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Author: hortoris

Dealing With Weeds in Ponds

Dealing With Weeds in Ponds

To combat Algea, Blanket Weed and Invasive aquatic species you need to be on your guard.

Pond Weed
Pond Weed

A small wild life pond doesn’t have to be weedy in either sense. This pond in our park for example is a fairly large size. However as you can see it is ‘Weedy’ in the gardening sense.

Removing Blanket Weed

  • Oxygenating plants are the best and organic method but may fill half the pond.
  • For a small pond you can try the winding it around a stick method but roots regrow and small critters may be thrown on the compost heap with the weed.

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Gardeners Tips for Choisya

Gardeners Tips for Choisya

You pays your money and you takes your Choysia- ternata, pearl or sundance it is up to you.

Choysia

This Choisya ‘Sundance’ is an evergreen shrub grown from a young shoot cutting. The plants are trouble free and create a dome shape 4-5 feet high and spread in a similar number of years.

  • Grown mainly for the bright yellow of the new leaves they can be nipped brown with late frosts. Such damaged, scorched or wing burnt leaves should be cut off.
  • The small star shaped white flowers in April and May are very aromatic. A second flush of flowers may be obtained in Autumn.
  • Leaves also smell of basil or a bit citrusy if crushed
  • Choisya ternata ‘Aztec Pearl’ commonly called Mexican Orange blossom has narrower divided leaves and I find it is a bit thin in habit. The flowers are more numerous.
  • Choisya ‘Sundance’ is quite dense and the leaves, even when they have turned green, remain attractive and glossy.
  • Choisya will stand partial shade and can be used as part of an informal hedge
  • Propagate in Summer or Autumn, cuttings are easy to grow
  • Prune to keep in shape and cut out a third of the branches to renew from the base when needed.

Gardeners Tips 2011 Choysia

Duchy Originals and Organic HDRA

Duchy Originals and Organic HDRA

Rose Yorkshire Day 1st August – Organics for southern softies.
Rose

The Daily Telegraph report that a new range of Organic Seeds are to be available from Duchy Originals. This announcement coincided with Prince Charles visit to Ryton the Garden Organic establishment (HDRA).

It amuses me to see amongst the range of tools on sale at Duchy Originals a Dutch Hoe but may be I am confused somewhere with the Prince of Orange.

Organics is as organics does and the move to chemical free gardening has been highjacked by the organic movement. We and our food is all organic in some form or other. Some organic compounds can be most dangerous including some poisonous plants.

Thoughtful gardening will enable a sensible regime to coexist within a garden without slavishly following a proscribed ‘Organic’ regime.

Plants For a White Garden

Plants For a White Garden

On 1
st August the white Rose should feature on any self-respecting blog. It is Yorkshire day and this is our emblem.

white-hot-pokers

For me a garden needs a series of themes and contrasts. Showy annuals, intense herbaceous borders, seasonal planting and elegant shrubs are important features. When planning a ‘restricted colour garden‘ as in the white garden you are really planning for subtle contrasts and breathtaking clarity that is both calm and soothing. Grey foliage and variegated leaves will take their place amongst some of the purest or showiest flowers. To make a point and emphasise neutral colours a pure self colour may be introduced but there are shades of white and don’t forget buds, sepals and stamen bring shades of colour.

White Rose of Yorkshire

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Honeysuckle, Woodbine or Lonicera

Honeysuckle, Woodbine or Lonicera

You are my honey honeysuckle I am the vine……

Woodbine (not the cigarette) is an old colloquial name for Honeysuckle the mainstay of the Lonicera family. It is a favourite of English hedgerows and now there are many varieties grown for colour and scent in a garden setting

Tips for growing Honeysuckle

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Moss in Your Lawn ? – You Are Not Alone

Moss in Your Lawn ? – You Are Not Alone

The dry spell may have stopped your moss in it’s tracks but beware once mossy always mossy.

Lawn Leaves

After a wet winter it is a good if your lawn has no moss but it is unlikely. The yellower green patches on the photo above are where the moss is beating the grass.

Moss Thrives in Lawns

  • If the ground and soil under the lawn is compacted
  • Waterlogging or poor drainage encourages lawn moss (and moss in other areas too)
  • The grass that has been scalped by the lawn mower which cuts too short is an open invitation for moss to grow
  • If moss has previously been growing it is likely to return.
  • Where the lawn is old and a thatch of dead grass has built up and not been raked out or aerated
  • Moss will grow if the lawn is in the shade or overhung with trees, if the soil is impoverished or if you are an unlucky gardener.

Book Cover

Treatments and Tips

  • Don’t try to compost old moss – a normal compost heap won’t help as moss wont rot it just goes into suspended animation. So the moss will be returned with the compost

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Cold Gardens and Winter Tints

Cold Gardens and Winter Tints

With gardens still sweltering in the summer heat it seems too early to plan for cold winters but better safe than sorry.

    Cold Garden Locations
    A survey of gardens which had the lowest temperatures that most frequently dipped below freezing point include Norfolk and Suffolk, Lanarkshire and Highlands and surprisingly Letchworth, Watford and Royston in Hertfordshire. Perhaps it is not a surprise to those who live there.

    The mildest gardens were in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Bath – no surprise there. More surprisingly St Andrews, South Uist in the Hebrides and Newcastle would not have featured in my list of mild gardens. The mildest only had three weeks when temperatures fell below freezing.

    Winter Tints – Top Five

  1. Not all evergreens actually stay green through winter but they do tend to keep the leaves like Mahonia japonica which has coppery tints and early white blossom.

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Fritillaria Bulbs October

Fritillaria Bulbs October

October is a good month to buy and plant bulbs to flower next spring and Fritillaria is a species that you may want to try. There are over 60 species and varieties listed on the Pacific bulb society web site but only some of these will perform in your garden.

Fritillaria have elegant drooping bell shaped flowers and look good naturalised in grass or grown in a rockery. The most common colours are cream, purple, brown and purplish rose.

The Snakeshead Fritillaria above is comparatively cheap and easy to grow. The small species up to one foot tall include Assyriaca Uva Vulpis, Davisii and Elwesii.  The Imperial Fritilliaria on 3 foot stems with a cluster of drooping flowers often come in stronger colours of yellow, red and orange and are sold as Fritilliaria Lutea/Rubra/Aurora.
‘Snakes head fritillaries are a sight to behold when naturalised in damp woodlands or informal areas of grass. These charming wildflowers are protected in the wild and rarely seen in their native meadow habitats. ‘
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Colourful Climbers and Creepers

Colourful Climbers and Creepers

‘Late at night when sleeping poison ivy comes a-creeping.’

As Autumn beckons I thought it worth reviewing the top climbers and creepers for that startling colour that encourage passers buy to stop and gawp.

Virginia Creeper Parthenocissus quinquefolia is a large-leafed vigorous grower with brilliant orange and scarlet leaves in autumn.
Parthenocissus Veitchii ‘Boston Ivy’ from the same family is a vigorous self clinging vine also with rich crimson and scarlet leaves in autumn.

Vitis coignetiae Crimson Glory grape vine with green leaves turning crimson and scarlet in autumn with purple fruits.
Vitis ‘Brandt’ another hardy vine growing up to 25 feet. Large deep purple leaves and bunches of purple grapes in late summer.

Actinidia Kolomikta Chinese Gooseberry has young leaves that are tipped with a distinctive splash of pink and white. Not really an Autumn specimen but a good year round climber. To get fruit you need a male and female plant.

I would strongly recommend you avoid the Russian vine Polygonum baldschuanicum the mile a minute plant that strangles all in it’s path.

Ivy

Peas are Legumes Too

Peas are Legumes Too

What do beans, lupins, lentils, wisteria, peanuts and clover have in common? They like peas are all from the legume family.

Despite photographing this plant if I could identify it I would not need to buy ‘Legumes of the World’ by Gwilym Lewis, Brian Schrire, Barbara Mackinder, and Mike Lock available from Kew

legu

‘This is the first comprehensive guide to world legumes, describing and illustrating all 727 genera. Legumes contribute enormously to the world’s economy – through food and drink, pharmaceuticals and medicine, biotechnology, building and construction, textiles, furniture, horticulture, paper and pulp, fertilizers, chemicals, pest control and ecotourism. This book spotlights as yet untapped economic potential and for the first time places genera in a modern systematic framework.
Containing over 1,000 illustrations – colour photographs and line drawings – this is a lavish yet much needed reference for botanists and other professionals involved with legumes.’ Ordered from Kew Books at Kew gardens this book costs a marrowfat sized £59.95 but it is still cheaper than Amazon.

Other Resources
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