After weeks of winter weather that has included snow, frosts, ice, hard ground and very cold winds it has been a joy to be able to get back into the garden again if only for a couple of days.
In those couple of days I have been able to get on with some real gardening. What do I mean by real gardening? The answer may come as a surprise when I say starting to clear last year’s debris from the herbaceous borders, pulling up any weeds that have managed to survive the winter months, gathering leaves and cutting out and dead spotted on shrubs while weeding. I have heard so many people say that they enjoy planting up a border but hate the maintenance that follows. I can understand but gardening is not just about planting. Just like a room in the house the garden needs a bit of TLC to keep it looking good, how you plant will determine how much time you need to put into the regular tidying. I plant quite densely so most of my work is late winter / early spring clearing the borders before everything starts to put on a spurt and cover the soil.
Along the edge of one border I planted marjoram (oregano). The golden leafed form is a plant I would not be without; it is like a ray of sunshine in the garden and has the benefit of small but masses of beautiful flowers. Also along the border edge I have the larger varieties with much darker green leaves and these again have a mass of flower. The idea of the planting was to have them close to the kitchen and be handy when required for cooking, so much nicer than dried oregano. This has worked well but there is yet another advantage of growing marjoram. As part of my cleaning up the borders exercise I have been weeding around the marjoram plants and cutting off all the old flower stalks and the smell of marjoram that has surrounded me has made the job such a pleasure.
The garden birds strangely are eating more seed now than when the weather was really bad. I will have to buy a new sack of seed sooner than expected! It is not very often I spot the Blackcap but this pretty little bird has been visiting the fatball that I hang in the Magnolia close to the conservatory. He is quite nervous and as yet I have not managed to take a picture. However, one bird I have been able to picture is the Sparrowhawk. I heard a bang on the conservatory window and also heard our cockatiel going berserk. She must have thought her days were numbered and he that here was a colourful and easy meal. Anyway he sat very conveniently on a bowl not far from the window so although taken through glass I am quite pleased with the results. We humans are taught by our parents what is danger and what is safe. Our cockatiel will have been separated from its mother at a very tender age and yet she instinctively knows danger. We don’t have to look out of the window to know that a Sparrowhawk is flying by or a neighbourhood cat is passing through. Amazing when you think about it.
My Garden is My Space - Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary - Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
Gardening News - Online garden newspaper with garden and gardening news from around the world
Written by Vegetable Gardening News on 14 February 2010
A cutting garden is your chance to tear up the rulebook on planting – so mix lights and brights with fragrant posies and wild one-offs
This year I am planning two cutting gardens. The first and smaller of the two is to be planted this month; the second is being built this winter, with the aim to have it up and running for annuals by the summer. In many ways a cutting garden is an extravagant idea, because cutting flowers is the most luxurious way of enjoying them at close quarters, but I have no intention of either of these gardens feeling like an indulgence. They will be workmanlike and take their aesthetic from the vegetable garden or the allotment. You should be able to harvest flowers as you would a row of beans, and leave with an armful – and not the slightest twinge of guilt.
A friend and fellow designer in America has been making cutting gardens for some time, by simply fencing off an area from the garden proper. Within these vermin-proof enclosures, Edwina's vegetables, herbs and flowers are lined out in rows, with paths wide enough for a barrow to pass between them. The paths are mulched with pine needles in her own garden, as she has a wood of pine at the back, but it could just as easily be bark to keep things simple. Everything is reduced down to the most practical way of growing things: the tallest plants are at the back, so they don't put the shorter plants in the shade, and there is not a care in the world for colour – if Edwina likes it, it works. Where most garden owners would never dream of trusting you with a pair of secateurs to pick a posy for the table, it is a different thing for Edwina, and it is standard practice to be issued with a couple of buckets – one to fill with spuds and beans, the other with as many flowers as you see fit to liven up the table for lunch.
In planning my cutting gardens I have enjoyed a certain freedom, with plants that are not easily worked into the garden proper. Because as soon as you pick a flower and take it out of context, it becomes an object that you can look at for itself. Dahlias with stripes suddenly become an option – if the stripes don't work this year, then something else will next. Likewise, if you want to grow "Blue Moon" roses for their scent and curiosity, then do so – a solitary flower will be a delight in a bedside jug.
Having a brief is important, because the cutting garden needs to work hard if it is to be truly productive. The larger the area is, the more relaxed you can be about plants that might bloom only once. Bearded iris can be enjoyed without having to worry about the remaining 11 months of the year, when they are doing little more than leaf. And if you have enough room for peonies, there's the creaminess of the "Duchesse de Nemours", which, picked in bud, will rupture to perfume a room. In a decent-sized cutting garden, a whole row of once-blooming Anchusaazurea "Loddon Royalist" can easily be accommodated as a luxury, but in the main the plants should be doers, and able to come again after they have been harvested.
Planning for a long season of flowers (or several seasons) is important, so we are using modern English roses from David Austin to extend the season. We have chosen varieties that are disease resistant, as we want to run the cutting gardens on organic principles because they are close to the fruit and vegetables, but we have been free with colour as long as there is scent. We are also intercropping, using lines of Alchemilla under the roses, as "Lady's Mantle" is good filler in a vase.
The rest of the perennials are set out in rows one metre apart. Within the rows they are planted in a double line, a foot apart, and the gaps between the main rows are planted with bulbs, so you can fill a jug with tulips and not hold back – or worry that they might not come back a second year. The tulips can be dug out after they have flowered and replaced with annuals – Scabiosa atropurpurea "Chile Black", wild gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta) and mixed cosmos where a mix would never do in the flowerbeds. Whereas the perennials might take a couple of years to come to cropping well, the annuals will provide for you in a matter of months.
The smaller of our two cutting gardens is in the country, so we have decided to go two ways with the brief. The first is to use highly ornamental flowers that are in contrast to the rest of the garden, which feathers to hedgerow. There are lilies in rows that can easily be picked over for lily beetle, blowsy chrysanthemums and dahlias for the autumn. In contrast, the second route is to use plants that have a super-nature quality about them: vivid thistles such as Eryngium "Electric Haze" and Cersium rivulare "Atropurpureum", and the peachy-flowered recurrent Geum "Princess Juliana" to work in among a bundle of native grasses or cow parsley. There will be giant daisies such as Leucanthemum "T E Killin", larger-than-life Scabiosa caucasica "Blausiegel" and rows of Michaelmas daisies so that you can fill a room with them come the autumn.
It is an exciting prospect planning a garden with freedom in mind – our very own trial ground and a place where gardening can break the usual rules. ★
Reader offerObserver readers can take advantage of this offer on flower seeds suitable for cutting. This superb collection contains the following: Delphinium "Pacific Giants", Eryngium alpinum "Superbum", Dahlia "Pompon" mixed, Honesty Purple and White mixed, Lavender "Hidcote", penstemon mixed colours, Sunflower Hallo, Sweet Pea Incense mixed, Shasta Daisy "Alaska" and Cosmos "Sensation" mixed. One collection costs just £9.88, saving £9 on the normal retail price. Buy two collections for £17.76 and save a further £2. Call 0330 333 6852, quoting ref OBDP141, or send a cheque made payable to Observer Reader Offers with your order, to Observer, OBDP141, Rookery Farm, Joys Bank, Holbeach St Johns, Spalding, PE12 8SG. Price includes UK mainland p&p. We reserve the right to substitute any varieties for others of equal or greater value. Dispatch will be within 28 days, supplied as packets of seed
Do my garden birds know more than me and the weather forecasters? Sometimes it makes me wonder. This is the most severe winter we have had for years. Snow, freezing temperatures that have not even reached as high as the norm for this time of the year and yet as soon as the snow and ice have cleared the birds are singing like spring is just around the corner. Not only are the garden birds singing to claim their territories but the Jackdaws are trying to build a nest in my chimney. With the winds coming from the north temperatures are still below what they should be so what is it that instils so much encouragement in them? Maybe it is the lengthening days.
Food for our feathered friends must be in short supply; a Greater Spotted Woodpecker is visiting and feeding on the large fatball I hang in the tree near the seed feeder. I have had them visiting and taking peanuts from the feeder but this is the first time I have seem them take fat. The Blackbirds are still coming to me to beg for dried fruit but even they are now taking peanuts from the feeder.
The garden birds may be preparing for spring but I think it is going to be a while before I can do any gardening outside. The lawns are looking a bit sad after the snow and I have never seen so many shrubs, including hedging, with such burnt leaves for a long time. Mother Nature has a way of recovering from these setbacks but it would not surprise me to find the odd shrub and perennial plant not putting in an appearance this year.
Probably another week and I will be making a sowing of tomato seeds. As decided after last years growing season I will just be growing Harbinger. There are newer tomato varieties that will produce fruits all the same size. However that is not a consideration for me, my tomatoes can ripen at many different sizes and I can put up with that in exchange for the excellent flavour.
In spite of the very bad weather my early flowering Mohonia is still providing colour. I have met gardeners who do not like this group of shrubs but I am a fan. There were a couple in the garden when I moved here and I have added to the collection. Very accommodating, nice yellow flowers with a pleasing perfume that can fill a garden. They make great “full stop” plants in a border or can be used as architectural plants due to their shapely (and spiky!) dark green leaves.
My Garden is My Space – Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary – Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
When you have rain, rain and more rain with the first good frost of the winter, what can you do in the garden in weather such as this? Not a lot outside is the answer.
The ground is waterlogged, there is no point in walking on it and causing compaction and the soil is just too wet to work. I have lifted the dahlias and they are under cover now and drying odd ready to start off in early spring so that I can take more cuttings. This year’s cuttings have been a great success so that gives me the incentive to get the parent plants through the winter.
The frost has finished off any remaining annuals but there is still colour in the garden. In spite of the frost there are still roses in bloom and the winter jasmine is opening up more flowers daily. Also one of my magnolias is also full of sweet smelling yellow blooms that are very welcome this time of year.
Before the rain and frost I did manage to clear up a small amount of leaves, many, many more still to go! Vacuuming leaves almost on autopilot from one of my flower borders I caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. I must have disturbed a large frog nestled in amongst the large soggy sycamore leaves. I could so easily have sucked him up with a load of leaves and dread to think what the consequence would have been. It just proves how careful we gardeners have to be as the weather turns colder, the frogs and hedgehogs are still about. It certainly feels too warm at the moment for the hedgehogs to hibernate. I do leave leaves piled up around some tree prunings so the hedgehogs can find refuge if they so want. Wet leaves are dangerous on garden paths and do the lawn no good but in other areas I make a point of not being too tidy. That’s my excuse anyway!
Take a look at this little fellow, definitely too small to hibernate:
Byte Size Biology » Byte Size Hedgehog – Byte Size Hedgehog. December 6th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments. I don’t know whether to categorize this guy under microbiology or zoology. He’s so small! Cute little fella. From pixdaus.com Click on pic to go to site. …
Not being able to get on with jobs outside in the garden has provided me with time to start getting the greenhouse ready for winter. The structure both inside and out has been scrubbed and power washed. Can anyone tell me why after all this treatment there are always areas of glass that don’t look like they have been touched? The next job is to put up the bubble insulation, a job I never look forward to. The sooner it is done the better so that it is out of the way but it is just one of those garden jobs that has to be done as a chore rather that a pleasurable pursuit.
My Garden is My Space – Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary – Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
November in the garden last year was a bit bleak to say the least. Early really cold weather finished off the annuals and the dahlias had to be put into storage. What a difference this year.
The weather did turn cold, the cold winds suggested a repeat of last year but instead the cold winds went away and unseasonal mild weather returned. The result is that the Dahlias are still looking good, the Cosmos are still stars in the border, Geraniums are still flowering en mass and Busy Lizzies (Impatiens) in sheltered spots are flowering their hearts out.
It is strange looking out of the window into the garden. There are trees that have completely lost their foliage due to the strong weekend wind, others with no foliage but have berries hanging like coloured baubles, Acers that are showing there beautiful autumn foliage, shrubs with autumn colour, roses still blooming and annual bedding still in flower. There can be no doubt however that we are well into autumn, the Sycamore leaves are thick on the ground with still more to come off this majestic tree. The leaves of most the trees in the garden are easy to gather using my Stihl Leaf Blower / Garden Vacuum but the shear bulk of wet Sycamore leaves make the job hard work.
I can report pleasing results from my summer containers this year apart from two bowls that sit either side of the steps down to my front lawn. Why I cannot say but they have just not looked good all summer and yet two other large pots a few feet away using the same compost and plants from the same sowing are still looking good. This weekend I removed them thinking that I may discover a problem at the roots but no, the compost was full of healthy root. I have replanted now with Winter Flowering Pansies that I sowed earlier this year so it will be interesting to see if they fare any better.
The one problem, if you can call it a problem, of summer bedding still doing well in containers is that I do not have the heart to uproot them as I know I should and the Winter Flowering Pansies really need to be planted out. Still, I am sure I will wake up one morning soon to see bedding that has collapsed and had enough!
The last of the cucumbers have been picked and eaten this week. What prolific croppers they have been. Just two plants have provided more than enough cucumbers for the family and there were plenty to give away. If you have not tried the smaller fruiting varieties that grow just big enough to provide one meal then I urge you to do so. Picked fresh, still crisp and used in a salad or put onto sandwiches, excellent.
My Garden is My Space – Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary – Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
Fall Colors In The Ozarks & Buffalo River Area – Fall is an absolute splendid time of year along the Buffalo River or pretty much anywhere in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas. If you’ve …
When you go away on holiday in the height of summer it is always a worry that friends or neighbours cannot get round often enough to keep up the watering. Everyone is busy and they cannot be expected to lavish all the love and care that you would yourself. One of the good things about taking a vacation this time of the year is that most things will survive well enough with a watering every other day. This has been the case with my week away rambling in the wilds enjoying the fresh air.
The birds have had to find alternative arrangements for the week but they are slowly finding the food again. Each day is bringing back more feathered friends.
Only a week away but I can see significant changes. Autumn colour in plants, tree and shrubs that was not present a week ago. The grass is not growing so quickly, it is cooler and the days are getting shorter.
There is still plenty of colour in the garden from flowers and the colour from the flowers is being joined by foliage colour.
The Rudbeckias seem to have been flowering for weeks as do the white Cosmos. The large flowered Dahlias have certainly been worth waiting for and have provided good value.
The tomatoes are coming to an end now. There are still tomatoes on the vines but it is doubtful whether they will all ripen. Of course I can pick them and ripen them inside but my preference is to use the green tomatoes in chutney. The theory is that we will eat the chutney through the winter months but believe me it has no chance of lasting that long no matter how much we manage to make!
The Runner Beans are also coming to an end, there are still some to pick but do not look as appetising as a couple of weeks ago. Very likely they will be a bit hard and stringy.
One success of this year has to be the Mini Iceberg Hearts lettuce. Sown close together in a deep box they have done well and hearted up into nice crunchy heads. They stand for a long period and the cut heads will keep for up to two weeks in the refrigerator.
I sowed seed of Winter Flowering Pansies a few weeks ago and they are ready to go into their winter locations now. Two containers can be cleared to make way but I am pleased to say that the other containers that will home them are still full of flower. Sorry pansies, you will just have to sit in trays a little bit longer.
Gardening Jobs for November | Gomestic – One of the easiest ways to brighten a dull garden is to put in a few winter flowering pansies. They do well in pots, or in the borders. Winter jasmine and early hellerbores also provide some welcome colour. Image via Wikipedia …
It is not so long ago that I made an entry in my diary giving an opinion on the tomato varieties that I have grown this year. At the time I stated that I would grow more of the same next year, this being Harbinger and the plum variety Red Alert. I have changed my mind and will only be growing Harbinger next season.
So what has changed?
Harbinger has proved to be the best cropper by far and in my opinion Harbinger has the better flavour. In addition Harbinger tomato plants have proven to be much healthier.
The blackbirds have disappeared as they usually do at this time of the year to moult. I spotted one in one of my rhododendrons and he hardly had a feather left on his head.
The great news on the bird front is that we have more sparrows this year that we have had for a very long time. They are doing their best to eat me out of bird seed but I have no complaints. Flocks of them arrive on mass and disappear together. I hear them in the bushes near the feeder waiting for a refill. Their numbers suddenly declined dramatically one winter and it has taken years for them to make a comeback. The funny thing is, last winter was the harshest we have had for many years and yet it is this summer that we have had the biggest increase in numbers. Long may it continue.
For the first time ever I have had problems with caterpillars on my salad crops grown under cover. I recognised the caterpillar of the cabbage white but I must confess my ignorance when it comes to identifying the other thug. Whatever it was it had a voracious appetite!
This autumn I must give some thought to my vegetable garden layout. I have already made some alterations that will help next years crops which has entailed cutting back shrubs and trees that had put on more than expected growth due to good growing conditions.
My begonia hanging basket is looking good at last. For the first time this year I have grown tuberous begonias from seed that are recommended for baskets and containers, having only grown the fibrous rooted varieties from seed. They have taken a while to reach flowering size but the wait has been worth it. Hopefully I can over winter the tubers and have earlier flowers and a cheaper hanging basket next year.
My Garden is My Space – Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary – Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
Bird Ecology Study Group » The Eurasian Tree Sparrow in Urban … – Contributed by Jeffrey Low. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow ( Passer montanus ) we commonly see around is actually adapted to human habitation. It usually nests in any convenient holes in buildings.
Singing Song Sparrow | Sitka Nature – 03-15-07song_sparrow.mp3 (624kb). As I headed out of the building where my office is, I heard a Song Sparrow singing from the bushes near the entrance. Hearing the song, I stopped to listen for a short time. …
Normally I take pictures of beautiful flowers to show on my diary. This week is very different; this is a picture I never wanted to take.
I have been growing tomatoes for over thirty years with very few problems. This year I had a few extra tomato plants going spare so I asked my daughter whether she would like to try her hand at cultivating her own tomatoes. There was no room in the greenhouse and so I helped her to plant in containers outside.
She probably gave her tomatoes more TLC than me, she was doing a good job, listening to all the advice and had started to pick fruit. There is nothing better to encourage and enthuse people to gardening that enjoying the fruits of their labour.
However, one day she asked me to look at her tomatoes as she thought they were suddenly taking a turn for the worse. Although I have never experienced the problem it was clear what the problem was, tomato blight. Thankfully this is a tomato disease that does not affect tomatoes grown under glass very often but it can devastate tomatoes grown outside when the summer is warm but wet.
On a brighter note my large flowered dahlias are open and stunning again this year. The cuttings I took earlier in the year are looking healthy so I will hopefully increase my stock again next spring.
That sounds like I am already planning for next year in the garden and, yes, I am! I have identified one area of the garden that needs revision next year. Around the patio has perhaps been a bit neglected while developing another couple of new areas but you cannot do everything. I have not decided fully what changes I will make but I always like to mull several ideas over before taking action. Whatever I do I want it to be there for a few years so it is worth taking that extra time to think it over.
My Garden is My Space – Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary – Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
Tomato Casual » Reader Questions: Tomato Blight – Reader Questions: Tomato Blight. Tags: blight, Questions. late-blight By Vanessa Richins. This season, we have a lot of readers concerned about the late blight that has spread throughout the Northeastern United States. …
Tomato blight and me | Los Angeles Metblogs – The tomato crop has been crushed to a large extent this year nationwide, thanks to a fungus that started in nurseries in the US South where the plants were.
I say that my first garden was not very big and yet when I see the small gardens that are offered with new build homes I realise how luck I was.
That garden was my learning curve and was fine at first but gradually I became frustrated because I could not plant specimens, especially shrubs that appealed to me. In a small garden you have the choice of planting small shrubs or medium sized shrubs that need to be pruned back each year. The latter solution is a never ending battle as the shrub tries to regenerate by being even more vigorous. Shrubby Potentillas performed extremely well for me and I still retain affection for these “superb doers”.
Moving to my present garden, over 20 years ago, I found that it had been maintained but for me it was not a garden. As I sit in the back garden writing this it is not only the colour on show that pleases me but the structure of the garden. I have to say it is made more pleasurable by the delicious perfume of Rosa Rugosa Alba that I introduced into the garden this year. Yes I know ideally I should not let it flower in its first year but could you snip off all those buds and miss those beautiful flowers and the scent?
The main structure of the garden is formed by trees and shrubs. A lot of thought went into choosing the right trees to plant as they were expensive to buy and I knew they hopefully would be with me for many years.
When developing the planting plan for the borders my first thoughts went to the shrubs that I wanted to form the backbone and being a much larger garden than my previous one I had a lot more to choose from. Colour, size and form needed to be right as, if done correctly, this would enable me to mix and match colourful perennial herbaceous plants and annuals. One thing I remember about this process was that the pencil eraser was worked very hard!
Perhaps all these years on I take these shrubs for granted. They demand so little from me yet give so much.
The reason that I sat down to pen this article is that I have just been reading something by a well known garden designer championing the cause for the return to favour of shrubs. Apparently they have been out of fashion for a number of years and he feels that it is time that they regained their rightful place in our gardens.
I have to confess that I didn’t know that they had gone out of fashion but this only goes to strengthen the opinion that I have held for a long time. If you are going to create a garden then create one to please yourself. Fashions and fads come and go, look at new ideas and pick out things that you like but incorporate them into your own ideas. I can think of “new ideas in gardening” that caught my imagination in my early days of learning to garden but certainly did not deliver what was promised and disappeared as quickly as they appeared.
My Garden is My Space – Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary – Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
Small Garden Design – Small patio garden designs and garden shrubs – The idea of creating illusion of big things, from small one greatly effect and attract all those people who have the shortage of space while creating their gardens. All those people who stay in flats might have little gardens, …
Outstanding Shrubs From Proven Winners – The 2006 tree and shrub growers wholesale catalogs are beginning to roll in and there are so many great plants in them my wish list is over the top. There was a time when gardeners talked about hot new plants, trees and shrubs rarely …
Easy Summer Flowering Shrubs (Part One)- Gardening Made Easy – There’s nothing quite like the joy of watching the summer flowering shrubs burst into bloom, providing colour and a sense of permanence to your garden. What would our gardens be without shrubs? They give an air of permanence.
Versatile Shrubs- Gardening Made Easy – Whether your garden is a tiny suburban plot or several thousand square metres in extent, you can have year round interest and beauty by growing shrubs. Shrubs are among the most versatile of garden plants. They serve as a rich background to other plants.
Do my garden birds know more than me and the weather forecasters? Sometimes it makes me wonder. This is the most severe winter we have had for years. Snow, freezing temperatures that have not even reached as high as the norm for this time of the year and yet as soon as the snow and ice have cleared the birds are singing like spring is just around the corner. Not only are the garden birds singing to claim their territories but the Jackdaws are trying to build a nest in my chimney. With the winds coming from the north temperatures are still below what they should be so what is it that instils so much encouragement in them? Maybe it is the lengthening days.
Food for our feathered friends must be in short supply; a Greater Spotted Woodpecker is visiting and feeding on the large fatball I hang in the tree near the seed feeder. I have had them visiting and taking peanuts from the feeder but this is the first time I have seem them take fat. The Blackbirds are still coming to me to beg for dried fruit but even they are now taking peanuts from the feeder.
The garden birds may be preparing for spring but I think it is going to be a while before I can do any gardening outside. The lawns are looking a bit sad after the snow and I have never seen so many shrubs, including hedging, with such burnt leaves for a long time. Mother Nature has a way of recovering from these setbacks but it would not surprise me to find the odd shrub and perennial plant not putting in an appearance this year.
Probably another week and I will be making a sowing of tomato seeds. As decided after last years growing season I will just be growing Harbinger. There are newer tomato varieties that will produce fruits all the same size. However that is not a consideration for me, my tomatoes can ripen at many different sizes and I can put up with that in exchange for the excellent flavour.
In spite of the very bad weather my early flowering Mohonia is still providing colour. I have met gardeners who do not like this group of shrubs but I am a fan. There were a couple in the garden when I moved here and I have added to the collection. Very accommodating, nice yellow flowers with a pleasing perfume that can fill a garden. They make great “full stop” plants in a border or can be used as architectural plants due to their shapely (and spiky!) dark green leaves.
My Garden is My Space - Hints, tips and how to articles for gardeners. Reviews and offers of garden tools, gardening equipment and many other garden related items
Garden Diary - Stories, hints and tips by a gardener
It is sad to read today that the memorial to one of the most famous gardeners of modern times has been vandalised by mindless idiots. Unfortunately, as we are all too aware, it is not just the well known and famous personalities that are targets of this type of mindless behaviour but when it does involve a name like Percy Thrower it highlights the problem.
Percy Thrower was an inspiration to millions of gardeners who watched his television programmes and read his books. My first gardening book was by Percy and it is still in my collection and, even though my collection of authors has grown over the years, it is still regularly thumbed and a key part of my introduction to gardening.
Many television gardeners have come and gone since Percy Thrower retired from our screens and hundreds, probably thousands, of books have been written on various aspects of gardening. New ideas and new techniques quite rightly come along but many of those new ideas are based on good gardening basics. Those good gardening basics are what Percy taught.
Let us hope that the culprits are caught. It would be nice to think that they have a conscience and will feel remorse but that is probably too much to hope for.
Yobs destroy memorial to gardening legend Percy Thrower By Richard Smith 9/10/2009 The family of former TV gardener Percy Thrower were devastated yesterday after callous yobs wrecked the star’s memorial. Daughter Margaret, 65, who had the bronze bust built in tribute to Percy who died in 1988, visited it on Wednesday to find it smashed up and the flowers torn. Advertisement – article continues below »She said: “Percy would be turning in his grave to think his memorial had been desecrated. It’s so sad and now it will cost a fair bit to be repaired. “Fans visit the memorial in Shrewsbury, Shrops, to remember Percy, who rose to fame on Gardeners’ World and Blue Peter, though it was also vandalised in 2005.Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski pledged a “substantial” reward for the prosecution of the culprits. He said: “We can’t allow things like this to happen.”
Learn From the Past and Learn How to Vegetable Garden
By Rodger Cresswell
There was a time when most young boys learned how to vegetable garden. It is perhaps more appropriate to say learned than taught as the learning process was a practical one. There was a great need to grow your own vegetables so that the family had food on the table.
The history books teach us that it was essential to grow as much of our own food as possible during the World Wars. Dig for Victory conjures up pictures of lawns and ornamental borders being grubbed up, dug over and planted up to provide the much needed nutrition for the family.
Instruction leaflets were produced to teach many people skills that they had not had to call upon when vegetables were readily available and affordable in the shops. And as we know, this was a task that had also to be undertaken by women as many of the young men were away fighting.
Returning to the period before the war, a picture is literally painted of cottage dwellers spending their leisure time cultivating their vegetable gardens and harvesting wonderful healthy and nutritional crops. This is so far from the truth and some of the blame can be put at the door of the commercial artists whose canvases show contented wives and children watching as the man of the house working in bright sunshine maintaining the vegetable plot. Apart from the cottages being draughty, cold, damp and overcrowded the man of the house had very little leisure time. They worked very long hours from dawn to dusk so how did they manage to dig over their vegetable gardens and cultivate their crops? The answer is that they had to work in the time they had available which would be late into the evening using the Parish Lantern to see what they were doing. What is the Parish Lantern? Moonlight.
There is a growing interest in vegetable growing and some of our reasons for wanting to do so are the same as those cottage gardeners. For example, one reason is the desire to save money when prices of fresh vegetables have risen in the greengrocers and supermarkets. But we are also aware of the number of miles clocked up to get the produce to our table. The carbon footprint is not the only issue; we like to know that a concoction of chemicals has not been used in the production of that food.
If you want to help yourself and your planet try growing your own vegetables. You can start in a small way and expand as you become more confident. Unlike those gardeners of the past you may not have had the chance to learn vegetable gardening but there is not a better time to learn how to vegetable garden.
Rodger Cresswell is interested in all things about gardens and gardening. Flowers, vegetables and greenhouse growing and also tries to encourage as much wildlife into the garden as possible.
If you want a wildlife garden you should only grow wildflowers. These are not my words or my belief but something quoted in conversation to me this week. It is a fair enough view I suppose although incorrect. Where do you start when answering this argument?
I suppose the first point is where do the plants in our gardens originate? The species originated in wild from seed sown by Mother Nature and many have entered our gardens as nature intended while others have been “improved” by plant breeders. Some improvements have resulted in larger flowers or longer flowering periods but at the cost of loss of perfume or no longer being capable of producing the food source intended for companion insects or birds. I may be in danger of sounding like Charles Darwin when saying that plants, insects, birds and animals have adapted over millions of years to live together and provide mutual benefits. If there is a problem with our modern wildlife gardens it is that our gardens include trees, shrubs and plants that have been imported from other continents and have adapted along with their homeland wildlife.
Of course this introduction of flora is not new. Many species we think of as British natives were brought over by invaders, sailing ships seeking new continents and the modern day plant hunters. If it were not for these intrepid adventurers our garden would not be as colourful or diverse. So what has changed? Transport, the world has become smaller. Imagine being a plant hunter finding a new species and having to find a way to keep seed viable, a plant or cutting alive for two or three years as your ship found its way home. Nowadays once back to base the collection can be home in a matter of hours. In addition so many plants are bred abroad and imported by the thousand.
Do you have to let your garden run wild to be a wildlife friendly garden? No but a garden can be too tidy, so tidy in fact that it looks and probably is sterile. I can remember the bad old days when we were encouraged to spray chemicals as soon as the first aphids or other pests appeared. In fact with some treatments we were told to spray before they appeared. Believe it or not I saw a neighbour digging up a perfectly healthy plant that was in full bloom and looked beautiful. When I enquired as to the problem the reply was that that it was covered in bees and he could not stand insects of any kind. A sad but true story.
We are advised where possible to grow a small patch of stinging nettles in a corner of the garden as they are the staple diet of certain caterpillars. In a small garden it has to be recognised that this is not always practical, especially where young children play. But does this mean you do not have a wildlife garden? Absolutely not, this is only one part of the ideal. I am lucky that I have a field backing into my garden and in one corner I do have a nettle patch – the other side of the hedge. Am I cheating? No, they do grow into the hedge so I do have to be careful that they become too invasive but if I was a very tidy gardener I would find a way to kill off the lot.
Last year gale force winds blew down a few branches from a Hawthorne tree. They have not been wasted and in fact some of the smaller diameter parts are stacked in a corner for insects and hedgehogs.
If you are interested in attracting bees, butterflies and other insects into your garden there are specialist websites that will advise the best species and varieties to grow. But don’t go away with the impression that the required plants will be expensive to acquire. A good example is the native foxglove, readily available, will seed themselves without becoming invasive and the bumblebees love them. It is a pleasure to sit by a foxglove in summer and see a bumblebee disappear into a foxglove and then come backing out with pollen sacks full. A word of caution however, foxgloves are poisonous so care should be taken if you have a young family but this also applies to many other plants.
Wildflowers are all weeds. There are those who look upon wildflowers sown in their gardens by the wind or the birds as weeds. If you define a weed as a plant growing in the wrong place I bet there are not many of us who do not have a weed growing in our garden. There are certain “weeds” that come up in my garden each year and I leave them. They may have small flowers but are exquisite in their own right and are usually easy to pull up if in the wrong place. Pernicious and invasive weeds are another matter.
Water is a medium that we are encouraged to have in our wildlife garden. Not all of us can have water in the garden especially if we have young children but even a small bird bath can be very beneficial. Site the bird bath close to safe cover so that a well bathed and heavy laden bird can easily make it into cover to preen. A wildlife garden pond does not have to be huge; a friend of mine has a very small pool with cover planted on the edge that has frogs and tadpoles every year.
To finish here is a story from this last week. A gardening friend went out into his garden to turn his compost heap and was going well until he came across something he did not expect, a field mouse nest with very small young. Did he think that it was only a mouse nest, maybe a pest that needed to be removed? No he carefully covered the nest with compost in the hope that the parents would return to look after their young. Now this is what I would call a wildlife gardener.
Creating a wildlife garden can be fun and very rewarding. Design and tend for your garden with garden wildlife in mind and you will attract wildlife that will make your garden come alive and be a more enjoyable place.
Getting the doctor out when you have a problem or need inspiration in your garden may sound fanciful but it depends upon which doctor you call upon.
There is one garden expert who is a doctor and he goes by the name of DG Hessayon. Although you may not recognise the name it is highly possible that you would recognise his writings when seen on a bookshelf.
Dr DG Hessayon is the author of the “Expert” series of books that began in 1959 with the title Be Your Own Gardening Expert. This was a straightforward thirty two page guide that was filled with pictures and charts. Nothing new there you may think but this was 1959 when gardening advice books were more like textbooks and not easy reading for the masses. Dr Hessayon obviously hit upon the right idea as the twenty plus books written by him have followed the same format.
He is now aged 80 and is the best selling non-fiction writer in the world having sold over 50 million copies, a long way from his first self-published tome.
Need some help with garden plants, maybe that new lawn, perhaps you are a house plant enthusiast and need to know the best indoor plants for a situation or yours is a vegetable and herb garden, you will find a Hessayon expert book that will help.
The Fruit ExpertThe Garden D.I.Y. ExpertThe Garden Expert
The Garden Revival Expert
The Green Garden Expert
The Greenhouse Expert
The House Plant Expert
The House Plant Expert: Book Two
The Orchid Expert
The Rock and Water Garden Expert
The Tree and Shrub Expert
The Vegetable and Herb Expert
Vegetable and Herb Expert
So when you are next in the library or looking to purchase one of the Garden Expert range of books, say a little thank you to the man who made it fashionable to produce informative books for the everyday gardener but prefers to stay out of the limelight.
The weather did turn cold, the cold winds suggested a repeat of last year but instead the cold winds went away and unseasonal mild weather returned. The result is that the Dahlias are still looking good, the Cosmos are still stars in the border, Geraniums are still flowering en mass and Busy Lizzies (Impatiens) in sheltered spots are flowering their hearts out. 
It is not so long ago that I made an entry in my diary giving an opinion on the tomato varieties that I have grown this year. At the time I stated that I would grow more of the same next year, this being Harbinger and the plum variety Red Alert. I have changed my mind and will only be growing Harbinger next season. 
She probably gave her tomatoes more TLC than me, she was doing a good job, listening to all the advice and had started to pick fruit. There is nothing better to encourage and enthuse people to gardening that enjoying the fruits of their labour. 
Moving to my present garden, over 20 years ago, I found that it had been maintained but for me it was not a garden. As I sit in the back garden writing this it is not only the colour on show that pleases me but the structure of the garden. I have to say it is made more pleasurable by the delicious perfume of Rosa Rugosa Alba that I introduced into the garden this year. Yes I know ideally I should not let it flower in its first year but could you snip off all those buds and miss those beautiful flowers and the scent?
