Innholdsfortegnelse for 25-Jan-25 i Amateur Gardening

January is notorious as a bit of a tricky month all round, with continuing reduced light levels and biting cold as our precious outdoor spaces sit bare boned and in slumber. Of course, there are signs of life and green shoots if you look for them, and on a crisp winter’s morning the daybreak can provide the most heartwarming and colourful display, while the excitable chatter of the birds’ frenzy on the feeders never fails to delight. With the natural world in semi and complete hibernation, our own energy levels will, by default, also be reduced, so please do bear this in mind. While it’s lovely to be outside, this is also a time for a little guilt-free rest. It’s an opportunity, more so than ever, to garden as you…

1 Dig widely and carefully around the roots of the tree or shrub, and wrap them in plastic after lifting. 2 Use a cane or rule to gaugethe correct planting depth so you don’t overplant. Make sure all the roots fit in the hole. 3 Get someone to hold thetree or shrub steady and upright while you add soil and compost all over the roots. 4 Tread down the soil as you goto knock out air pockets and make sure the tree is well supported, then water generously.…

These thorny bushes are worth the growing space due to the deliciously tart fruits they produce in abundance. I grow mine as fans to save space and make dodging the prickles easier – plus it also makes bird protection with cages an absolute synch. Now is the time to step in and prune them, here’s how to do it: 1 Check plants for the three Ds (dead, diseased and damaged growth). These are a priority for removal to keep bushes healthy and also looking their best. As tempting as it is to dive straight into steps 2 and 3, do this first because part of the beauty of fans is their symmetry, and making sure you carry out this stage shows you what you have left to play with. 2…

January can feel like a dull month after the festivities of Christmas and new year, but look closely and you’ll see small signs of nature slowly awakening, with all the hope that brings. Listen – and you might even be rewarded with birdsong! Song thrushes can start being vocal from late January, making them one of just a handful of birds you might hear now. As we nudge finally into spring and birds start singing in earnest in preparation for the breeding season, song thrushes are one of the first to start singing in the morning – they really are the early bird! The clue is in the name, but they have a distinctive and very pleasant voice which is loud and clear, and usually sing a series of repeated…

I love this time of year in the garden, when most plants are still slumbering and I can see the bare bones of the plot. It’s a wonderful time for planning and dreaming about the growing year ahead, and getting all of those maintenance jobs done before the busyness of sowing and growing starts. In the greenhouse, the first seeds of the new year are germinating on the gentle heat provided by heated propagation mats. These are chillies, sweet peppers and my special passion, aubergines, which require a long growing period to crop abundantly in our climate. A warm windowsill works well, too. Once they have sprouted and been pricked out, they’ll require plenty of light to grow strongly. A simple technique is to make a reflector from kitchen foil…

In this resilient gardening series I’m sharing step by step instructions on how to make useful and beautiful items for the garden with found and unwanted objects, plus a host of horticultural top tips and perfect plant combinations. As someone undergoing treatment for cancer, I draw on my recent experiences to share with you thoughts on how these projects can benefit our collective wellbeing and happiness at a time of the year when being in the garden isn’t necessarily the most appealing thought that springs to mind! Although great efforts are being made to manufacture plant pots in sustainable materials, such as wool and cardboard, there are still many non-recyclable plastic pots in circulation. A 2018 Which? Gardening report estimated there are 500 million of them out there, many un-recyclable…

Gardening and the poets! AG receives lots of reader poetry of a gardening flavour, and these poems are often included on the Letters pages. You may therefore be interested to know that 25th January is Burns Night, celebrating the birth, in 1759, of the person widely regarded as Scotland’s ‘national poet’. His most famous poem with a gardening connection is A Red, Red Rose. ■ Many believe that Burns is also responsible for the ditty “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, And so are you”, but the author of this isn’t known. Actually, its origins have been traced back as far as 1590! The most famous gardening poem English poet Dorothy Frances Gurney (1858-1932) is credited for writing arguably the most famous poem about the garden. It…

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■ Just up the road from where we live is a cottage that always has the most amazing display of hollyhocks in its front garden. ■ In a range of delicious shades, they tower over passers-by and are a delight to see. ■ Our hollyhocks do OK, but not as well as the ones down the road, possibly because we live at the top of a hill and the garden is often blasted by winds. ■ So this year I’m going to satisfy my appetite for hollyhocks by growing a variety called ‘Majorette Mixed’, which only grows to around 90cm (3ft) tall, making plants more weather resilient and perfect for the middle or front of the border. ■ ‘Majorette Mixed’ come in shades of pink and the flowers are multi-petalled,…

Many gardens have at least one spot that remains damp for much of the year and it can be hard to know what to plant to provide a splash of colour. As the climate becomes more challenging for gardeners, choosing plants that are naturally right for our particular microclimate makes increasing sense, and will be more cost effective and less work in the longer term. This selection of plants provides interest at differing times of the year, with exciting flowers, colourful foliage or interesting shapes and forms. I continue to grow most of these in my own garden because I know that they perform well. Kerria japonica ‘Pleniflora’ The first time I saw kerria flowers, I thought that they looked like scruffy pom poms floating in the air. This spreading…

I used to think of January as a month made entirely of depressing Sunday nights, when weekend cheer was replaced by thoughts of cruel toil at the ‘coal face’, aka primary school. I’ve grown up since then and although the first part of the month still casts a ‘Sunday before school’ shadow, I’ve learnt to appreciate the small wins that appear as the month breaks into a jog towards February. For example, this week, we’ll bask in eight hours and 53 minutes of daylight, which might be a long way off the 12 to 12-hour parity of the Spring equinox, but it is an increase of a whole hour compared with the gloom of a month ago. Plants make use of extra sunlight I always like to see the snowdrops…

You don’t have to travel to the moon and back to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the much-loved children’s classic Guess How Much I Love You because this year the RHS is celebrating it in all five of its gardens. The iconic book by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram has sold more than 60 million copies worldwide and continues to be a global bedtime story favourite. Launching in the February school half-term, young visitors will be able to experience a playful interactive trail and family activities which bring to life the story and illustrations of the book’s large and small hares. Connecting children and their families with the joy of gardens, gardening and nature, the delightful trails will re-enact some of the actions and adventures of the Little Nutbrown Hare…

Regular readers of my pages will know how much I adore herbs – they’re little powerhouses of flavour that can transform your cooking. No other plants have the ability to make me salivate (yes, really!) when I brush past them in the garden and release their scent. Dill, basil, parsley and chervil regularly grace my spring propagator, but what other herbs can be raised readily from seed? With hefty credit card bills hitting most doormats this month, many of us would appreciate some financial savings in the garden, so let me help you find them. It’s simple – would you rather buy one plant from the garden centre for £4.99, or a packet containing 200 seeds for £3.50? I know where my money is going! Of course, not all seeds…

What a joy to see the delicate, nodding heads of snowdrops making an appearance in the garden, signalling the long-awaited start of the growing year. Although some flowers are fleeting, extending the display from late autumn throughout winter is possible by planting a range of well-chosen species and cultivars. Galanthus elwesii Hiemalis Group is the first to bravely emerge at the end of autumn, although the flowers can unfortunately get overlooked among the season’s fallen leaves and spent plant material. Enjoy snowdrops up close by growing them individually in pots to inspect their distinct markings, or plant en masse to create carpets of white beneath deciduous trees, or alongside fellow harbingers of spring such as winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), pulmonaria and narcissus, all unfazed by winter’s worst. Grow in sun…

The urge to kick-start the growing season with early sowings is hard to resist - and why should you? As long as cold-hardy crops are managed well, getting ahead is a good plan in all but the coldest regions. Unheated glass will protect from wind and rain and the golden rule while light levels are still low is sowing thinly to avoid seedling competition. The struggle for light and space faced by thickets of seedlings forces them upwards on long, thin stems vulnerable to fungal damping off diseases. My list for unheated January sowings is a short one but includes parsley, summer cabbage, calabrese, spinach, beetroot and chard. If you use a heated mat or propagator to help them along, don’t use too much heat and remove the newly germinated…

Thornless loganberry This cross between a raspberry and a North American blackberry happened by happy accident in California back in 1881. The long, juicy, purplish-red fruits are delicious but be sure to plant in well-drained soil. www.otterfarm.co.uk Tayberry ‘Buckingham’ This blackberry and raspberry cross was once a thorny beast but this newer hybrid is smooth stemmed yet still vigorous and productive, yielding plenty of juicy sharp-tasting fruits from July. www.blackmoor.co.uk ‘Boysenberry’ I was once given a thorny boysenberry and found it vigorous and fruitful, bearing delicious large dark purple berries good to eat raw when fully ripe. Training the stems was never without injury and I’d definitely try the thornless option, to crop from August. www.chrisbowers.co.uk…

Which products or projects would you like Adam to cover and trial in his column? Please contact editor@amateurgardening.com with suggestions. I’ve always thought that every gardener needs two things: a good pair of secateurs and some trusty outdoor footwear, so over the past year I’ve tried numerous different boots and shoes and have finally come up with my suggestions for not only you, but your family as well. Slip on shoes I often find that I want to quickly run out into the garden at times, without needing to find bigger boots, or ones that need to be laced up, and the perfect way to do just that is with a quick slip on shoes designed for that exact purpose. Backdoorshoes® have absolutely come up with the ideal solution to…

24 Jan: Snowdrop Festival at the Garden House – with plant sales from Somerset-based Elworthy Cottage Plants, at The Garden House. Buckland Monachorum, Yelverton, Devon, PL20 7LQ. 10.30am-3.30pm. Snowdrop festival at The Garden House continues until Sunday March 16. Visit www.thegardenhouse.org.uk/whats-on/snowdrop-festival for more details. 25 Jan: Myddleton House Gardens Ultimate Snowdrop Sale, Myddelton House Gardens, Bulls Cross, Enfield, Middlesex, EN2 9HG. 10.30am-noon. 25-26 Jan: Orchid Festival, Gordale Garden Centre, Chester High Road (A540), Burton, South Wirral, Cheshire, CH64 8TF. 9am-6pm Sat, 11am-5pm Sun. 25 Jan: Snowdrop Gala and other Spring Treasures, Ballykealey House, Ballon, Co. Carlow. Ireland, R93 A9K1. From noon. 25, 27, 29 & 31 Jan: Shirley Carman-Martin’s Snowdrop Garden, 5 Whitemans Close, Cuckfield, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH17 5DE. 11am-3.30pm. Pre-bookings only, email shirleycarmanmartin@gmail.com. 25-26 Jan: Celebrating Stroud…

The days are getting longer and all of us, in our own ways, have settled into the rhythm of winter. Maybe it’s a later start in the mornings or, as it is with me, an earlier retreat to bed with a mug of chamomile tea and a good book. It is a time for being snug and warm, to rest where we can and prepare for the year ahead. The same applies in the garden, where most plants are dormant, building their resources for the coming growing season. It is now, when plants are hibernating, that we must seize the moment and do any garden bed restructuring that’s needed. As long as the soil isn’t waterlogged or frozen, the late winter weeks on the cusp of spring is the time…

1 Much as I love the moles, the lawn is looking like the Andes so we’re busy shovelling up the soil and adding it to the borders before scattering repellent granules over the bare soil patches. I’ll re-seed them in spring when the weather warms up. 2 Worse than the molehills are the tunnels they create under the lawn, which can trip you up and sprain an ankle if you don’t have your wits about you. Another use for molehill soil is to lift the grass over the runways and fill them with excavated soil, before firming it down, replacing the soil and watering the turf to help it knit back together.…

1 Make sure your snowdrops ‘in the sure your snowdrops ‘in the green’ are healthy, with firm bulbs and good top growth. Keep their roots wrapped up until you plant them - but don’t let them dry out and plant as soon as you can. If the soil is waterlogged or frozen, pop them into pots of peat-free multipurpose compost. 2 When you come to plant, get your snowdrops in the ground at the same depth they were growing before - you can tell by the tidemark of soil around the stems and leaves. Firm the soil around them and water well, then let them die back naturally.…

Turkey berries ✿ Also known as the pea eggplant, this aubergine relative is a key ingredient in many Thai curries and pastes, and other world cuisines. The plant looks to all intents and purposes like a white-flowered nightshade, so please do ensure you buy seeds (Solanum torvum) from a reputable source. The pea-sized green fruits have a firm texture and are borne in clusters. Sow as you would any other solanum, such as tomatoes and chillies (i.e. at approx. 20-25°C in a propagator in early spring). Best grown as a glasshouse plant in the UK for warmth, support the lax stems with canes and twine if necessary. Harvest as and when the berries are needed – they turn speckled yellow once fully ripe.…

Generally, ficus plants are tolerant of light or shade, thriving in direct sunlight as well as in a dark position in the home where many other houseplants would give up. Variegated forms must have bright, indirect light; if kept in the shade, they will lose their super-attractive markings. As for watering, apply it little and often, but allow the soil to dry out slightly before watering. If Ficus elastica is moved from one room situation to another, it may drop a couple of leaves, until it has adjusted itself to the new conditions. Precisely because it is so durable, Ficus elastica can grow very tall. If it grows too tall, the top can be cut off – during spring – after which the plant will produce two or three new…

Your lovely letters, emails and social media posts continue to flow in beautifully. 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. A novel planter idea Hello Kim Recently I discovered hopper gardening. I buy old cast iron rainwater hoppers from my local auction house, clean them and paint them glossy black. I fill the outlet at the bottom with crocks plus a piece of wire mesh, which holds the compost in place and gives good drainage. I then fill the hopper with compost and plants; they make great displays, looking good on their own and in groups. They…

If flared jeans, brown and orange kipper ties, wedge shoes and The Dooleys were to make a comeback, I’d be the coolest kid on the block – I use the term ‘kid’ loosely, of course. And, as many things from previous times tend to have a resurgence in popularity, I’m ready to raid the bottom om drawer of my bedroom cupboard and my vinyl collection! Cutting-edge fashion rolls in on high tides, before drawing out, all too quickly, on a tired and saturated outgoing ebb-tide. It’s not just clothes and music though, as cars, colours, homeware and even plants are at the mercy of a population intent on possessing trending chattels. I remember my Uncle Jack tending a pristine platoon of kaleidoscopically coloured dahlias in his front garden in the…

It’s never too early to start planning your summer containers and baskets, so this week I’m going to be sowing the seeds of an old favourite - Begonia semperflorens. These cute little dots of colour, which are also known as wax begonias, have long been favoured by gardeners but they disappeared for several years because older varieties were prone to diseases. Resistant varieties have now been cultivated and they are thankfully back with a bang, bringing joy and colour to gardens everywhere. Begonia semperflorens are perennials but usually treated as annuals and composted at the end of summer, though with care and a frost-free place it is possible to nurse them through the coldest months. Start sowing them from now through to early spring, scattering the seeds as thinly as…

How to plant a bare-root rose Q As I was reading through the 9 Nov issue of Amateur Gardening, I read Ruth saying you should plant a rose either at or just above soil level. We have just come back from a rose planting and pruning day with Peter Beales Roses where we were told to plant with the union (the place where the stems meet the rootstock) one-two inches below the soil level - this anchors the plant firmly and prevents windrock. I have cross-checked with my RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening and the advice is the same there. For extra measure I also checked the David Austin website: again the same advice is given - complete with a video clip to show how it is done. What is the…

Your plant recommendations from expert plantsman, Michael. Ready for something new in 2025? Here’s the hottest selection of new houseplants that have been wowing the crowds across the trade shows of Europe. There’s a plant for every room and situation, and these specimens represent a much more exciting proposition than growing a peace lily yet again! Tamarind A super innovation from those clever guys in The Netherlands. Tamarind is a spice you’ve probably heard of, but I bet you didn’t know what the plant looked like. I certainly didn’t. And I am always a sucker for anything that has pinnate leaves, acacia-style. A welcome addition to any interior. Flowerpops Pot Chrysanthemum Who said chrysanthemums can’t be cool? Certainly not me! I am feeling super excited about this new pot chrysanth…

With increasingly difficult weather, there’s sense in concentrating more on perennial crops. Trees and shrubs may suffer, but will often still produce harvests in adverse conditions when annual nual crops fail. They are also firmly in the ground and growing away when it may be near-impossible due to the wet or cold to sow or plant vegetables. Mind you, there have to be half-decent conditions to plant trees and shrubs properly, although the window to do so is larger. Pot-grown specimens can be planted almost any day of the year, but only if you’re methodical with watering them from then on during dry periods. However, planting during the next three months is better providing your soil’s neither frozen nor waterlogged. Bare-rooted plants are a better choice than those in containers,…