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Author: hortoris

Annual Poppy – Papaver paeoniflorum somniferum

Annual Poppy – Papaver paeoniflorum somniferum

Autumn sowing in pots or compressed peat pellets avoids root disturbance. Spring is the time for direct sowing and thinning but I am going to risk some over wintering of direct autumn sown plants.

Poppy

Soil Preparation
Poppies like deep, well-drained, fertile soil in full sun.
Feed the soil with manure or bone meal ahead of planting.
Poppy somniferums grow quickly given sufficient water and a nitrogen rich soil. to increase both the number of flowers and their individual size. Although these poppies gobble up the nutrients, their eventual show will be more than worth the proper environment.

Sowing
Seeds should germinate in less than two weeks and seedlings will appear approx 6 later. …

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Japanese Anemone – Autumn Wind Flowers

Japanese Anemone – Autumn Wind Flowers

Anemone japonica are not the cheap and cheerful flowers from corms but a special group of autumn flowering perennial plants that grow  3-4 feet high. Planted in June they will flower this year on long stately stems in a range of rose, pink and the clear white with yellow boss of Honorine Jobert (see below).

The leaves are dark green and new growth breaks through in June to produce ever increasing sized plants. The large, long lasting blooms float above the deep green foliage which dies back in winter.

Honorine Jobert

Tips for Japanese Anemone

  • Increase stock by taking root cuttings. A 3”-4” length of root laid horizontal on compost and lightly covered will root and sprout a new plant.

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Lily Photos for All Seasons

Lily Photos for All Seasons

Spring, summer or autumn there are Lilies for all occasions, even hatches, matches and dispatches.
Asian lily

Beware garish garden centres selling plants that defy belief or at least defy the seasons. I have just returned from a weekend break and can contrast a plant nursery that I visited with a so called garden centre. The later was selling these lilies in full April flower.
These colours are not those you expect or associate with spring flowers! I am all for ‘shock and awe in the garden but you would want plants that last longer than a couple of days and look more natural than these Lily photos.

Asian lily
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Agapanthus White African Lily

Agapanthus White African Lily

Agapanthus 'alba'
Agapanthus are one of the trendy flowers of this decade. The ball shaped umbrels are masses of tubular flowers in blue, violet or white. The deciduous sword shaped leaves grow from a bulb and root clump. Since new vvarieties have been bred to be hardy it has been practical to move Agapanthus from the cold greenhouse into pots and now into the border.

Gardeners Tips about Agapanthus

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Peace Lily or Spathiphyllum House Plants

Peace Lily or Spathiphyllum House Plants

Peace is not just an absence of war – Peace Lilies are superb houseplants with dark green glossy leaves and distinctive white flowers.
As well as being named Peace Lily or Spathiphyllum they are also known as Spathe flower, White Flag, White Anthurium or White Sails for obvious reasons.

Spathiphyllum wallisii, Peace Lily, Spathe flowers ....Hoa Lan Ý, Buồm trắng ....

Tips for Growing Peace Lily or Spathiphyllum as Houseplants

  • Do not let the Peace lily become too dry, they love moist but not soggy soil and a humid atmosphere.
  • You will be guilty of disturbing the Peace if you let temperatures drop much below 65 degrres

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Arum and Calla Lily – Zantedeschia

Arum and Calla Lily – Zantedeschia

Lily the pink and many other colours amongst the Zantedeschias
zantedeschia

Arum lily or Calla Lily called Zantedeschia are available in an increasing number of shades and varieties. This Zantedeschia rehmannii can be grown to advantage in a terracotta pot that will show off the perfect spathes or funnel shaped petals.

Zantedeschia Tips

  • Arum Lily is the common name for the hardier outdoor variety. Usually white or pink.
  • Calla Lilys are often the less hardy but colourful varieties in white, yellow, pink, red or purple and are easy to grow from bulbs.
  • Zantedeschia have heart shaped leaves often with decorative spots.
  • Zantedeschia will flower for long periods throughout the summer with dramatic and exotic shaped flowers.
  • They are not frost hardy so they should not be planted out until after the end of May in the border or pots. I bury the pots to fill odd gaps and can easily bring them indoors in winter.
  • Grow them in one and a half litre pots with loam-based compost such as John Innes No 2 and plant the rhizomes just showing at the surface of the container with the eyes of the rhizome uppermost.
  • Water freely through the summer and feed with a balanced liquid fertiliser every two weeks until the flowers have faded.
  • They make exotic houseplants as well as summer border or container plants.

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Smoke Bush – Cotinus coggygiria

Smoke Bush – Cotinus coggygiria

Electronic smoke from cigarettes but not from these smoke bushes.

cotinus-coggia

Red leaved plants seem to be doing very well in this wet summer. I spotted this healthy shrub at Harlow Carr on a recent visit. The name smoke bush comes from the clouds of very fine, fluffy, grey flowers that appear on panicles in such profusion that it looks like a cloud of smoke.

  • This variety is probably Royal Purple both it and other Nocutts hybrids are easy to grow at home.
  • Propagate by taking a spade to an existing shrub and chopping one piece out without lifting the plant. A sort of division in situ.
  • They are deciduous shrubs and mine have a lax habit that probably needs a bit of pruning but I don’t want to sacrifice the flowers.
  • The mature shrubs are a neat round shape.
  • The leaves are also a neat round simple leaf

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Bishop’s Dahlias and Bishop’s Children with Dark Foliage

Bishop’s Dahlias and Bishop’s Children with Dark Foliage

Should Bishops have children? Should gardeners nurture these children? I would say so!

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Question What has dark red leaves and flowers like a trouper until the first frost?

Answer One of the Bishop’s family of Dahlias.

Bishop’s Offspring

  • Bishop of Llandaff is one of the earlier varieties flowering as a semi-double in pillarbox red.
  • Bishop of Cardiff flowers as a single with yellow petals with a red center.
  • Bishop of Auckland flowers red with many yellow stamen in the center. Bishop of Canterbury is similar but the flowers err towards magenta. Bishop of Lancaster seems very similar to me.
  • Bishop of Oxford is a strong plant flowering orange.
  • Bishop of York is a bit smaller but has nice single buttercup yellow flowers.
  • Bishop of Leicester has pale mauve flowers. The contrast with the leaf colour highlights the pale flowers.
  • Bishop of Dover is virtually white in flower.
  • Bishop of Cambridge is just another Dahlia trying to jump on the ecclesiastical band wagon.

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Tips for Garden Tools

Tips for Garden Tools

Tool heads

  • Get the key tools right to make your garden easier and more pleasurable.
  • A Spade that is light enough for your physique and a stainless steel blade will not get claggy with soil.
  • Secateurs for snipping, pruning and cutting. Have one good pair for important work and another for the ‘grunt’ jobs that are a bit tougher. I have a good bypass (scissor type) pair for pruing and an anvil pair for hard work
  • Lawn mower electric or petrol depending on the lawn size. As the adverts said ‘its much less bovver with a hovver’.
  • Trowel made from forged steel will stand hard work and cut into soil easily
  • Wheel barrow with a pneumatic tyre carries heavy loads and I prefer it too the ball type wheel

Gardeners Tips

  • Buy the best quality you can afford if you are going to make a lot of use of the tool. It is surprising how many tools don’t get used all that often so plan out what you need. Over 80% of the work will be done by the items in the list above.
  • Hire the tools and equipment you only need occassionally. Be sure you are trained on the use and risks of hired tools.
  • Pay a tree surgeon to cut hedges, prune and trim trees. They will have the right equipment andwill side away the waste.
  • Maintain the tools you have:
  • Put linseed oil on wooden handles to keep them smooth and in good condition
  • Store metal wheel barrows upside down to help slow rusting from the rain
  • Keep blades clean and honed I use a wet stone to remove dried sap and keep sharp
  • Power tools need a cutout and an extension lead if your garden is large
  • Spray tools with WD40 or similar to keep rust free and moving
Fun Growing Hollyhocks

Fun Growing Hollyhocks

How high’s the Holyhock mama? 6 feet high and rising……
Hollyhock

 

  • One distinguishing feature of Hollyhocks are the 5 inch saucer shaped flowers growing on stalks up to 8 feet tall.
  • They are well known in Cottage garden designs as they provide height and focal points.
  • Hollyhocks are known and often sold by their Latin names Alcea Rosea or Althaea
  • Flowers are single in a range of colours from red almost black through pinks rose to white and yellow There is a pompom type double called Chater’s mixture
  • Hollyhocks are best if sown from fresh seed in late summer. The plants may be treated as biennials though they are hard perennials that have a shortish life. If sown in spring they may not flower until the next season.
  • Keep seeds and seedlings watered and encourage good root formation
  • Don’t compost leaves as they may have rust. Keep plants tidy by cutting leaves and spent blooms with secateurs.
  • Dead heading will help a second flush of flowers

Madiera Hollyhock