Browsed by
Category: Gardening

General gardening tips and hints

Lush Time in the Garden

Lush Time in the Garden

Where has all the rain gone? In winter there were floods aplenty so I was predicting water rationing by summer. Now it is mid May and the ground is parched and rock hard.

I was struggling to plant my dahlias when I heard my neighbor having even more trouble getting his spade in deep enough. I said I was worried about my next water bill and low and behold there it was on the doormat by lunch time.

Lush is as Lush Does

  1. To me green is the lush colour for all seasons. Other colours supplement or provide great highlights but the framework is green.
  2. Evergreens are therefore a mainstay of my garden particularly the 50 plus evergreen conifers that look lush through the year.
  3. It seems sad to eulogise dying foliage but this year the daffodils and blubells have clung on to the strappy leaves and provided some ground cover until I can get some annuals ready.
  4. The water table and morning dew has been enough to keep the grass green and I am resisting the temptation to cut too close.
  5. Two water barrels are not enough to allow me to water lavishly and 2 outdoor taps are a temptation. I and the garden will survive the rest of the year even though I predict summer floods.
Plant Viruses and Viral Infections

Plant Viruses and Viral Infections

Plants in your garden can suffer from infections caused by many different viruses. Once a plant is infected there is no chemical treatment that will destroy the virus without also killing the plant.

Signs of Virus Infection

  1. Irregular white or yellow mottling on normally green leaves such as rings, mosaic patterns or other mottling.
  2. Distorted leaves with curling and or crinkling
  3. Malformed flowers, damaged fruit and early leaf fall.
  4. Once a plant is infected the plant may be stunted and unable to produce flower or fruit.
  5. Some plants are just carriers and do not demonstrate symptoms other suffer from wilt disease.

More About Viruses on Plants

  1. Viral infections are generally transmitted from plant to plant by insects such as aphids, thrips, whitefly, eelworms, and some beetles.
  2. Some control can be provided by keeping these pests at bay.
  3. Viruses can be prevalent and long lasting in soil.
  4. Each virus is plant species specific and some varieties are more prone than others. Potato blight decimates crops, tomato mosaic virus damages fruit, cucumbers suffer as do many flowering plants e.g. carnations, roses and chrysanthemum.
  5. Plum pox potyvirus  the variants of which causes Sharka the viral disease of stone fruit crops.

Other Plant Health Problems

  1. Fungus and fungal infections
  2. Virus and Viral diseases
  3. Bacterial diseases
  4. Pests
Rhodo labels & Records

Rhodo labels & Records

Widgeon

Kenneth Cox at Glendoick   Offers some of the best advice on rhododendron identification and recording. …..Using GPS handheld devices would allow reasonably accurate mapping to made by taking positional readings in each area of the garden and recording what is planted there. If you want  you can then allow garden visitors to access these records on their own devices. There is no limit to the interactive potential if you are prepared to invest time and money…..

The three best examples of private (as opposed to botanic garden) record keeping I have seen outside the major botanic gardens are Philip de Spoelberch’s collections at Herkenrod in Belgium, Lord Howick’s collection in Northumberland and the late James Russell’s plantings at Ray Wood, Castle Howard, Yorkshire. All of these gardeners believe passionately in the value of accurate and detailed records……

Rhododendron Golden Eagle Label at YSP

Labels

  1. To a gardener a label should be easily seen unobtrusive, legible, long lasting and easilt fixed so that it is not broken off by wind or clumsy gardener. To a plant seller the label is designed for one purpose, to relieve you of your cash.
  2. I am still seeking the ideal label and hate those little white plastic sticks that become too brittle.
  3. The longest lasting labels are embossed metal labels I have some thin copper labels to scratch the details into but they are hard to see. Glendoick recommend aluminium labels written on with a soft pencil tend to last well
  4. Beware of label death, where a branch or stem is girdled metal, by the failure to loosen a label as the plant grows.
  5. Dymo labels are surprisingly long lasting
  6. Most botanic gardens use expensive engraved labelled on UV stabilised plastic or modified acrylic laminate.
The Mother of Inventions

The Mother of Inventions

Rust Bucket Barrow

Last autumn I realised I needed a new wheel barrow but thought I would defer the purchase until spring 2020. In February I found a galvanised builders barrow that I coveted and resolved to purchase one. At the first attempt I discovered my wives car wasn’t big enough to take it home. A bit later, low and behold, I’d missed the boat or more accurately caught the over 70’s travel restrictions and subsequent social distancing rules.

So along came the mother of all inventions (or nearly) in the form of a simple mat to cover the rusty hole. It wont last long and can’t hold heavy loads but I am making do by mending.

In addition I made a contraption that isn’t a riddle or sieve but my own sifter shown below. It is made from plastic coated chicken wire and to prevent large particles escaping I doubled it over. It is surprisingly easy to lift the detritus and put it into another compost bin.

Home Made Sifter

Time now for a ‘garden o’clock snifter.

Big Up Your Garden Compost

Big Up Your Garden Compost


Goodnews, I have 3 good sized compost bins. The bad news is I am filling them very quickly which if they rot down soon enough will become more good news. The black bin heats up quicker but contains less material and is hardest to get at to turn the waste so I guess that is a scoring draw (using football pools terms).

New Discoveries

  1. I should have known all along that hay rots into a soggy lump and isn’t great for garden compost making. It probably contains far more seeds that I or the garden can cope with.
  2. I should have known all along that forgotten tools may turn up in heaps as they do not rot but rust even my spare pair of Felcos had some rust.
  3. I should have known all along that rats like a warm friendly space to live and breed. A neighbor has had to call out the pest control twice during the lock down and I’ve discovered an unusual depression and hole in one of my heaps. I hope my early action will work.
  4. I should have known all along that I would get better compost if I sieve out the tougher bits.  A full bin has realised 50% fine sieved parts with the rest going back to restart the new bin. I also found fruit labels and sundry bits of plastic.

Roses for Good Hips

Roses for Good Hips

Some gardeners say the best hips are produced by species roses. Here are some Hips Tips that I have discovered over the years.

  1. Rugarosa for big juicy spherical hips
  2. Birds adore the red, egg-shaped hips of the wild dog rose Rosa canina which are also good for cooking.
  3. Masses of orange-red hips adorn the rampant rambler Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’. It needs a large tree or building to grow over  as does Rambling Rector.
  4. Rosa ‘Madame Grégoire Staechelin’ is a glorious climber with huge hips that turn from yellow to pinkish-red.
  5. The Scotch rose, Rosa spinosissima is a  very prickly species rose with purplish-black hips
  6. Bristly, urn-shaped, dark red hips hang on the arching stems of Rosa setipoda, make a striking autumn feature.
  7. Hips vary in shape and colour with Rosa moyesii Evesbatch having long elongated hips and Rosa pimpinellifolia round black hips.
  8. Rosa villosa has gooseberry like hips whilst for small, orange-red hips try Rosa ‘Fru Dagmnar Hastrup’ that look like cherry tomatoes.
  9. The fatter and juicier the hip the better they make rose hip syrup.
  10. As a child we used to break open the hip and push seed down the back of friends shirts to cause itching. I haven’t tried that for 60 years or so! but I still get the itch.

A few  older shrub roses that are recommended by the RHS: …

Read More Read More

I’m Potty About Watering My Pots

I’m Potty About Watering My Pots

I have 35 good ceramic pots and numerous plastic pots and containers dotted around the garden. There is a 3 foot wide path all around the house that hosts many of these pots on a permanent or seasonally temporary basis. I enjoy ringing the changes about location and container content. What I don’t enjoy is watering the pots! Since the floods early in the year we have had scarcely any rain in Yorkshire and the ground is now dry and cracking up. Looking at the forecast April looks like being a shower free zone never mind a good soaker.

A plant pot that needs more water

Why Pots get Dry

  1. Too little soil or compost to retain enough moisture often because the pot is too small
  2. Compost too free draining eg sandy or gritty soil. Compost need some ‘heart’ to retain water.
  3. Porous terracotta pots that allow water to be sucked out through the sides
  4. Pots in too much sunshine with no shade
  5. Pots placed in windy or draughty conditions
  6. Plants with lush leaves that transpire readily and need copious amounts to drink.
  7. Root bound pots or those filled with roots leaving no room for water soaked compost.

Excess roots and weed cover restricting water content

Watering Pots

  • These comment apply to varying degrees to most ceramic, clay, terracotta and plastic pots, containers, hanging baskets plus similar plant containers.
  • You may notice pure peat or coir is very difficult to get evenly  wet. Commercial composts have a wetting agent added during packing so this problem is initially  circumvented
  • If pots get dried out the compost is very hard to re-wet. A deep soak for 12 hours is probably the best way to totally rehydrate the soil but that is not always possible. Damp compost will take up more water. Very dry soil sheds the water or lets it run right through. I start with a light wetting or dampner on the surface then 10 minutes later water properly.
  • Special care is very important specifically if the compost has shrunk away from the sides of the pot.
  • The problem of hanging baskets being difficult to re-water once they get a bit dry has a simple solution which is to use a wetting agent or a small dash of washing up liquid in the water .
  • Preventing  drying out in the first place is as  better step.
  • Drip or electronic controlled watering would be a top end solution.
  • A saucer under the pot would be a cheapo solution.
  • A community of pots to create a micro climate and increase surrounding humidity can help.
  • Placing the pot on soil or capillary matting would allow some leaching from the surrounding area.
  • I use a wick system for pots in the greenhouse with a  strip of capillary fabric or matting trailing from the middle of the pot surrounded in compost with the end trailing out of a drainage hole into a sump of water.

 

Special Seed Sowing Survey

Special Seed Sowing Survey

I thought I would just list some special tactics to try increase successful sowing activities.  After all ‘Tis the season for sowing summer annuals and so on’.

Pulsatilla or Pasque Flower

Special Seed Sowing

  1. To chit, nick or sandpaper your sweet pea seeds, that is the question? I often settle for a pre-soak to get through the hard coating and swell the hard seeds. The RHS video recommends nicking with a pen knive but each to their own. I did well last back end just planting ‘cupid’ in compost without any preparation.
  2. Seeds with a long awn such as Pasque flowers germinate better if they are individually speared into compost not sown flat. With warmth and wet the awns twist the seed deeper into the soil.
  3. Flat seeds like lilies have a papery wing covering the fertile grain. The germination will improve if the seed is inserted edge ways and not flat.
  4. Many seeds like to be sown as soon as they are ripe, after all that is natures way. Primula, Lewisia, Ranunculus and gentians are best sown from ‘pod to pan’.
  5. Cyclamen seeds are covered in a sticky substance to reward ants that move them from the host plant. Germination may be better if this glue is washed off before sowing.
  6. Pollinated Orchids can take up to a year for the ovary to swell and ripen. Then the fun starts as your harvested seed is best sent to a seed laboratory for germination and return as pricked out seedlings. It can also take a further 5 years to reach the flowering stage dependent on the variety.
  7. Many seeds that can’t be sown immediately can be stored in a dry container in the fridge. Some benefit from a good chill as this replicates winter conditions.
  8. I message to myself – SOW SEEDS THINLY
I Do Like to Garden by the Sea

I Do Like to Garden by the Sea

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, oh I do like to garden by the sea -Tiddely om pom pom. Seaside gardening has its challenges and it has it’s rewards as my west coast brother-in-law knows. (At the age of 82 he is thinking of giving up his gardening business to concentrate on his own relatively new garden).

The Filey Seaside Gardener

Seaside Gardening Challenges

  1. To garden by the seaside you face virtually all the challenges inland gardeners face and then some.
  2. The first to single out is the salty air borne on winds that have blown over the sea to deposit there munificence on your prized plants. Salt is not a natural fertiliser! Salt is not a natural plant killer although you may come to think that it is so if you plant the wrong plants.
  3. In the UK you may expect westerly winds  around half of our coastline. However there are additional strong winds that blow on-shore on a regular basis to the detriment in the East, North and South gardens. Seaside wind is desiccating and abrasive as we know from personal wind chill effects.
  4. Sand dunes, beaches and sand castles amuse the children but sandy soil is a garden staple that adds to the challenges. Such soil has little humous, hold little water or goodness and is desiccated so lacking in nutrients.
  5. Geological and geographic features need to be contended with including the possibility of a high water table, limey seashell based soil or pebbles and rocks. The worst issue of the moment is soil erosion on the East coast where your cliff top garden or allotment may crumble into the sea.

The Filey Fisherman’s Friend

Seaside Gardening Rewards

  1. Defeating the challenges or holding them to a scoring draw is reward in it’s self (or so I’m told).
  2.  Others common plants will do far better at the seaside than one expects. Hydrangea macrophylla can do well despite the lack orf water as do annual plants chosen for public gardens by tourist minded local authorities. See our selection of  Perennials for the seaside from gardeners tips 2012. Careful plant selection could even introduce some new species to even the most avid gardener.
  3. There are far more detailed selections in the book ‘The Seaside Gardener’ by Richard Mortimer
  4. There can be special rewards from the introduction of wind breaks. Walls add height to a flat landscape providing scope for climbers or crevice plants. Selective planting of trees and shrubs will be rewarded by breaking the flow of the wind and possibly directing it up and over your patch.
  5. The proximity of the sea can provide some winter warmth to keep the worst of the frost at bay. On the other hand you may suffer from a sea fret that prevents you from seeing your garden.
  6. Low growing locally successful wild plants will do even better with your tender care.

Odd Seaside Gardening Tips

…

Read More Read More