Abeliophyllum distichum also called White Forsythia is more refined than traditional yellow Forsythia to which it is distantly related, both being part of the Olive family.

Growing White Forsythia

• Abeliophyllum distichum AGM  is native to Korea and produces clusters of fragrant, creamy white flowers which emerge in late winter or early spring before the leaves.
• Trained against a sunny wall,  Abeliophyllum distichum will grow 3-6 feet tall. It can be rather untidy and lax if grown in a border
• Prune after flowering to within 2-5  buds to make a permanent framework and encourage new wood for flowering next year.
• Grow in full sun or light shade in average soil 3-4ft apart. Feed with a balanced fertiliser once a year in early spring
• Can be underplanted with Scilla sibirica, Muscari or species Crocus for a lovely early spring display.

Abeliophyllum distichum roseum group is the seldom seen pink form. According to Junker’s nursery ‘It is sometimes called “Pink Forsythia” but this reflects more its time of flowering than either its colour or parentage! A very pretty plant that stays quite small, rarely more than 3 feet tall’.

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Top 10 most beautiful parks compiled by Rae Spencer-Jones for the Daily Telgraph because 1001 gardens is probably too much visiting. If you are determined to try buy the book first.

1. Royal Botanic Garden Kew has a tropical plant festival in the glasshouse until March 2010
2. Virginia Water – Saville garden and Valley garden have a varied and exotic woodland, landscape and garden to visit.
3. Hylands Park Essex has a wide variety of interesting flora, fauna. There is also a large variety of mature trees including oak, ash, hornbeam, and field maple, plus an additional 25,000 new trees.
4. Clumber Country Park Nottinhamshire is ideal for long walks or cycling so you need to be fit.
5. Talkin Tarn Cumbria nestles in a 165 acre site, containing a glacial tarn surrounded by mature woodland and gentle meadows
6. Coed y Brenin Gwynedd is Forestry commission land with lots of bike tracks.
7. Healey Dell Nature Reserve Lancashire sits in a picturesque part of the Spodden Valley on the outskirts of Rochdale. It is rich in wildlife, with a fascinating archaeological history
8. Stanwick Lakes Northampton is a unique countryside attraction in the heart of the Nene Valley very good for wild life.
9. Normanby Hall Museum and Country Park Lincolnshire with a walled garden, house and farming museum to complement the Park
10. Vogrie Country Park Edinburgh has 250 acres of natural trails, a walled garden and ponds. The 19th-century landscape includes trees brought to Scotland by plant collector George Forrest. Great for walking.

‘Complete Garden, 3,500 plant selector, planting advice and pruning guide encyclopaedia for use on Mac/PC CD’

Find plants for every aspect of the garden and season to create continuous colour and interest. This CD-ROM finds and displays only the best plants to suit your needs effortlessly. Add plant lists to view the plant you have and when they need pruning. Add your own notes and print. This 3,500 plant version is the latest of our Award winning garden software range.

Buy from Amazon for £33.49here

‘Organic Fruit and Vegetable Gardeners Year, The A Seasonal Guide to Growing What You Eat’ by Graham Clarke

Gardeners Tips on Organic Fruit Growing

Organic Principles
Organics should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animals and humans as one.
Organic growing is based on ecological systems and cycles that are worked with and sustained.
Organic gardening should be done in a precautionary manner to protect the health and well being of current and future generations.
Organics promotes the concept of fairness with regard to common environment and life opportunities.

Soil Fertility
Chemical fertility is the availability in the soil of all the elements, nutrients, ions,   traces and inorganic chemicals that plants need to grow.
Biological fertility includes micro organisms that help nutrient recycling’ including fungi, bacteria and protozoa that clean up bacteria. It also covers macro organisms such as arthropods that break down organic matter in the early stages of decomposition, worms that help drainage and aeration and nematodes that help in various ways but   occassionally act as pests.
Physical fertility is the mix of sand, silt and clay that makes up the soil and determines texture, ability to hold water and sustain life.

Weed Management
An integrated weed management system aims to create a tolerable level of weed infestation that at the same time delivers tangible benefits like pest control and biodiversity. Weeds can be controlled by cultural management such as rotation, mulches, and green manures. Direct control involves hand weeding, digging or flame weeding. Biological control is a last resort.

Habitat Management
Bees and pollinating insects need to be encouraged as do a a wide range of predators and crop-pest parasites. Beetle banks and wildflower areas are useful in this regard.

Protecting the Crops
Crop yields can increase significantly with appropriate protection. Raspberries and strawberries for example do better under polytunnels. Horticultural fleece warms up the soil helping to make nitrogen available and can bring cropping  forward. A fruit cage protects from birds and wind damage whilst some crops do better in a greenhouse environment.

Pests & Disease Management
Disease from virus, bacteria or fungus or attack by pests like slugs, snails, insects, birds and mice are the bain of organic culture. Prevention is better than cure so start and stay clean and tidy, favour resistant varieties, encourage good hedge and weed plants and discourage those plants that are likely to harbour problems that can be passed on.
Walk the plot regularly and sort out hot spots physically by removal or traps. Consider biological controls, bio-pesticides or bio-stimulants. Chemically soft soap and water is permitted in most organic systems as are pyrethrum, sulphur and vegetable oil products.

Contacts & Other Support
The Soil Association
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Acidity and alkalinity are measured on a pH scale. Below pH 7.0 is verging towards acidic so pH 4.5 is very acid. Test kits are available from many sources.

Increasing Alkalinity.

For vegetables a pH of around 6.5 is ideal and to achieve this it may be necessary to add some lime into the top 6 inches of your soil.
Garden lime is available from most garden centers. Builders lime or quick lime is more aggressive to plants.
If your soil is around a pH of 7.0 (neutral) I would not bother to try adjust it. Above that it is limey soil and less suitable for acid lovers like rhododendrons and blueberries.
Adding lime helps vegetables take up nutrients. It also suppresses club root in members of the brassica family.
Manure then a couple of weeks later lime your soil during winter, it helps to break up the soil.
For lawns, shrubs, roses, fruit or trees, apply lime before planting.
Calcified seaweed and ground chalk or powdered limestone are other forms of calcium carbonate that will help reduce acid soil.

The RHS has a table of lime quantities needed to correct different levels of acidity read more

Acidifying Soil

To change the pH of the top 6inches of soil from neutral pH 7.0, or slightly alkaline pH 7.5 to slightly acid pH 6.0-pH 6.5 sulphur powder may be required.
Aluminium sulphate or Ferrous sulphate can also be used as a soil acidifiers. The effects are rapid, but large quantities can interfere with phosphorus levels in the soil and may also reduce pH excessively.
Soil-acidifying materials can be applied at any time of the year but products containing sulphur take longer to work when the soil is cold so are normally best applied from spring to autumn.

New Trees: Recent Introductions to Cultivation by John Grimshaw, Ross Bayton and illustrated by Hazel Wilks. Amazon

A good reference work or wonderful coffee table book can be costly but the joy of a book on your favourite subject may be a great investment. I adore Trees and wish I could own and plant up my own Arboretum. Unfortunately I have to be content with good books, regular trips to sites of interest and a small number of trees in my own garden.

If I was looking for something different then this book would be amongst my first reference work from Kew and Royal Botanic Publishers. I have made plans to have a trip to Kew gardens to check out one or two ideas that I have been accumulating through winter.

Another series of books I like to browse are the ‘Remarkable’ series by Thomas Pakenham

Meetings With Remarkable Trees starts “The two largest Common Oaks (Quercus robur) in Britain and probably Europe, too – are the Fredville Oak in Kent and the Bowthorpe Oak in Lincolnshire”. In Meetings with Remarkable Trees Pakenham assembles a beautifully photographed gallery of 60-odd trees of Scotland, England and Ireland, and magnificent trees they are. One is a 600-year-old king oak that looms large over Charleville, Ireland; another is the yew tree that Wordsworth called the “pride of Lorton’s vale”; still another is a sequoia brought from the United States and planted in a Herefordshire grove in 1851. Amazon

In ‘Remarkable Trees of the World’ there are sections entitled, Giants, Dwarfs, Methuselahs, Dreams and an exceptional section about Trees in Peril. Amazon

You don’t need global warming to get a warm glow in your garden if you plant some Canna. The fiery hot flowers and leaves on some Cannas are hard to beat and are worth a place in any passionate garden.

What other plant starts flowering in June and keeps flowering right through until the first frosts. Do not deadhead the flowers at any price as new blooms arise from the center of old ones. They flower in shades of red, orange, pink and yellow often bi-coloured with blotches, spots and streaks. The foliage is also a most attractive feature, and can be shades of purple/bronze, red, green and striped.

Growing Canna

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How to Start Your Own Gardening Business An Insider Guide to Setting Yourself Up as a Professional Gardener is a useful tutorial if you want to set up a gardening business. I recommend you consider your aspirations and limitations carefully and either set up a ‘Life Style business’ or consider becoming a qualified, professional career gardener.

Life Style Gardener

• There are many jobs from spring onward for jobbing gardeners. Lawyers hang out a shingle but for gardeners a post card in the post office usually suffices.
• Labouring on hedges and lawns for the infirm or doing small construction and garden maintenance projects are within the grasp of most hobby gardeners.
• If your work is good then word of mouth should get you lots of referals.
• Hourly rates in the North of England vary from £6- £20 per hour depending on the level of horticultural skill, experience and quality of garden. Ask around amongst those already in business.

Career Gardener

• You need to have some formal qualifications and on the job training. See Alan Titchmarsh’s list from How to be a Gardener.

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You might get sent to the Tower of London if you damage your Lawn during winter. One gardener must be there as the picture of their lawn in January after the snow is shown above. You can start your own business with the book and tips below.

Winter Lawn Care

Do not walk on frozen grass the leaves and stems will snap and damaged patches will show when the frost has gone.
Do not walk on very soggy grass or when covered in snow as this will also damage turf and soil structure.
Do not be afraid to smarten up your lawn on a fine dry day. Trimming the edges and removing any dead leaves or debris always gives a lawn a lift.
If you want to cut the lawn set the blades on the mower at the highest level and give it a light trim not a short back and sides.

Preparation for a Summer Lawn
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January may be a bit cold to think about water features in your garden. Be ready as soon as the hard frosts are over to redesign your garden with an appropriate fountain or continuous flow of water like the powered globe above. Water features in this context are the prefabricated devices you can buy ready made, ponds streams and your own designs come under DIY
.

Benefits of Water Features

• Water plays with the light and can enhance any visual appearance. Water often reflects the changing colours and light temperature in your garden.
• Running or trickling water can add the dimension of sound to a landscape and as long as it keeps running it wont smell stagnant.
• Landscaping and water features can improve property values make it stand out from the rest.
• Water is restful and a feature can create a place for contemplation or a focal point in the garden.
• Some water features are designed to successfully attract wild life.

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