GARDENER'S WORD

I love basil!  I love it chopped in salads, and I love it on pasta, and I love it in pesto.  But I don't love the way it keeps dying on me every time I buy a plant.  So, I am going to try and grow it from seed and I shall keep on trying to grow basil until I find out exactly what it is that it doesn't like.  I don't rate the odds of survival are in favour of these little delights poking their heads out of the soil but I shall do my best to keep them alive. I've started them off in a ziplock bag and as the weather is not so wonderful today, I've zipped them right back in after taking the photo.  They are on my kitchen windowsill for now but we don't have any sun at all today here in the north of England, just rain.  Maybe, if and when they get bigger, they will be able to go outdoors. Perhaps I should keep this video in mind... At least I started off the right way and they are germinating. 

Today I went to a Royal Horticultural Society garden centre and many of their David Austin roses for sale were infested with greenfly and some had whitefly.  I've never seen that at an RHS centre before.   However, I wasn't surprised as just over a week ago I saw greenfly by the thousands on my roses, particularly on my Iceberg climber and Iceberg shrub.  I sprayed every rose I had with the systemic insecticide 'RoseClear' which I buy in a bottle and add to water.  I also sprayed my roses with the RoseClear for mildew, rust, blackspot, influenza, arthritis, whatever they can get!  It's the year of the aphid and I believe it could be the year of everything else too.  I found rust spores on my Polka raspberry canes.  I don't have a fungicide at the moment for fruit crops and so I picked off all the leaves I could, and cut out a cane from last year, sacrificing whatever fruit might have developed from the flowers.  It really, seriously,...

Let's Save our Honeybees and Bumblebees.  Those who know keep telling us that the populations of honeybee and bumblee are dwindling and that it is a serious matter.  I believe them.  Watching an edition of the Chelsea Garden show, someone said that 84% of Europe's crops are pollinated by bees.  What can we do to save them?  It has to be a joint effort and I try to attract as many bees as I can into my garden and I get bumblebees by the dozens.  Apparently, they are much better at pollinating than even the modest little honeybee.  This is the Bumblebee Conservation Trust website where you can get more information about what you can do to help. White-tailed Bumblebee in a Fascination dahlia Interestingly, and it had never occurred to me, but on one of the Chelsea Garden programmes, Liz Fowler, a BBC garden programme presenter who has quite interesting ideas and gardens in a very natural way, said, with regard to bees accessing pollen, ...

I've had solar lighting around the top of my fencing for two years now and it lights up my garden all year around.  The first year, as recommended on the box, I took down the individual lights and stored them safely in the shed in their box but last year, frankly, I couldn't be bothered and just left them on the fence.  Not only did they survive the freezing temperatures and the snow but they continued to illuminate the garden although not as brightly as in summer when the stronger sun charges the batteries much better.  I like the solar lighting so much that I decided to use more of the same kind around the lawn.  The lighting on the fence is white but the solar lamps around the lawn change colour - red, blue, yellow, green.  I think I can set them to just be white, the same way I could with the ones on the fence, but the colours actually look quite pretty. If you click on the images, you get a bigger picture.    In the image below you can...

I never seem able to go to the garden centre and get what I go for without coming back with something I didn't go for.  Today I came back with the much needed compost and Joie de Vivre, awarded the title of the Rose of the Year 2011.  It is supposed to have a good scent.  Time will tell.  To be fair, I had been on the lookout for another rose but hadn't seen one that I wanted anywhere until today.  I don't tend to go for deep coloured red roses or bright oranges in my garden although this is not a rule writ in stone.  Not that I don't like them, I do, but they tend to dominate in colour and red roses never seem to have much by way of fragrance if any fragrance at all.  As far as I know, the rose breeders are still trying to create a fragrant true red rose.  The custard yellow Arthur Bell that I had growing in a pot got moved to the bed running across the front of my house because it stood out like a sore thumb, which meant my b...

I want to grow vegetables and fruit in my garden but not at the expense of the ornamental flowers and shrubs.  And I want to grow ornamental flowers and shrubs but not at the expense of the vegetables and fruit.  When faced with a situation like that, you have to compromise.  A couple of years ago I planted sugar snap peas but they were straggly, pretty much non-productive, and a waste of space.  This year I am going to try and grow them in a tub up canes.  I saw this being done in a garden centre so I know it can be done.  I've bought the variety Sugar Flash as it is supposed to be a heavy cropper, quick to produce the pods, and sweet.  As you can see, space is at a premium.  But I can, at least, move the tub around or just abandon the idea altogether if the results are once again disappointing.  Would be nice, though, to just pick the sweet pods and eat them straight from the plant.  I like them raw with other salad crops....

I've never grown a hollyhock before so this is a first.  I bought a hollyhock 'Chater's Yellow' at my local garden centre a month ago.  It is only a small, cheap, plant but the idea of a yellow hollyhock really appeals to me.  It only grows to 1.5m high x 60 cm wide and I have nowhere else for it to go but in a pot.  My shed always seems so bare compared to the rest of the garden so there it has gone.  Fingers crossed.  I stuck a 2m cane in the pot as I imagine it will have to be supported.  The cane is tied to the solar light attached to the shed.  Taking no chances here. Notice the grass has been cut away from the stepping stones (nearly killed me doing that job!) and the lawn borders have been trimmed back. Chater's Yellow should look like this: Watch this space...

I bought two trays of Begonia 'Heaven White' today and am thinking of putting some of them into a tub as a display. They need moisture and some shade and a tub will let me move them around into the right spot for them. I was going to put them in the border but I really do want a lot of space for when the courgettes are ready to plant out. I've got a feeling that slugs might like them, so I'll need to watch out for that. I think there is something really delicate and pretty about the little white flowers surrounded by crisp leaves. I know, not to everyone's taste but as I keep on saying to people, white flowers light up at dusk and really enhance a garden at that time of day when all other colours of flowers fade to grey and disappear from view. I started to cut around the stepping stones today. It means me sitting on the grass and shuffling around as I do it. It's jolly hard work cutting through tough grass and the roots, and needs a ...

I paid just short of £20 for my little 2 metre polytunnel and although I am having some problems with tearing near the zips, it is still protecting the plants.  At the moment, it is packed full of strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, two types of parsley, and one or two other plants that really need moving out and planting: a dianthus and a small clematis.  If you are very short of space, like I am, and don't really have room for a greenhouse, you might want to consider getting one of these.  They can easily be taken apart and stored when not in use.  In winter though, I am not sure how it will cope with heavy snow and so I shall probably store it and use my mini-greenhouse for the herbs and what-have-you.  Mini-greenhouse, May 2011

I like to grow my herbs in pots so that I can overwinter them in a mini-greenhouse.  I got a bit sick of falling over all the pots I have on the patio area at the top of my garden and I had a bit of really rough soil (full of clay and stone - bit like the rest of the garden really) that I didn't know what to do with.  Then I had the idea - not very innovative, I know - of sinking my pots of herbs into that soil.  Now I am no longer tripping over the pots and that area looks a lot better.  Left to right: Apple mint, lemon balk, and chives You can see how rough the ground is.  I don't think it was ever dug over before.  Earlier, it was grass but I'm tired of mowing the lawn and so, little by little, it is being decreased in size.  I turn the turf in so that the grass rots back into the soil, benefitting it.  In time the elements and the worms will improve the soil but for now the sunken pots will do.  I know, the edge of the lawn needs...

Last year, and the year before, when I grew violas in my trough, under my north-east facing kitchen window, they succumbed to mildew.  This year, I have planted them in individual pots so that they can be moved, if necessary.  I think that crowding of plants is one of the things that encourages mildew, so we'll see.  I've also potted up a bigger tub.  Truth is, I went a bit mad and bought so many lobelia plants and violas that I didn't know what to do with half of them.  That's what happens when you cannot count.  I thought the plastic trays of lobelias held six plants when, in fact, they held nine! By the way, not only have greenfly invaded my roses by the thousands but also I have noticed an awful lot of wasps around.  Killed the greenfly with a systemic pesticide and killed the wasps with my slipper!  Unlike bees, I cannot think that greenfly and wasps benefit my garden in any way at all.  So adios pests.

The loganberry continues to do very well in the corner of the garden, protected on both sides by my high fencing.  It is now in flower and attracting loads of bees, which is always a good thing.  At the base of the plant, new shoots are being thrust out of the soil, ready for flowers and fruit next year.  The old canes will be cut down later in the year, when the canes have finished making fruit.  When you think of the price of plants and how much they give you when they are taken care of, it seems like a real bargain to me sometimes.  I suppose I paid about £6 for the plant at the garden centre a couple of years ago but the loganberry needs very little care, just a bit of feeding now and then, and it will more than pay for itself in fruit.  The fruit is quite purple when ripe and just as nice as raspberries.  Loganberry flowers 2012 Loganberry fruit 2011

I have two pots of chives which I have overwintered, very successfully, in my mini greenhouse and then my polytunnel.  The small pot is in full flower and the large pot is in bud.  I have had little use for the herb itself so far this year as I usually eat chives chopped up raw with salad and as it is now getting warmer, I shall soon be using them.  For now, I shall let them flower.  They are so pretty.  And so easy to propagate: just divide the clumps.  Easy peasy. Little pot of chives Large pot of older chives still in bud Another herb that has done really, really well over winter (although it has been protected the same way as the chives) is the lemon balm.  It's a beautiful herb, you know.  It seems to have little problem with bugs and disease.  I like to make a herb tea with it, by just pouring boiling water on a few leaves but I tried it this morning with just two leaves of common spearmint and it gave it that extra zing....

While I will never understand how someone can chop down a beautiful lilac bush while it is in full bloom (and even when it is not in full bloom), my neighbour's loss is my gain.  He was chucking the branches and flowers on a heap until I caught him doing it.  My house smells divine!  I have taken cuttings from the branches although where I am supposed to find space for a lilac is beyond me.

I've planted the two, side by side, troughs under my north-east facing kitchen window and under my south-west facing lounge window and am hoping for a beautiful display.  Under the kitchen, where it only gets the morning sun (partial sun), I have planted trailing begonia, bacopa, and white trailing lobelia. Trailing Begonia 'Illustration: Rose' with lobelia and bacopa   Trailing Begonia 'Illustration 'Light Pink' & 'Rose' with lobelia and bacopa geranium For years now I have grown pelargoniums, or zonal geraniums - whatever they are currently called.  (Actually, geraniums are not pelargoniums, as far as I am aware).  Anyway, whatever they are, I have grown them year after year, taking cuttings, putting them in borders, on window ledges and they just keep on going.   This year I have planted some in the trough under the lounge window so that I can admire the flowers from inside too.  Pink, red and white pelargoniums in a gard...

Just a little bit of sunshine and heat were enough to make my Tumbling Tom plants burst into flower.  I got quite a surprise when I decided to repot them into their final containers yesterday - they were almost, but not quite, rootbound.  It just shows that there can be a lot going on with plants that you we don't know about.  I repotted them a little deeper, as I had seen on the Gardener's World programme with Monty Don.  Tomato plants produce roots along buried stems so if your tomato plant is a bit leggy you can plant it more deeply with some of the leaves below soil level.  I thought you had to remove the leaves but I didn't last year, and they were just fine.  Tumbling Tom Red Tumbling Tom Yellow I noticed last year and this year that the Tumbling Tom Yellow's have a different growth habit. They tend to be leggier than the rather squat Tumbling Tom Red's. At first I thought the idea of yellow tomatoes was a bit offputting. For some ...

As you get older you always think that you have seen everything but, while walking around Ilkley town centre last weekend I saw a sight that I had never seen before.  I love trees and I noticed a magnificent birch that it was absolutely full of what I initially took to be birds' nests.  Not so.  What I was looking at was commonly known as Witch's Broom.  Take a look at these photos.  I think the trees look magnificent. Apparently this deformity of growth, causing the tree to form clumps of live and dead shoots, can be caused by various things such as fungi or bacteria.  If you want an explanation as to what causes these strange growths, you can take a look at this simple explanation at the Iowa State University website:  http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2005/2-23-2005/witchesbroom.html

I've had the Dahlias in my breakfast room, wrapped in fleece, since last winter and I am sick of seeing them.  I should have had a look at them before but today was the day.  I was surprised to see that they have been pushing out shoots.  Why I was surprised, I don't know but anyway I have now put them in big pots and put them outside.  I'll cover them in fleece overnight until the weather gets a bit kinder (about August).  I live in the UK, don't forget!  I have two sorts of Dahlia, just two and they are both smallish varieties: Sweetheart and Fascination.  Sweetheart was a bit abysmal last year and the flowers were tiny but I am giving it a second chance.  The tubers seem a bit pathetic but we'll see.  Fascination, however, was beautiful.  So, fingers crossed.  Fascination Sweetheart