GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

Today we have sunshine and although the garden is saturated, I managed to mow the lawn for the first time for weeks and I blasted the wormcasts with the hose.  I honestly never know what to do with them because despite expert gardening advice on the internet, when you try to scatter them, you need the lawn to be quite dry, I think. Anyway, I keep on bringing my roses in, thinking they are the last, and they keep on blooming, bless 'em.  I like the way they look on the sideboard with the coppery-coloured glass dish below and the coppery-coloured lamps at each side.   Even when some of the roses are a little weather-battered and straggly, I just have to rescue them. Hope you like them.

I never was a winter gardener and as I am aging, I am less so.  This mild weather has me doing all I can to rescue plants and prepare for next spring.  I really don't like this time of year, autumn.  I know, I appreciate the beauty of the colours in the trees but, at the same time, I get a terrible sadness at seeing plants die that have given me so much pleasure, and seeing many of the plants go into hibernation.  Pelargonium border at its best. I have dug up my border of pelargoniums, cut back the tops and potted them.  At the moment they are in a tiny green house, along with some of my more tender herbs - rosemary, chives, marjoram, lemon balm, lemon verbena, and lemon thyme.  The strawberries are still happy enough in their pots.  Later, as some of the leaves die back, I will tidy them up, push them together and protect them in the worst of it with fleece.  Meanwhile, the Lonicera Scentsation is providing wonderful red berries and it i...

Early summer, June,  I bought a plant at the RHS Centre in Harlow Carr.  It cost me £12 and at the time I thought 'ouch, bit expensive' but just had to had it.  It was planted in a hanging basket and so perfectly beautiful.  The common name for it is Million Bells, and the latin name is Calibrachoa. Million Bells in July As it turns out, it was quite an investment.  It must have been flowering for some time before I bought it in June.  It has flowered strongly all the way through summer, coping with the sunshine, the wind, the pouring rain, and the shade.  Million Bells in September 2011 And it is still flowering strongly, despite the dropping temperatures and daylight.  Million Bells in October  I was wondering how to propagate it, thinking it an annual and that it would be dead in a few weeks.  I never see seed pods on it or dead flowers for long.  It actually clears up after itself!!!!    Appar...

Spring 2012 seems such a long way off but today I have bought bulbs to look forward to.  I plan to plant them in troughs and tubs rather than in the garden borders as I don't haven't yet finished chopping and changing the borders around.  Once thing I don't like about bulbs is having to wait for the foliage to die down before they can be dug up. These are what I bought today at the RHS centre, Harlow Carr, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire:  

Although the north wind doth blow, my Polka raspberry plant is still providing me with a few beautiful raspberries and I have high hopes for next year.  And Princess Alexandra of Kent and The Generous Gardener are still providing me with exquisitely fragrant blooms.  As are the sweet peas. Sweet peas colourful and fragrant But we have a week of rain ahead, according to the weather forecasters.  How miserable!

My garden seems to be at the lull, like in the tropical zones, just before the storm hits.  I'm speaking of the forthcoming coldness of autumn and cruelty of winter.  We've had such a glorious week of high temperatures and brilliant sunshine which has given the garden, and me, a much needed boost.  Slowly but surely, I am removing exhausted plants, still dead-heading, and occasionally having to mow the lawn.  (I hate mowing the lawn.  It's the only good thing about winter in the garden.  But mostly the garden is just getting on with it alone.  I've taken a few photos (sorry if some are a little out of focus.  I think it is my problem with balance rather than the camera).  The roses are, as always, doing their utmost to make the garden beautiful and I am surprised at how lovely the begonias in the hanging baskets have been, and still are.  They have outshone and outlasted the lobelia, that's for sure. Such a lovely rich yellow B...

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...

It's a sad thing when you have to get rid of a plant that is established and doing well but Albertine had to go.  Albertine is a rambling rose with thorns like fish hooks.  One got well embedded under the skin on my forearm the other day, when I accidentally fall into the rose, and that made my decision.  Albertine makes a glorious show of roses in summer but it is not a repeat flowerer and it is a savage thing, taking much pruning to keep it in shape and control as it can grow 12ft high and spread 15ft at least!  I shall have to look for something more gentle to take its place, something without thorns, a repeat flowerer, with a great fragrance.  Sorry Albertine. Albertine has vicious thorns Albertine When you've gotta go, you've gotta go.

I know I keep banging on about roses but I cannot help it - it's an addiction of kinds.  I bought such expensive David Austin roses and while they are wonderful, they seem, somehow, unable to beat the beauty of Ice Berg and New Dawn.  Take a look... Ice Berg (the climber,but there is a shrub version) New Dawn New Dawn grows quite well on the shadier side of my garden.  I understand now that The Generous Gardener (a David Austin rose) could also be grown on the shady side, although mine is in the sun. The Generous Gardener

While pesky pests such as slugs and caterpillars have had a go at my plants, things are still coming up lovely.  If you haven't yet grown Apple Mint, I can recommend it.  I use it to make a refreshing change from coffee.  I do wish I liked ordinary tea, but it isn't going to happen.  Apple Mint It grows wonderfully, as do my chives.  I cannot eat them fast enough!  Chives And the new carrots, red lettuce and Rocket (in pots), are doing fine. Carrots (with a garlic clove), bergamot, and lettuce in pots

If there is one thing I resent in my garden, it is the caterpillars gnawing on my hanging baskets' sapphire lobelia and pooping purple on my wonderfully divine marble table top.  Stop it or be squashed! I've had to move the table out from under the hanging baskets.  I know it is the purple poop that is doing it and not just the flowers themselves as the problem has only just started.  Million Bells on marble table I bought an expensive marble cleaner and a marble sealer last year from http://www.sealer-seal-sealant.co.uk/ .   The products are actually made by Tikko  http://www.tikkoproducts.com/ )    When you are lucky enough to find yourself a table so pretty, (Marks & Spencers, 2007) it is a pity to let it spoil.  At the cost of about £30-40 for two 1 litre bottles, it is a good thing that the products do a really good job.  You only need to use a little bit so it will last for years - hopefully! I am really pleased with the M...