Zonal Geraniums need frost Protection

Zonal Geraniums need frost Protection

Zonal geraniums are more accurately called ‘Pelargoniums’.

After a several good years I got careless this weekend and lost some good growth and suffered several set backs after an air frost. Similar even took place 6 years ago and that was at the start of June.

Remember if your pelargonium stems get frosted then the plant will die and not recover!

In the North of England there can be frosts late in May and early June. In Scotland and on high ground keep your thermometer handy whenever frost is threatened.

The zonal is named for the distinct bands of colour around the leaf. On this example 3 distinct shades are obvious even though it is a black and white image. These distinctive colours and patterns are quite sought after and some varieties are grown for the leaf shade alone.

Engraved Zonal Pelargonium

If you are worried about frost geraniums make fine house plants. They can be kept in flower throughout the year and the flowers can be picked for a small vase. If you time it right when several ‘pips’ are showing full colour they can last over a couple of weeks as the other pips keep opening.

Try regular weekly feeding of high potash feed with an occasional nitrogen booster.

A Leaf From The Sweet Pea Book

A Leaf From The Sweet Pea Book

Book Cover by Graham Rice

The Sweet Pea is no joking matter, it is not good gardening to trifle with one of the best garden flowers. But hey who is making the trifle anyway…
“What is your wife’s favourite flower?”
“It’s self-raising, isn’t it?”

Sweet peas in the garden 185/365

Sweet peas in the garden 185/365 by Carol Browne, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ‘I’ve got a few sweet peas growing in the garden. Sadly, I had envisioned a forest of sweet peas, but only have a few at the moment.’
 …

Read More Read More

Pruning Books are a Snip

Pruning Books are a Snip

Cut price books for gardeners.
Pruning Clematis frightens many gardeners. Early flowering clematis alpina, montana, armandii and macropetala should be cut back ass soon as they have flowered in May. This encourages new growth for flowering next year.

Buying a good Pruning Book is a snip if it can save one good plant or thin out your fruiting crop at the right time.
It can be false economy to keep loping without purpose when the cost of a book can be repaid so quickly by the successful reshaping of your ornamental plants.

Book Cover
…

Read More Read More

Moses or Roses or Moss Roses

Moses or Roses or Moss Roses

Do not mistake roses for noses and ask for a big red one.

Canary Rose

Teach a Poem to Your Canary Bird Rose

Moses supposes his toeses are roses,
but Moses supposes erroneously,
Moses he knowses his toeses ain’t roses,
nobody’s toeses are roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.

OK but not that poem!

May be you don’t want a poetic budgie but many gardeners feel the urge to rhyme occasionally.

Try clicking these books if you feel poetic;
Book Cover

Book Cover

Book Cover

Black Flowers and Foliage for Gardens

Black Flowers and Foliage for Gardens

‘Black is the new Black’
Black coral pea

As a child did you read ‘The Black Tulip’ or try to grow a black rose? Well here are some tips to help you grow black plants in your garden’. Most of my black plants unfortunately are black because they are dead but that still leaves lots of other varieties to choose from.

Foliage

  • Certain dark purple leaves look almost black including Cotinus Smoke Tree ‘Royal Purple’, Heuchera ‘Palace Purple’ and Purple Beech Fagus Atropurpurea
  • New Zealand flax phormium tenax has various purple varieties. There are also black mondo grasses nigrescens.
  • If you want black in the fruit and vegetable garden try a grape vine ‘Purpurea’ or bronze fennel. If space permits the Black Walnut tree has black fissured bark.

…

Read More Read More

Growing Pinks for Cottage Gardens

Growing Pinks for Cottage Gardens

Pinks are ‘divine flowers’ that can be planted in late April / May or October and produce a continuous supply of flowers suitable for cutting or exhibiting. They are perennials that are at their best for 2-3 summers. Scent, colour and uniformity are just 3 reasons for growing Pinks or other varieties of Dianthus.

Cultivation of Pinks
Pinks are completely trouble free if planted in a sunny position, in free draining soil. (asking for trouble there)
Occasionally water like any other garden plant and dead head after flowering.
Pinks bloom from early spring until the first frosts.
Hardy Pinks don’t mind the cold, so no need to lift them over the cold winter months.
Pinks will be a talking point in winter due to their silver/grey leaves .
Each spring tidy up around the plants and work in a fertilizer like Growmore, dried blood or Superphosphate
…

Read More Read More

Shocking Colour Combinations

Shocking Colour Combinations

inspires

The soft pink and pale blue are a bit sugary for many gardeners but  the idea of tall spiky plants flowering together inspires other combinations. The Delphinium is perennial whilst the Foxglove is  biennial and has been placed just in front of the Delphinium to get the effect. The spikes inspire both in colour and architectural shape.

Pink & Blue Ideas

  • A Califonian Lilac Ceanothus impressus has bursting blue flowers and could be under planted with Bellis Perennis Pompomette a double daisy in shades of pink. Avoid the red  Bellis plants as they will clash.
  • Silene schafta is a magenta -pink and for low growing rockery plantings it can be mixed with the blue Campanula porteschlagiana.
  • Bearded Iris have many strong blue varieties and  pink Peony Sarah Bernhardt will make the blue and pink connection with mixed foliage shapes and textures.
  • In mid spring we are familiar with the Jan Boss and Delft Blue hyacinths but I find the contrast fails to inspire me and I would go for a different combination.

…

Read More Read More

Top 10 Small Gardens

Top 10 Small Gardens

Alpine Trough

You can grow an interesting garden in an old sink, trough or container that you have to hand. In the case of the photograph above all the plants chosen were small compact alpines. They include small varieties of normal garden favourites such as Asters, Pinks (Dianthus), Campanula, Gypsophilia, Primula, Sempervivum and Pelargonium (Geraniums).

Types of Small Garden

1. Container
A collection of plant pots on hard standing can look exceptional. The choice of plants is massive, fruit trees, trailing annuals, bulbs, conifers the list is endless. Hanging baskets also fit in this category of containers and as an idea try a herb garden in a basket near your kitchen door.

2. Window boxes
If you have ever seen Swiss Chalets in summer they will probably have been brimming with red geraniums and brilliant trailing flowers. Free window box plans are available for DIY experts to try and make their own.

3. Bonsai
…

Read More Read More

Weed Control Tips and Water Avens

Weed Control Tips and Water Avens

Don’t let your weeds seed – wildlife and wind will do the job of importing weeds anyway.

wood-avens

I am suffering this year from a pernicious weed called ‘Avens’ part of the Geum family. It comes in two sorts the yellow flowered Wood Avens  Geum urbanum and the pinker flowered  Water Avens Geum Rivale. They seed freely and there-in lies the problem as individually they are innocuous but when they spread around they become a pest.

Weed Control Tips

  • Do not let weeds run to seed and disperse or you will have them for years.
  • Do not put seed heads in the compost bin, if the heat fails to kill them you will end up spreading them around far better than mother nature can do.
  • Hoe the soil as young annual weeds emerge. Good housekeeping will keep the number of weeds down.
  • Remove the root of weeds to stop them re-emerging. Avens are shallow rooted but the stalks will just break off so you need to loosen the soil and pull out the roots.
  • Think of any plant in the wrong place as a potential weed and remove or kill the flowering thugs amongst your plants. ( Forget-me-nots and some Poppies are a weed in my garden.)
  • Beware imports of exoitic plants that become weeds. Water Avens is an escapee from pond plant situations
  • …

    Read More Read More

Cornus Family of Dogwoods

Cornus Family of Dogwoods

cornus-controversa

Cornus controversa is a striking tree with tiered habit and heads of creamy-white flowers in May leading to it’s nickname The Wedding Cake Tree. The leaves of Cornus controversa Pagoda are a vibrant, dark green in spring and summer before turning a rich, plum-purple in autumn. The shrub is robust and can be seen growing to 50 feet in the national collection of Cornus at Newby Hall Garden.

dog-wood-in-bloom
This Cornus Kousa Rosea is a great shrub about 4 feet tall with a tiered habit and bracts around the flowers of reddish pink.

Cornus mas forms a large shrub or small spreading tree up to 15 feet tall with shiny, dark green leaves which turn reddish purple in autumn. It is grown mainly for its profusion of tiny golden yellow flowers which are borne in rounded clusters on bare stems before the leaves develop, giving a cloud of welcome winter colour. The flowers are followed in summer by unusual oblong shaped, fleshy, bright red, edible berries, hence the common name cornelian cherry.
…

Read More Read More