Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i BBC Gardeners' World

Secret Garden Unlock the subscriber-only area of our website, the Secret Garden, where you’ll find extra features, video and offers created just for readers like you. Find your Subscriber Number on the address sheet to enter and explore what’s new and exclusive! Cruise with Carol Sail round the stunning coastline of Cornwall and Devon, travelling with like-minded readers – and meet Carol as part of our exclusive trip. Find out more on p78. Enter to win! Don’t miss your last chance to enter our subscriber-only competition, to win £3,000-worth of Makita gardening kit. Enter by midday on 9 August at bit.ly/makita-tools Recycling update For the past year, we’ve been trialling different methods of delivering your subscriber copy to you, while ensuring your copy reaches you in perfect condition. Our preferred…

Get into nature’s gym As a qualified physiotherapist working predominantly with patients over 65, I was really pleased to read the article on the benefits of gardening as a physical activity (Grow Yourself Healthy: Keeping Fit, July). Some of my patients’ most valuable rehabilitation occurs outside of their sessions when they’re doing something they enjoy, like gardening. I shall encourage my patients to read your article and advise those who are averse to the gym to get out into the garden. Jamie Hawthorn, Salisbury We say: Turn to page 47 to find out how gardening can also improve your memory and keep your brain healthy. Star cover I must congratulate you on the lovely cover of the July issue of BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine. This is the sort of garden…

There’s still time to sow quick-growing varieties of lettuce, rocket and oriental leaves for autumn harvests. • Sow into modules, sprinkling a few tiny seeds into each. Water in and keep in the greenhouse. If several germinate, thin out the weakest, leaving the strongest to grow on. • Harden off in a coldframe for a week – close it at night and open it each morning. • Plant out the sturdy young plants when they have four or more leaves. • Harvest either individual leaves or whole plants throughout autumn.…

1 Provide invisible support Staking can make an enormous difference, but it’s vital to do it in advance rather than as a remedial measure when everything has flopped. Stake appropriately – you don’t need a six-foot cane to hold up a floppy peony – and keep supports hidden wherever possible. If you’re canny with your planting, you may not need to stake at all, and instead let the plants rely on each other for support. 2 Go with the flow Following natural rules is the only way to garden. Fighting nature or trying to control it by forcing plants to do something they can’t is not only pointless but counterproductive. If your soil is alkaline, why struggle to grow rhododendrons? There are so many plants for every soil and situation.…

KEEPING A RECORD Keep a written or photographic record of your gardening plans and decisions. Taking notes will help you remember how your gardening year went and help you plan for the next. CONNECTING WITH OTHERS As you get older think about sharing your gardening with others, says psychology professor Harriet Gross. This way, you can spread out the workload and it offers plenty of opportunities for social interaction, as well as learning from others. SHARING YOUR EXPERTISE Use your skills to help others through local community gardens, e.g. you could help teach new gardeners. JOINING A CLUB There are gardening clubs across the country where you can interact with fellow gardeners from different generations and backgrounds. Passing on your experience and even learning new tricks will all help to…

• Sheffield The Grey to Green scheme uses planting to separate pedestrians from road traffic. The city’s Clean Air Strategy also includes a replacement scheme for older buses and no-engine-idling zones in front of schools. • Oxford plans a zero emission zone in the city centre by 2035, with restrictions on some vehicles planned from 2020. • Southampton offers cash incentives to taxi drivers to replace polluting vehicles. • London ULEZ, the Ultra Low Emission Zone, was introduced in April 2019 and levies a daily charge on vehicles in the zone that fail strict emissions standards. • Leeds is planning a similar daily emissions charge from January 2020 on vehicles entering the city centre.…

CUT OUT damage caused by pests or disease, plus any stems that have snapped. Cut back below the damage to a strong stem or healthy bud. HARVEST blackcurrants and prune them at the same time by cutting out the branches bearing ripe fruit. Prune the whole branch to the base. PRUNE current season’s growth on apples, pears and other fruit trees. Trim to 2-3 leaves above the base of all growth, except short, stubby fruit spurs. DEADHEAD bush and climbing roses, nipping out individual faded blooms. When there are no more buds to open, cut the flower stem back by half.…

Fritillaria persica ‘Ivory Bells’ Muscari ‘Golden Fragrance’ Erythronium ‘Lilac Wonder’ Tulipa ‘Alba Coerulea Oculata’ Tulipa ‘Danceline’ Tulipa acuminata View the full range at farmergracy.co.uk/elite farmergracy.co.uk/elite quote code BBCGWAUG19 Terms & Conditions: Offer ends 31 August 2019. Bulbs delivered from September 2019. Discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount code. Payment taken at time of ordering.…

How to use green manure Sow green manures now into the empty ground on the veg patch after harvesting crops like potatoes or onions. Green manures are fast-germinating crops that cover the ground and are dug back in to improve the soil structure, control weeds and maintain nutrients. You’ll find a range of seed in the garden centre or mail-order catalogues. At this time of year, choose mustard, rye, vetch or phacelia, as well as mixtures to be sown late in the season. Just two weeks after sowing, the ground will be covered with small seedlings. After six weeks, chop and fold them into the soil. The ground can be used again a few weeks after that for late crops like onions and garlic or for sowing broad beans. Alternatively,…

Cuttings from tender plants It always seems such a waste to leave tender plants to perish in the garden over winter when their offspring can be protected and used to produce an even greater number of plants the following year. A frost-free greenhouse or porch will be sufficient – a windowsill at a push, though plants can grow leggy if temperatures are high and light levels low. Good light is key to keeping them growing well, along with careful watering. If the compost is too wet you risk fungus attack, which can cause them to rot off, while good air circulation will reduce the risk of mildew attacks. If the plants become a little drawn, pinch out the shoot tips to encourage bushiness. Pot the youngsters up individually in spring…

Prepare soil for a new lawn Get the ground prepared now for sowing grass seed or laying turf next month, as September is the perfect time to establish a new lawn. Be fastidious in forking out any weeds, large stones or old tree roots. Incorporate some soil improver - compost helps all soils and grit is good for heavy clay soil. Apply a high-phosphate fertiliser, then rake the surface level. Consolidate it evenly by shuffling along in your gardening boots. Finally, rake the firmed surface to a fine, crumbly tilth. WATCH Videos and get tips at gardenersworld.com/ lawn-care Cut back hedging Trim hedges now so any new growth still has time to harden so that it can cope with winter weather. Evergreen hedges do particularly well if cut back this…

When she isn’t travelling the world with television cameras in tow, or teaching at her cookery school in Kent, Rosemary Shrager is usually to be found pottering in her tiny courtyard garden, packed full of ornamental edibles. At the height of summer, every meal is eaten alfresco, and the kitchen gets a rest as she presses her trusty barbecue into service grilling, roasting and even baking bread. Salads are picked straight into a serving bowl to be dressed at the table, and puddings of ripe figs, juicy peaches and gleaming berries make a perfect end to the meal. This is gardening for gourmets. What are your favourite things to harvest from the garden? Tomatoes, beans, lettuces, cucumbers and masses of herbs. I adore the abundance of it all, and the…

Christine Walkden Garden writer Christine appears on BBC1’s The One Show. She is also a lecturer and tour leader. Matt Biggs Matt trained at Kew and has been gardening professionally for more than 20 years. Pippa Greenwood Pippa is one of the foremost experts on pests and diseases. She gardens using organic methods. Q What can my primary pupils grow apart from a spider plant? Trilby Lacey, Surrey A MATT SAYS Try novelty plants such as Kalanchoe daigremontiana, the Mexican hat plant - it’s a tough, sun-loving succulent that produces plantlets along the leaf margins. Or try Lithops or ‘living stones’, which use their shape, size, colour and markings as camouflage. Streptocarpus parviflorus, which produces one giant leaf, is also fun and Mimosa pudica, ‘the sensitive plant’, has leaves that…

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We’ve grown at least seven thousand different dahlia varieties in our gardens over the years. So, to make them easier to understand, dahlias have been divided into seventeen different flower types. Of all these the cactus and semi-cactus dahlias are among the most varied, the most popular – and often the most dramatic. Cactus dahlias are fully double, with long and slender pointed petals that may be straight or curved slightly towards the centre of the flower. Semi-cactus dahlias are similar but the base of each petal is rather flattened. Also, they come in five different flower size groups: giant (25cm+), large (20-25cm), medium (15-20cm), small (10-15cm) and miniature (less than 10cm) and here there’s a choice to be made. In general, the larger the flowers, the fewer are produced…

So garden centres ‘will not be able to’ meet the deadline for phasing out the use of peat in compost (Clippings, July issue)? The only possible reason for that is because they don’t want to – there is still money to be made from peat so as long as there is a demand for it, they will continue to use it. If everyone started making their own compost this wouldn’t even be an issue. I have made my own compost for years, it’s not hard, I have no use for peat and it’s actually very satisfying. We don’t want or need peat in compost – if the garden centres won’t listen, boycott them and make your own! Marie Allen, by email In response to your article on attempts to phase…

Get your card You can buy your 2 for 1 Entry Card & Guide, or extra copies for your friends and family to use, at magsdirect.co.uk/GWMay19 for £6.25 each (subscribers: see p26 for your £1 discount code) 1 Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden Barnoon Hill, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 1AD Here you can explore over 30 sculptures created by iconic modernist sculptor Barbara Hepworth, set among lush, subtropical planting. The garden is intimate and secluded, located right in the heart of St Ives, and a brilliant showcase for some of the best work by one of our country’s most important artists. Several of the pieces are still located in the exact spot where Hepworth placed them. Open 1 Mar-31 Oct, daily, 10am-5.20pm; rest of year – days and times…

An August garden can lose its ‘oomph’, but there is a simple solution – create a perennial pot for full sun, with warmth and movement, that’s also excellent for pollinators. This container is all about gently glowing colours and contrasts of dark, light and texture. The amber tone of the terracotta pot is echoed by the achillea’s apricot-pink flowerheads, which provide a framework that’ll bloom from July to September. I like to add vertical accents to a pot so the eye is drawn up and around the composition. I’ve used a rich, orange-apricot digitalis and, for an airy feel, crocosmia with arching spikes of amber flowers that will move with the wind. Contrast comes from the deep, near black, leaves of the viola. This pot will look good for three…

‘Terrariums are so cool! The girls had such fun and it’s incredibly easy to create a fabulous mini garden’ Flo Headlam These quick and easy gardening projects will entertain kids during the summer holidays and keep adults interested, too. Spend a morning making a terrarium to brighten up a bedroom, or a mini pond that will encourage everyone to look out for frogs. Toy figure terrarium Making a terrarium is easy and fun for kids as they can design their own garden on a small scale. Give younger children toy figures to play with as they explore their mini garden. When choosing plants, look for varieties that will suit your terrarium - open terrariums are good for succulents, while closed designs are better for plants like ferns, Fittonia, ivy and…

✔Go vertical Cover your walls and structures with green. Where possible use climbers and vines planted in the ground or containers to achieve this, consider living and green wall systems. ✔Introduce hedges Where possible use hedges for boundaries instead of fence panels or walls. ✔Plant densely Be generous with planting. The most important places for planting to combat vehicle pollution are along road boundaries and front gardens. Make the barrier worthwhile by making the planted area as wide as possible. ✔Mix it up A diversity of leaf shapes and textures will maximise the effectiveness of a pollution barrier. ✔Think in layers A layered approach really makes the most of the space available. Combining trees with a shrub layer, and then herbaceous plants and a ground layer multiplies the opportunities to…

Walls are easily upgraded by adding climbing plants, such as roses, clematis, jasmine and honeysuckle, but there are other approaches. Adding a feature panel in either timber or steel can provide interest to a functional wall. Or why not add water in the form of a wall-mounted fountain? Privacy can be improved with the addition of a trellis on top of a wall, but do check local planning rules first. Equally, a plant-filled green wall can be added to help absorb pollutants for those gardening in towns and cities. Hedge rescue Hedges can get tired and thin over the years but many of them can be revived. Hedge plants such as yew, privet and thuja can take hard pruning, which will rejuvenate them, triggering fresh dense growth. Or, if the…

1. Berberis darwinii ‘Compacta’ This is a low-growing and dense form of the shiny, dark green-leaved berberis, which carries bright-orange flowers in spring. The leaves are rather like a miniature holly and the flowers are followed by dark blue berries. It is thorny, so not very child friendly, but it will deter dogs! Clip in late summer. Height x Spread 90cm x 90cm 2. Corokia x virgata The wire-netting bush has a confused mixture of stems that are decorated by starry, yellow flowers in late spring or early summer. The leaves are narrow and leathery, and the flowers are followed by tiny orange fruits. The variety ‘Sunsplash’ has variegated leaves. Clip in late summer. H x S1.8m x 1.2m 3. Euonymus fortunei Wonderfully versatile. Creamy-white and green variegation in ‘Emerald…

Pruning wisteria You’ll have a wonderful display of flowers on your wisteria year after year if you get the pruning right. The main trick is to prune back the young shoots that grow in the summer after flowering. It’s called spur pruning, as you cut back to a short spur to encourage flower buds to form for next year. It is easy to spot where to make the cuts because you can still see the old flower stalks. If your plant is new, tie in the stems that you need to keep to form the framework and cut back the rest of the wispy new stems to five leaves. The foliage is so dense in the summer that it can hide young vigorous shoots growing around the framework, or even…

Complete Guide to Bulbs Create impact in your garden with Complete Guide to Bulbs. Designed for all levels of gardener, this 132-page special edition will help you get the most from your planting. Bulbs are an easy way to transform the displays in your plot and this guide will help you create and enjoy colour all year round. Only £6.99 incl. P&P at magsdirect.co.uk/gwbulbs18 Your Pruning Year Perfect your pruning technique with this 132-page comprehensive guide to pruning through the year – helping you make the right cuts to get the best from your plants. Includes which plants to prune when, step-by-step guides, troubleshooting, tools and techniques and much more. Only £6.99 incl. P&P at magsdirect.co.uk/gwpruningyr19 Complete Guide to Roses Discover roses for every location, including sun, shade, windy gardens,…

Plants • ‘Sarpo’ potato varieties – organicplants.co.uk, pennardplants.com • Tomato ‘Crimson Crush’ – suttons.co.uk, organiccatalogue.com • Impatiens walleriana ‘Beacon’ (busy Lizzie) – hayloft.co.uk, mr-fothergills.co.uk Plant health • Mycorrhiza, such as Agralan Revive – agralan.co.uk, organiccatalogue.com • Beneficial microbes such as Empathy™ Rootgrow – rootgrow. co.uk, crocus.co.uk • Foliar feeds – littlefieldsfarm.com, greengardener.co.uk • Grazers G3 spray – grazers.co.uk, marshalls-seeds.co.uk Ponds • Barley straw – crocus.co.uk, greengardener.co.uk • Envii Pond Klear – watergardeningdirect. com, envii.co.uk • Liquid barley straw extract – ecopond.co.uk, puddleplants.co.uk Slug control • Nemaslug – organiccatalogue.com, pippagreenwood.com • Organic ferric phosphate pellets – sarahraven.com, doff.co.uk Insect control • Biological controls – greengardeners.co.uk, defenders.co.uk • Ecofective Bug Killer – ecofective.uk.com, suttons.co.uk • Neudorff VineWeevilFree nematodes – neudorff.co.uk • Pheromone traps – agralan.co.uk, greengardeners.co.uk…

When I first started writing for a living, just after we were married, I would use the spare bedroom in our tiny terrace house. And it really was tiny: two-and-a-half up and two-and-a-half down. Then our first child came along and I was relegated to a shed in the garden. When a second daughter arrived, we moved to a larger house where I wrote first in a study and then in a small building at the very top of the garden (peace and quiet necessitated a little more distance). Long-time viewers of Gardeners’ World might remember Barleywood and the pale blue painted ‘Far Pavilion’, as it was known. When my stint as presenter came to an end in 2002, and we moved house for the last time, we restored a…

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”... the words of keen gardener, and actor, Audrey Hepburn. There’s such truth in this. Gardening is as much in our heads as our hands, turning our dreams into tomorrow’s realities with hard work and laughter, often with sweat and sometimes even a few tears – and never better than enjoyed in the company of friends or family. Gardeners have been doing this for years, decades, centuries even, but now we know that this very activity is the embodiment of wellbeing. So it’s a natural step for us to look deeper, as we do this month, into how gardening can benefit our minds and emotions, as well as our bodies, as part of our Grow Yourself Healthy 2019 campaign. Read all about…

I reached the significant age of 64 a few weeks ago. Significant? Of course. 64 is the key that unlocks the arrival of old age and takes you into another country, far distant from the land of youth. Why? Because, as I am sure you instantly recognise, it says so on the second track of side two of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (Sergeant who? Sides? A predestined sequence of tracks? If you are remotely baffled, then stop reading now. You are in the wrong room). For my generation, the greatest single influence in our lives outside our families has not been The Bomb, nor technology, certainly not Brexit, nor even – dare I say it – a weekly fix of Gardeners’ World. No, by far the most significant…

Surely the use of netting by housing developers to stop birds from nesting and avoid construction delays (Clippings, July) is only the tip of the iceberg. They are doing this so that they can then destroy the hedges to make way for housing. If, as you suggest in the article, the birds return to the hedges year after year, then even if they return later, their nesting sites will have been destroyed. Maybe the bigger issue is that developers are allowed to remove established hedging at all. Alix McBrearty, Glasgow…

he vegetable plot or allotment does not quite move to the same rhythm as the rest of your garden. Despite obvious seasonal arrivals – such as the first radish, peas and asparagus in early summer and the midwinter harvests of sprouts frosted solid on wrist-thick stems – the rhythmic waves of a vegetable garden are slower than that of many floral plants, and span the seasons. The beauty of a garden is the diversity and range of produce you can harvest in a small space So, when all is bursting with growth in May and June, there is a surprisingly thin harvest to be had. July has its own edible season of beans, salad crops, chard, beetroot and early potatoes, as well as a range of soft fruit of all…

With improvements in lifestyle and advances in healthcare leading to increased life expectancy, it’s no wonder the UK has a growing ageing population. In 2017 18.2 per cent of people in the UK were aged 65 or over, compared with 15.9 per cent in 2007. Plus, the Office for National Statistics predicts that by 2037 a quarter of UK residents will be 65 or older. However, dementia is on the rise. The Alzheimer’s Society states there are 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK today, with numbers set to rise to over 1 million by 2025. It estimates that dementia costs the UK £26 billion a year.* Keeping people cognitively fit and healthy for as long as possible, as well as managing dementia, has never been higher on the…

Garden boundaries are essential for shelter and privacy but as one of the largest single elements in a plot, they can set the tone of the whole space, so don’t let their functionality prevent them from being an element of beauty. With care, it’s possible to turn fences from faded to fabulous, walls from worn out to wonderful and hedges from ailing to amazing. All it takes is a bit of know-how and some time. Follow my simple guide to bring boundaries back from the brink! Boundary in the spotlight This boundary fencing works well for three reasons. Firstly, the materials used are both visually and physically light, ensuring the boundary is not overbearing. Secondly, the layered quality of the wall, fence and plantings gives the boundary depth and stops…

Water potted shrubs well Soak the roots of shrubs in pots. Spring-flowering shrubs, such as rhododendrons and camellias, set their flower buds for next year at the end of summer. If the roots get too dry, the flower buds will wither and drop off. Pot-grown specimens are particularly vulnerable to dry roots so give them a good soak, using rainwater if you can. DISCOVER our pick of scented flowers at gardenersworld.com/ scented-flowers Harvest everlasting flowers Cut flowers with scissors in dry weather, selecting the strongest and longest stems for preserving. Papery flowers of helichrysum, statice and bracteantha preserve well. The flowerheads must be perfect; any blemished heads should be discarded. Next remove any leaves and put into small bunches. Tie each bunch by the ends of the stems and hang…

Sowing hardy annuals now has several advantages. It’s a good way to use up open packets of seed and a cheap and easy way to fill a gap or cover bare soil destined to become an area of ongoing weeding with no reward. The main plus is earlier flowering next year, as the seeds have had a head start. We like to complete direct sowing by mid-August. Packets may indicate later months, but here in Beechgrove, we need to bring that timing forward. Calendula, nigella, poppies and cornflowers, and other hardy annuals recommended for direct sowing, can be a great success treated this way.…

Now’s the time you’ll find me in the kitchen as much as in the garden, turning trugs laden with aromatic tomatoes, crisp French beans and earthy potatoes into family meals. For me, the harvest is the whole point of gardening, and over the years I’ve learned you can make all the difference to how much you pick, and for how long, just by tweaking your growing routine. This month I’m sharing tips for maxing out your late summer harvest, before we plan next month’s ‘hungry gap’ fillers to keep the kitchen cupboards full. Why make the effort? The wonderful thing about veg gardens is the more you pick, the more they produce, so just by picking regularly you’re already boosting your harvest. Keep it going by planting as you pick,…