• An insight into what makes Alpine plants tick or grow in unusual locations.
• Information on all aspects of alpine cultivation and propagation.
• How to plant and maintain raised beds, troughs, walls and containers.

Success with Alpine Gardening by Graham Clarke

Who Wants to Read ‘Success with Alpine Gardening ‘

• The gardener who wants to branch out or get close to new species.
• Plant lovers who are looking for new varieties to grow or challenges to overcome.
• Readers who followed Graham when he was editor of Amateur Gardening and Horticulture Week

Also Buy from Amazon

Alpine Gardening for Beginners an AGS no nonsense, good value book

Quick Thoughts for Success with Alpine Gardening

Crevise gardens are the current rage. Beware what little soil there is in crevices is not washed out. A gentle ‘batter’ of slope away fro 90 degrees may help.
Use the position of rocks to provide a rain shadow for plants that do not want wet leaves and roots.
It is no use craving success if you do not put the effort in to Alpine Gardening. Because the plants are small isn’t an excuse for your efforts to match.

What to Expect in the Book of the Month

• The how, when, why and what of Rose care to get good flowers in your garden.
• A terse and almost too concise book not over endowed with photographs.

‘Rose Gardening For The New Home Gardener: A Step-By-Step Gardening How To For Growing Roses With All The Gardening Tips You Must Know For Rose Care and Rose diseases to help you grow Blossoming and eye-catching Rose Bushes In Your Own Garden Landscape by Venus F. Gann (45 word title)

Who Wants to Read ‘Rose Gardening ….. ‘

• Those who want guiding through the growing of roses in a simple none threatening manner.
• If you need encouraging to give tender loving care to get some great roses this book may be for you.

Rose Gardening Contents include:

• Choose the right roses for your garden and there is a massive choice
• How and when to plant, water, fertilize and prune your roses
• Planted roses in pots and containers
• Grow organic roses with tips.
• Prevent and treat common rose diseases
• Dry your roses for flower arranging. How to revive wilting roses

Buy from Amazon

A wider selection of books about your favourite flowering shrubs The Rose

Quick Thoughts of the Month
Growing roses requires plenty of preparation before you can start planting. Roses will live for many years or decades if well treated so preparation will be rewarded.
Roses need space, if you crowd them in one place they won’t have room to develop and diseases can develop easily.
Take the plunge roses are easier to grow than you think!

• The green and black cover of ‘Wicked Plants: The A-Z of Plants That Kill, Maim, Intoxicate and Otherwise Offend’ may give you a clue as it conjures up feelings of foreboding and danger.
• Details of two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations that could scare the worried gardener.
• ‘The ‘unfathomable evils’ of the plant kingdom and the presentation makes it an enticing read’ according to Eden Magazine
• Expect a light readable book that is based of good knowledge by an author with several similarly authoritative books to her name

Wicked Plants: The A-Z of Plants That Kill, Maim, Intoxicate and Otherwise Offend by Amy Stuart

Who Wants to Read ‘ Wicked Plants That Kill, Maim, Intoxicate…. ‘

• If you plant to visit the poison garden and Alnwick this book is an interesting precursor.
• Those with young children or a predisposition to be concerned about health and well being will not be comforted but will definitely be better informed.

Buy from Amazon

Sundry gardening books
Poisonous Plants in Great Britain (Wooden Books Gift Book) by Fred Gillam

Quick Thoughts of the Month
The more we learn the less we realise we know:
The Yew is poisonous yet it is in the forefront of the fight against cancer.
Toadstools are perceived as bad whilst mushrooms have had a much better press.
Everything in moderation, eat or drink too much and everything even water can be fatal.
Read more on Dangerous and Harmful Garden Plants

What comes first the chicken or the egg. In this case what comes first the name of a plant or the name of a colour. It is surprising how many colours and plants are the same. The citrus family provide most with Orange, Tangerine, Lemon and Lime!

The Rose Expert by Dr D G Hessayon

Colourful books in The Expert series have made sure of one bank balance in the black not the red!

Lavender Lover’s Handbook, by Sarah Berringer Bader

The dark end of the colour spectrum produces Indigo and Violet both plants of the hue. Lavender and Lilac are also of a similar persuasion.

Magnolias: A Gardener’s Guide by Jim Gardiner

Not the colour of Magnolia paint that all the walls in my first house was painted by I do not know of a plant called a beige.

There is an Orange book prize and so I thought we should consider a garden book prize we could call it Apple Green or Bookworm awards.

On The Eighth Day God Created Allotments for Kindle by David Boyle
So allotments should be exceptional because God had just had a rest before he created them. If you are fortunate enough to have an allotment make good use of it and enjoy.

Blurb on the Book

‘There are few things the British treasure as much as their allotments. A few square metres of land, usually on the outskirts of cities, they are an oasis of calm in a busy world, a source of fresh vegetables and flowers, and a retreat into nature for city dwellers.

But what is the history of the allotment? Where did it come from? And what were the principles and ideas that created this quiet but powerful force in society?

In this brilliant slice of social history, David Boyle traces the story of the allotment back to the great medieval commons – and to the potent but half-forgotten ideology which, throughout the nineteenth century, asserted people’s right to grow their own food.

This book is partly the story of the politician who made it possible, Jesse ‘Three acres and a cow’ Collings, and his ability to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (and vice versa). But it is also a look at the original ideology of the allotment, its radical claims about English history, its representative interpretation of modern economics, and where it has led us to today – and what might happen if the guiding ideology of allotments makes further progress.

On the Eighth Day God Created Allotments will be enjoyed by keen gardeners, but also by anyone interested in the history of British society. It magnificently mixes personal stories and social, political economic ideas to tell a little-known but compelling and important story. ‘

Credits
Allotments at Berwick-upon-Tweed Allotments by muggers! CC BY 2.0

My daughter has just moved into a house that was unoccupied for 12 months. The lawn was really a meadow with what looked like several years of neglect. I used my petrol rotary mower ‘Champion 375′ on the highest cutting setting. The varied height ability was very useful. After raking some dead straw from the grass it was cut again at a lower setting.

When I have left it for a week to settle then it will be cut on progressively lower settings. Fortunately I can also use a mower with a heavy cylinder to level out some of the little bumps. Shortly a weed and feed application either granules or liquid will probably be applied. I am not rushing this as I want to get the lawn into better shape without chemicals.

The problems then start encouraging my daughter to take over the maintenance. How will my daughter cut her new lawn without the tools? Well I recommend a lawn mower from the cheap end of the range. Amazon sell a Flymo Lite Electric Hover Lawnmower at £56.99. The lawn isn’t too large and a short extension flex will cope.

This hover mower is made from lightweight polypropylene and features plastic blades with a 28cm cutting width. This 1000w electric lawnmower has a hover action that makes it easy to manoeuvre when cutting and also has 2 cutting heights. There is a fold down handle for easy storage and is quite light.

A goat may be a cheaper alternative way to keep the lawn mowed but somehow I don’t think that would go down too well.

101 Garden projects is an excellent small book offering simple but effective ways to transform a garden. The book is particularly aimed at the small garden. For example, tips include growing potatoes and herbs in pots. Most of the ideas are easy to execute and it simply provides a range of interesting ideas for you garden. There is a mixture between design ideas to growing vegetables and flowers.

Some of my favourite tips include:

• Taking root cuttings and making plants for free.
• Grow early strawberries using cloches.
• Simple design ideas such as the ‘dry river’ of pebbles.
• Plant early potatoes in large pots or bags in spring and again in September for new spuds out of season. (keep seed potatoes cold to stop them over sprouting.

The books is well illustrated with colour photos and simply explained. Would make an excellent gift for any gardener. It couldn’t be easier with projects including planting, pruning, composting, hanging baskets, lawns, ponds, greenhouses, indoor gardening and grow-to-eat ideas.

Keep Calm Carry on Gardening.

Gardeners’ World: 101 Garden Projects: Quick and Easy DIY Ideas by Helena Caldon only £3.77 from Amazon

Commercial compost is a range of products sold in plastic wrapping in garden centres, DIY shops and sundry retailers. This is not to be confused with your own garden compost made from decomposed plant matter.
The contents of these types of commercial compost vary and can affect the growing result considerably. All have a base which has no or negligible nutritional value plus additives that make it useful for a specific purpose.

Typical Compost Constituents – Base

Peat base of small fibers of bog peat is excellent for many purposes but now seen as none ecofriendly due to the over extraction of peat and lack of replenishment of the resource which isn’t sustainable.
Coir as a peat substitute for the base. Coir is made from the hairs & fibers of coconuts and such compost are widely available. There are special organic compost products approved by the vegan society .
Wood pulp based composts and partially composted bark are other bases the industry is trying to develop into retail products but mixes and formulas keep changing
Steralised loam based composts, generically called John Innes after the guy who first formulated them, tend to be heavier.
Composted green waste is becoming popular if you can find a reliable supplier who uses undiseased raw materials

Typical Commercial Compost Constituents – Additives

Most composts are mixes of some of the base ingredients and possibly sand or vermiculite to open up the compost and improve drainage
Fertilisers are added that are appropriate to the end use. seed compost needs less fertiliser than a container planting compost where a plant has to live for at least a season
A wetting agent is often added as peat is very difficult to get wet and you need an even moisture in a pot or seed tray.
Water retaining gels may be added for hanging basket compost.

Typical Compost for Special Uses

Rooting and cutting compost is usually just a mix of sand loam and peat
Seed compost has crushed limestone and phosphates added to help drainage an promote root growth
John Innes No1, 2 & 3 has varying quantities of fertilisers; hoof and horn, superphosphate and potassium sulphate . No 1 Potting Compost is for pricking out young plants, No 2 Potting Compost is for potting on and No 3 Potting Compost is for established plants and shrubs.
Ericacious compost is for acid loving plants like Rhododendrons and lime hating plants like Mahonia and has flowers of sulphur added to the peat based mix.
Cactus compost, Bonsia compost, Orchid compost, Citrus plant compost even African Violet compost are all available from a range of suppliers. One brand with a range available in many outlets is Westland http://www.gardenhealth.com/latest-news.php
Bulb compost used to be called bulb fibre and has no fertiliser . It is used for bulbs like Hyacinths that have already got a store of energy to produce a flower.

Tips On Compost

As it is an organic product the quality can be variable but there will be a brand you like so try some out – currently I am using Arthur Bowers and B&Q own label.
Mix in a bit of grit, sand, vermiculite or water preserving gel depending on how you plan to use the compost
Try keep it uniformly moist.
Add a drop of liquid soap to the water to restrict the growth of moss on seed compost used for slow germinating seeds.
Grow bags contain compost and are a cheaper way of buying compost than small bags.
Compost deteriorates with age so buy fresh compost from a commercial supplier with a fast turnover.

Link to Garden Compost from Amazon

Tucson Botanical Bottle Garden? Not quite, but artistic bottles in the garden.
If you have the bottle to produce your own art then give freedom to your bottled up instincts.

A local garden has used their old empty wine bottles inverted and buried around a sapling to produce a circular no go area. It may not be good in the longer term for the sapling but for the wine drinkers it seems to work.
I am less sure about the bottle tree below but everyone to their own tipple.

The final picture has little to do with bottles but shows art in the garden in the garden so to speak.

Credits
Garden Art by SearchNetMedia, CC BY-NC 2.0
SF Garden Show | Bottle Tree by lawgeek CC BY-NC 2.0
Art in the Garden, Tirau by EssjayNZ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Some plants suffer if they can’t take up the right mix of chemicals from your soil. Some soils do not have enough of the right chemicals to sustain certain plants. These situations call for the judicious use of plant health chemicals that either free up the plants ability to draw sustenance from the soil or add the chemical to the soil to improve the plants health.

Many useful plant heath additives are available as ‘mix them your self’chemicals like those sold under the brand Chempak.

Key Plant Health Chemicals

• Magnesium is a trace element that helps the uptake of nutrients. Useful for improving the colour and vigour of Chrysanthemums and greening up yellow leaves. Try it on your tomatoes to correct magnesium deficiency. Epsom salts are a useful way of improving the magnesium content to soil.
• Sulphur has a couple of garden uses including reducing the soils ph for the health of ericaceous plants. It can also stop some bacterial rots.
• Sequestered Iron or Chelated Iron is used as a tonic for ericaceous plants.
• Calcium is a basic building block and helps prevent many disorders. Lime is often used to add calcium to the veg garden or to prevent other soils becoming sour and too acidic.

Soil Health Chemicals

• The health of plants and the health of soil go hand in hand. It is very hard to have one without the other.
• Chemical assitance for soil health comes in improving the constituents of the soil by fertilisers or correcting deficiencies (as above) and by improving the structure of the soil (below).
• Clay breaker is designed to stop the very fine particles of soil sticking together in wet weather and baking rock hard in the sun. The addition of grit and humus will do a similar job.
• Humus in the form of spent mushroom compost, peat or manure are basic garden chemical additions to improve soil condition.
• Potting base is not added to your soil but to peat to make your own seed or potting compost. It usually contains a wetting agent, chalk and trace elements and the resulting mixture is fine for growing your own seedlings or cuttings.
• Soil improvers like Forti8 or seaweed extract claim to add minerals and trace elements to your soil. They do not do anything for the soil consistency or structure.

Here’s to Good Health