and away from direct sunlight. Xanthe North (via email) A Thank you for the attached image. Sadly, having experienced the same thing myself, despite lavishing great care on looking after it, it did nothing for about a year, then died. But we don’t want to disillusion you, so continue treating it well – sitting it on a drip tray of damp grit, misting it daily to simulate its native…

You might not see plants growing but during the ‘rush of spring’, you can certainly hear the pops and squeaks as buds break open and fresh leaves unfurl in the sunshine. I think of these sounds as the spirit-lifting mood music of spring, but while I love to tune in, the longer I listen, the greater my awareness that the sowing, mowing, planting and weeding that I intended to finish last week still needs starting! There are only so many hours in the are invaluable. Here’s a few of mine… Easy and effective watering When watering the dozens of pots in my greenhouse, I use the ‘kinked hose’ nursery trick that allows you to adjust the flow of water without going back and forth to the tap. This is a…