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Category: Gardening

General gardening tips and hints

Great Garden Chrysanthus Crocus

Great Garden Chrysanthus Crocus

crocus

Hocus pocus this Crocus is out of Focus but it illustrates my main theme. Your 2010 garden depends on decisions you take now and I think it is worth recording every plant you aspire to grow. I record things in picture and notebook form and am not as well organised as I claim to be. However I am building a list of plants and designs features that I want to try for next year (it also doubles as a present list family take note). High on my list is the early flowering Chrysanthus Zwanenburg Bronze shown above.

Chrysanthus Crocus Species.

  • The flowers are smaller than the blousy, large flowered crocus of public parks and gardens fame.
  • The colour range is more varied with several varieties having purple outer petals and white or yellow insides. Eye Catcher, Prince Claus, Herald and this example Zwanenburg Bronze.
  • Lighter colours amongst the creams are Jeannine, Snowbunting, Romance and Cream Beauty.
  • Chrysanthus flower a little earlier than large crocus but are less robust when naturalising though grass.
  • Bought in bulk from 3p each the corms look good value for a range of pot grown applications including growing your own presents and gifts.
Frogspawn Tips and Hints

Frogspawn Tips and Hints


From me’nthedogs on flickr

Spawn
Frogs can be very useful in the garden eating more than their share of slugs. On a warm day from February onward frogs and toads will emerge from hibernation, mate and lay eggs as spawn. Do not worry about too much spawns as one frog will lay up to 2000 eggs of which only half a dozen become adult frogs. If you get far too much spawn so that it is chocking the top of the pond you can transfer some to a bowl so you can watch the tadpoles develop over the next 6 weeks or so. Transferring spawn to another pond may transfer disease or unwanted plants. Toadspawn is formed in long strings rather than the clumped or bunched frogspawn. Newts put there spawn on the underside of leaves.

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The Garden Museum formerly Museum of Garden History

The Garden Museum formerly Museum of Garden History

The museum of garden history in St Marys Church at Lambeth Palace London reopens after refurbishment on the 18th November 2008. Renamed The Garden Museum, extra space has been created inside the medieval church to display paintings, drawings and ephemera related to gardening.

Visit to The Garden Museum (Garden)

  • I arrived a week too soon expecting the refurbishment to be completed ( I should have checked). It had been several years since my last visit when it was still called the museum of garden history.
  • The Cafe and garden were still open and the graveyard was planted up with lots of plants including some strong growing Acanthus.
  • The knot garden contained a large spirally pruned Ilex altaclariensis Golden King as a center piece.
  • Evidence of the links to the Tradescant family were all over the small garden and for the most part the plants were well labeled.
  • My favourite feature was an old stone seat that had been surrounded by a small hedge clipped to make it look like a sofa.

See more pictures
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Nearly Free Seeds

Nearly Free Seeds

RHS Seed Distribution

One of the joys of RHS membership is the annual free seed distribution. A 24 page listing of available seeds, collected from the RHS gardens, provides a wide and unusual selection.

The descriptions are short and the official Latin names send me off to look up the species in books or the internet before deciding. At the beginning of next year I will receive the 20 packets together with a germination guide. In addition to recommended temperatures and likely germination times there are many tips on covering seeds, chilling to break dormancy and other influencing factors.

I have just ordered my 20 packets from the catalogue of over 500 different options. Half of my selection this year are trees or shrubs as I like to have something different and taller than usual from the RHS. This was my selection:

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Peace the Top Rose

Peace the Top Rose

Named ‘Peace’ after the second world war this ‘Peace Rose’ could have been named not for the absence of war but for the tranquility of a peaceful garden.

History

In 1935, Francis Meilland cross-pollinated a french  rose with Margaret McGredy, from which was born a seedling of unknown qualities. Some eyes were budded in 1936, and by fall one of the plants had developed into an especially fine specimen with lush dark green, glossy foliage, and it had magnificent blooms of the most delicate ivory-yellow brushed with pink at the edges. From Kitty Belendes.

Taking Late Autumn Cuttings

Taking Late Autumn Cuttings

It is still not too late to take semi ripe and hard wood cuttings. Many perennials are short lived, like penstemon above, and they can be reinvigorated from new cuttings. Plants are not at there best in Autumn so results may not be perfect but I find it pays to experiment.

Gardeners Autumn Cutting Tips

  • Take more cuttings than you need to cover losses.
  • Add perlite to your  compost or use damp sand and peat
  • Hardwood cuttings of roses, hebe, choysia and other shrubs and trees can be taken and left outside under some shelter from a hedge.
  • Pelargonium and decorative Fuchsia need to be over wintered away from frost and I find it easier to do this with cuttings rather than large plants.
Confessions of a Gardening Gourmand

Confessions of a Gardening Gourmand

A gourmet is a connoisseur of delicacies and a judge of good food. Therefore a ‘gardening gourmet’ is a connoisseur of the garden and its impact on all your senses.

A gourmand is more like a gluttonous and greedy feeder who is hard to satiate. A ‘gardening gourmand ‘ acquires more plants,  grows more seedlings, takes more cuttings than needed and crams everything into a tight garden space.

I am a repenting garden gourmand at least until next spring.

Avoid the worst of Gardening Gourmandishness. …

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Gardening For Climate Change

Gardening For Climate Change

After this wet summer what has happened to Global Warming? Are there any advantages of Global Warming and how should gardeners design for such changes.

What is Global Warming

‘Climate change’ is used as a catch-all phrase to encompass the effects of global warming, the increase in temperature caused by greenhouse gases and the Northerly drift of hotter climates. …

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Garden Compost and Bokashi

Garden Compost and Bokashi

Bokashi, Japanese composting, is really a fermenting system. It converts your household food waste into a liquid and food remnants that are ripe for final composting. Ripe isn’t a fair word as it smells only of sweet pickle.

An additive of a lactic acid based micro organisms in a bran carrier is mixed with the food waste in an airtight bin and a culture like a ginger beer plant is created. These microbes include lactobacillus bacteria, phototrophic bacteria and yeast. The fermenting process takes a couple of weeks then the residue can be added to a compost heap or buried even though it can still retain some food colour and shape for a further 4-6 weeks. The liquid can be diluted  with water 1:100 as a fertiliser.

 

Gardeners Tips

  • Adding bran inoculated with organisms can be an extra expense and it seems hard to find a supplier
  • Adding soil and worms to a normal compost heap achieves similar results.
  • The ability to ‘compost’ meat and other food waste is the main plus
  • The two stage process is a bit of a minus
  • A two bin system makes it easier to switch from food collection to maturation
  • Whilst this may be a bid of a fad it encourages a ‘good green routine‘ and is worth a try.
Tips for Tomatoes in September

Tips for Tomatoes in September

I am picking more and more Cherry Tomatoes as the days get longer. I still have a lot of other vines in the greenhouse with fruit to pick and if they won’t ripen I will try some of these tips. Let me know if you have other methods.

Encourage late ripening

  • If you haven’t taken the greenhouse shading off, do so and clean all the glass.
  • Bunny Guinness suggests you cover plants with horticultural fleece or perforated plastic.
  • Stop pinching out as it is too late and excess water can be transpired through the new leaves to help avoid splitting.
  • Reduce the plants work load by selecting the fruit you want to ripen and take the rest off.
  • If you pick green tomatoes hang vines in a dark dry place to ripen.
  • Wrap a tomato in newspaper and put in a drawer  or cardboard box. Tomatoes ripen best in the dark and sunlight will make the skins get tough.
  • Put a banana in with green tomatoes will speed up the ripening/decay process
  • Pick green tomatoes as they start to change colour. Hard, dark green tomatoes get to a point where they won’t ripen and are only good for Chutney.