Gardeners Tips

We can all suffer from forgetfulness or in my case ignorance. This flower looks a bit like an antirrhinum but somehow that doesn’t seem to fit.

Reasons for Poor Identification

• Failure to take due notice and collect all the available information when first encountering a plant.
• Rare or unusual species seldom or not previously seen, thus having no reference point.
• Poor botanical knowledge eg. number of petals, leave shape, growing conditions etc.
• Large number of newly bred hybrids or special varieties. These are often ‘dumped’ on the market by suppliers to stimulate sales by introduction of new products.
• Not looking carefully and taking time to think about identification. Gardening should not be all about speed or so I keep telling myself.
• Able to guess the order, family, genus, species, hybrid, variety or common name but not all at the same time.
• Confusion created by the renaming or reclassification of a traditional plant into a new  genus such as Aster which became Symphyotrichum!
• You know what it is but not what variety or sub species.

 

 

There is many a good gardener who wears a tie to work. Neat rows of vegetables, manicured lawns and a smart personal appearance are de-rigor in the best professional gardens.

Contrast this to the old (some may say very old) neckerchief worn by Adam the gardener in the informative 1940’s strip cartoon. His recommendation for the first week in August included sowing hardy annuals of eschholtzia, cornflower, nigella, larkspur, scabious and shirley poppy for transplanting in spring. I guess that is all tied up.

Can you name all the garden implements?

 

Yorkshireman statue at Newby Hall Garden near Ripon. A tie, waistcoat and flat cap, what every well dressed gardener should be wearing.

What can gardeners do in winter? The answer lies in the soil! but to old gardeners it is still ‘Beyond our Ken’. I often spent too long polishing my good intentions this includes planning to send my mower for servicing and sharpening’ a shame I do not plan to polish up my other important gardening implements.

Winter Preparations

• In the spirit of new years resolutions you would expect my garage and shed to be perfect models of tidiness and order
• Winter prune trees and plan other tree work. Get an arboriculturalist to do the hard and technical work
• Clear the garage, garden shed and store areas. I have a glory hole where an old coal hole was under some outside stairs. It should be renamed gory hole as the stairs now allow water to penetrate.
• I still store pots by the score together with sundry bulk items I may or probably wont use again.
• Use the opportunity for testing my good ideas, bodges and purloined ideas from other gardeners
• Store garden furniture and frostable item.

 

Sorry about this post but I have just been clearing out some old drafts – now back into the garden.

• All those weeds – so little thyme
• My plants are not dead they are just sleeping
• Gone to pot
• Gardeners on average eat 50 pork pies a month – first time I’ve been above average on anything
• Gardeners know all the dirt
• Summer is set in with all it’s usual severity
• I am Julian and this my friend sandy
• I could give up gardening but I’m no quitter
• Where there’s muck there’s brassicas
• Before they made Alan Titchmarsh they broke the mould ( groucho Marx)
• The answer lies in the soil
• You can’t have everything I mean where would you put it
• Sweat peas and whirled peas
• You can’t improve on nature unless you can get it to look at the pictures on seed packets
• If you want it to rain water your garden
• To tell a flower from a weed pick it and if it grows again back it is a weed