GARDENER'S WORD

The dreadful wind that we are having these past two days has blown a red raspberry or more over the fence into the neighbour's jungle.  If only I had picked them.  Still, there are plenty little green ones left, if the sun will only come out.  If only.

Despite the terrible gales which are drying out my hanging baskets and pots like crazy, and trying to rip plants of the fence, everything is stubbornly hanging on in.  So far. Arthur Bell has been flowering since May Arctic Queen clematis Delicate begonias coping well Unwins Sweet Peas Soleil F1 Hybrid courgette - still churning them out David Austin's 'Wild Eve' still flowering in shady border Gardeners Delight tomatoes - green, still

I thought I'd seen the last of summer fruits in my garden but Polka the wonder raspberry just keeps on coming.  Amazingly, it produced raspberries in early summer - just the usual size although they had a lovely flavour.  But now it is producing whoppers.  Mind you, I'm not complaining.  Polka is a primocane type of raspberry which means that the fruit appears in autumn on canes that emerged in spring.  Other types are floricanes which make fruit on canes which appeared the previous year. Polka raspberries  I'm not getting them by the basketload but there are lots and lots of ripening ones on the plant still. And what is also great about this twice fruit-bearing raspberry is that the canes are thorn free.  This is what the Royal Horticultural Society website has to say about Polka: "Position: full sun Soil: fertile, well-drained soil Rate of growth: fast-growing Other features: large, delicious raspberries from mid summer until the ...

I always have a fear in winter that I am going to lose plants that I cherish and so I propagate them so that, even if I lose some, I might not lose all.  Last year the parsley didn't fare too well even though it had been a massive plant when I put it into my little plastic greenhouse for the winter.  Even so, one stalk survived and I planted it and it went on to produce a lovely display of little green flowers - rather like a green gypsophila.  In spring this year, I bought another parsley and that too is now massive and I expect that too will succumb to our terribly cold and snowy winters that we get here, high up on the Pennines.  This year I went a bit mad, buying all sorts of herbs and today I propagated rosemary, lavender, applemint, lemon mint, lemon balm, and lemon verbena.  I like lemon.  Did you guess?  I divided the huge clump of chives into one big pot and two smaller ones, and I took cuttings from the low hedge of pelargoniums tha...