A prickly subject is our Berberis unless you pick with care.
Berberis Julianea is a colourful low maintenance foliage plant with flowers, berries and prickles! Good Berberis are prickly flowering shrubs often with fragrant flowers ranging in colours from pale primrose to pumpkin orange, light pink to darker red.
I have a strong liking for Pelargoniums (which I will call Geraniums from now on). They are still producing lots of colour and variety late into October. Because we suffer strong winds and early frosts up on the Pennines of Yorkshire I am in the process of protecting the varieties I am keen to keep through winter.
Regal Geraniums once called Pelargonium domesticum, P. Cucullatum or P. grandiflorum are showy flowering plants at their best between April and June. Named varieties to look out for include Black Knight, Bridesmaid, Caribrooke, Marylyn (above)Wooton and Lord Bute.The velvety textured petals can combine to make large flowerheads and look stunning in a pot or container. The growing habit is looser than Zonal geraniums.
Ivy-leaved geraniums are trailing plants best known in hanging baskets and from the balconies of Swiss Chalets. The colour range is not as wide as that for Regals but the volume of flower over a long summer make them desirable plants.
Fancy Leaved Geraniums are sometimes called ‘show-off’ Geraniums and as you would expect have a variety of leaf colour that make them attractive in the house or as an edging plant. There are also many scented leaf geraniums with a variety of like citrus scents.
Pelargonium Endlicherianum or the Turkish Pelargonium is more hardy than other Geraniums. They produce large bright pink flowers in early summer. They have succulent roots and need very well drained, rocky soil in a protected spot in full sun. The round, greyish-green leaves and pretty flowers make them an excellent plant for the rock garden.
Dwarf and Miniature Geraniums are fascinating plants that have all the features of normal geraniums but on a smaller scale. The plant below is now flowering with pink petals on the typically geranium like inflorescence.
Top 10 Scented leaved Pelargoniums
Pelargonium Grandiflorum and other ‘Geraniums’
Stellar Pelargonium – Bird Dancer Geranium
Photogenic Pelargonium
The Secret of Geranium (Pelargonium) Cuttings
Growing Regal Geranium Pelargonium
Miniature Pelargonium
Dwarf Pelargonium aka Geranium
Tips for Growing Geraniums (Pelargonium)
Regal Pelargoniums or exotic Geraniums are getting more fancy and colourful. This pink frilled flower is called Reba Regal. I grow Regal pelargoniums for in house but they can go outside after the last frost although some flowers are a bit susceptible to rain damage.
There are a host of different Saxifraga or singular Saxifrage. They make for an interesting group to grow and collect both in the garden and in troughs or pots depending on the variety. Saxifrage kolenatiana has rosettes that throw up spikes of flower in summer similar to its better known Saxifrage relative ‘London Pride’.
Groups of Saxifrages
These are just some of the groupings of Saxifrage each contain many variants, varieties and species for which you need a more detailed document. See links below.
Links and Further Information
The Saxifrage Society
RHSÂ Silver Saxifrage Trials
Click on book to buy from Amazon.
The leaves of this Hydragea Aspera are one of its key features. As with other Aspera subspecies the branches and leaves are ‘strigose’ which botanically means ‘beset with appressed straight and stiff hairs’ that means rough and furry to me.
This specimen shrub is 4-5 feet tall and whilst it comes from the Himalayas some plants can be a bit tender.
The Purple flowers open to a clear white (that is almost burned out on this photo) but the overall effect is pleasing. The flowerheads make good internal decorations.
The colouring of Hydrangea Aspera is not affected by aluminium or acidity of the soil.
Other Hydrangea species that are closely related include H.Involucrata, H. Strigosa and H. Villosa.  H. Sargentiana is a taller more leggy coarse shrub brought from China by E H Wilson with a low growing H. Longipes and H. Galbripes.
For Complete Hydrangeas book click here and for cheap colourant click this link
Hydrangeas available from Thompson & Morgan
There are two great uses for Geraniums that make it worth growing these fine flowering plants. Outdoors they make fantastic border plants and the red varieties are very popular in formal bedding schemes. The second use is as a long flowering houseplant and if you deadhead and feed you plants you will get lots of geraniums from one windowsill plant.
Grow from seed, plug plants or cuttings. They root quite easily from spring cuttings.
Plant out when the danger of frost has gone.
Geraniums can go straight into a border/bed or be put in containers, troughs or baskets.
Pinch-out the growing tip in April to encourage bushy plants.
Feed in summer with a high potash fertilizer to encourage more blooms.
Geraniums can survive with little water so can be planted in dry conditions but they do appreciate a drink like the rest of us.
Use one variety or colour and plant together to get a bold swathe of colour. …
A cheap tip for members of the RHS is to borrow books from their libraries. I am reading the entertaining Techniques and Tips for Gardeners from the BBC Gardeners Question Time Team. A well produced book of over 300 pages contains a wealth of information and ‘nuggetts that rarely find there way into practical books’
For less than £5 you can buy ‘Container Gardening’ by Alan Titchmarsh from Amazon. Just click on the picture above
Other books in the new series include ‘Gardening in the Shade’, ‘Vegetables and Herbs’, ‘Lawns Paths and Patios’ and ‘Pruning and Training’. All at below a fiver by clicking the link.
If gardeners are exceptional people then buy them a copy of this book for Christmas. It contains 20 stories and profiles about encounters with gardeners and a day in their life to provide reading matter for dark garden-free evenings.
Amongst those covered are these sixteen:
Roy Roberts Landscape Gardener
Roy Lancaster from Gardener’s Question Time
Tony Schilling Asian Heath Garden at Wakenhirst
Thomas Pakenham Meetings with Remarkable Trees
Geoffrey Dutton the Concrete Gardener
Beth Chatto Essex girl gardener
Howard Donald Waterer
Anthea Gibson ‘The Cotswold Gardener’
Lady Salisbury writer of a Gardener’s Life
Dan Pearson ‘Guardian of Gardeners’
Kim Wilkie ‘Reality is a condition induced by lack of imagination’.
Ronald Blythe Outsiders Gardener Friends.
Lucinda Lambton President of Garden History Society
Richard Mabey of Food for Free
Hugh “Wine Atlas” Johnson
James “Gaia Hypothesis” Lovelock.
Click on the book cover to buy from Amazon
Commercial compost is a range of products sold in plastic wrapping in garden centres, DIY shops and sundry retailers. This is not to be confused with your own garden compost made from decomposed plant matter.
The contents of these types of commercial compost vary and can affect the growing result considerably. All have a base which has no or negligible nutritional value plus additives that make it useful for a specific purpose.
Typical Compost Constituents – Base
Peat base of small fibers of bog peat is excellent for many purposes but now seen as none ecofriendly due to the over extraction of peat and lack of replenishment of the resource which isn’t sustainable.
Coir as a peat substitute for the base. Coir is made from the hairs & fibers of coconuts and such compost are widely available. There are special organic compost products approved by the vegan society .
Wood pulp based composts and partially composted bark are other bases the industry is trying to develop into retail products but mixes and formulas keep changing
Steralised loam based composts, generically called John Innes after the guy who first formulated them, tend to be heavier.
Composted green waste is becoming popular if you can find a reliable supplier who uses undiseased raw materials
Typical Commercial Compost Constituents – Additives
Most composts are mixes of some of the base ingredients and possibly sand or vermiculite to open up the compost and improve drainage
Fertilisers are added that are appropriate to the end use. seed compost needs less fertiliser than a container planting compost where a plant has to live for at least a season
A wetting agent is often added as peat is very difficult to get wet and you need an even moisture in a pot or seed tray.
Water retaining gels may be added for hanging basket compost.
Typical Compost for Special Uses
Rooting and cutting compost is usually just a mix of sand loam and peat
Seed compost has crushed limestone and phosphates added to help drainage an promote root growth
John Innes No1, 2 & 3 has varying quantities of fertilisers; hoof and horn, superphosphate and potassium sulphate . No 1 Potting Compost is for pricking out young plants, No 2 Potting Compost is for potting on and No 3 Potting Compost is for established plants and shrubs.
Ericacious compost is for acid loving plants like Rhododendrons and lime hating plants like Mahonia and has flowers of sulphur added to the peat based mix.
Cactus compost, Bonsia compost, Orchid compost, Citrus plant compost even African Violet compost are all available from a range of suppliers. One brand with a range available in many outlets is Westland http://www.gardenhealth.com/latest-news.php
Bulb compost used to be called bulb fibre and has no fertiliser . It is used for bulbs like Hyacinths that have already got a store of energy to produce a flower.
Tips On Compost
As it is an organic product the quality can be variable but there will be a brand you like so try some out – currently I am using Arthur Bowers and B&Q own label.
Mix in a bit of grit, sand, vermiculite or water preserving gel depending on how you plan to use the compost
Try keep it uniformly moist.
Add a drop of liquid soap to the water to restrict the growth of moss on seed compost used for slow germinating seeds.
Grow bags contain compost and are a cheaper way of buying compost than small bags.
Compost deteriorates with age so buy fresh compost from a commercial supplier with a fast turnover.