Garden Centre

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Sheds in focus

In my garden, my shed is dedicated to horticulture – but it seems I might be in the minority. Apparently, even in these dark days of recession, shed enthusiasts are spending up to £25,000 to turn boring wooden structures into palaces worthy of Kublai Khan.

Part of the blame, if blame it is, belongs to the Shed of the Year contest, which receives around 1000 competitors a year. Last year’s winner has an octagonal pub complete with pumped beer, fans and glass doors, in which he entertains his rugby playing friends. He has three other sheds too, one for lawnmowers, one for bicycles and one for actually shed contents like pots, compost etc.

And there are celebrity sheddists. This year’s judges Sarah Beeny, from the Property Ladder TV programme and Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans. Hmmm. Neither of them strike me as being great horticulturalists. The other judge will Trevor Baylis who invented the wind-up radio in a shed!

The thing is, lovely as the idea of shed attraction is, it all adds to the pressure the poor gardener feels. Not only do you have to have a garden that is good enough for such luminaries as Alan Titchmarsh, you must have a water feature that would win Charlie Dimmock’s approval, your vegetables should be organic enough to please Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and now Chris Evans may turn up to poke around in your shed!

Labels: garden shed

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:07 AM 0 Comments

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Hyacinths – indoor and out

If you were given hyacinths for Christmas, or forced your own in time for the day, they will be fading now. But if you have been to a garden centre recently, you’ll have found that they are full of pots of strong green shoots that will soon become the powerfully scented flowers named after the Greek youth of surpassing beauty (don’t ask for details, it’s not an edifying story!)

You can grow them yourself for Christmas flowering by purchasing special bulbs marked with the label ‘processed for winter blooming’ or just ‘processed’. They look best if you pick an odd number of bulbs, one, three or five, of the same colour and plant them to half their depth in a pot filled with moist bulb fibre. Then put the pots in a dark and cool place for around ten weeks.

When the shoots are about two inches, add more bulb fibre if needed and put the pot in a light place to bring them into flower. Easy!

And once they’ve flowered, let them die down naturally in the pot and then plant them outdoors for the following year – they won’t appear nearly so early but should continue to flower and be lovely for years to come. The like an open soil in the sun, and you need to put them in the ground in early autumn so they can get their roots down before the soil freezes. They need to go quite deep, around six to eight inches.

Labels: forcing bulbs, hyacinths, winter flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:14 AM 0 Comments

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Tips for January Gardeners

It’s come to my attention that there’s something called a recession happening. For those of us who spend as much time as possible in the garden, this comes as a bit of a surprise, but there you are, I’ve caught up eventually.

So on that basis, I’ve been thinking about tips and tricks that make life in my garden cheaper, or easier, or both and perhaps this is a good time to share them with my lovely readers.

First – seed packets, especially flower seeds, always have many more seeds than you want to plant in a year. To keep them viable, beg, steal or borrow those black capsule containers that 35mm camera film arrives in. My local photo processor is happy to give me a carrier bag full every year. The lids fit beautifully and if they are hermetically sealed for film they are ideal for seeds. and you can write on them in white eraser fluid.

Old toothbrushes are brilliant for cleaning small pots and the corners of greenhouses (see how easily I say that, as if I’d have a greenhouse for years?) where diseases can lurk

Old tights with the toes cut off are brilliant for storing three inch pots after you’ve cleaned them with a toothbrush – just push a whole line into the tight legs and hang them in the shed. Tie a loose knot in the bottom end and then you can untie it, pull out a few pots and tie it up again. Or, if you’re bad at knots, use a peg.

The cardboard wine carriers that supermarkets give away are a really good accessory for garden maintenance day. Put your twine, labels and pen secateurs, gloves, seed packets etc in the different compartments.

Labels: gardening tips, january garden tips, thrifty gardening

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:37 AM 0 Comments

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Houseplants with attitude

Okay, I admitted defeat. While I find it almost impossible to keep houseplants alive (two small dogs, one acrobatic cat and a very draughty house all combine to destroy anything green in a pot) I saw this and succumbed to temptation. For the same price as a single bouquet I obtained this wonderful orchid. It’s a moth orchid, botanically known as Phalaenopsis.

Research tells me that it likes bright but not pure sunlight, which can scorch it and that the key to success is to water it properly – when the compost starts to feel dry I should pour tepid water through the pot until it comes out of the bottom. Hmmmm – rainwater is its preferred tipple, so I shall have to get a jug of same from the water butt and bring it indoors. Suddenly my orchid is seeming like a lot of work!

Apparently it also requires liquid orchid feed about every four times its watered between March and September and should be standing on a bed of damp pebbles.

Those glorious flower spikes may remain in bloom for three months and when they fade I cut them to just above the second node and hope a sideshoot will appear. Phew – I really hope I can keep this demanding beast going!

Labels: houseplants, moth orchid, Phalaenopsis

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:17 PM 0 Comments

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

What's in flower in the All Seasons garden?

Well, there's the mahonia I’ve already talked about, and the first snowdrops have appeared too, along with a solitary violet, which I was too soft-hearted to pick, but I hope it’s going to be joined by a few cousins because I love the smell of early violets.

Today was the first day for a hellebore to flower in my garden. Every year I’m caught out by their appearance, they seem to go from not being around to full flower without bothering with anything in between. And once again they really are spectacular. The pure white one is always the first to appear, followed by the dusky pink and green, and last of all the aubergine coloured one will bloom.

There’s just one problem this year: and it’s a very strange problem indeed. This hellebore has appeared, and I have no damn idea what it is! I don’t remember planting it, and I certainly don’t remember ordering it. So I wonder if it’s a hybrid between two existing varieties that live in the garden, or just the result of a seed that’s got carried into the garden at some point. I don’t mind which is true – I’m very happy to find a new beauty in the garden, but I am a bit perplexed …

Final point – to see hellebores at their best, cut the flowers right off the stem and float them in a bowl of water to see the beautifully subtle colour and form at its best. Very decadent.

Labels: hellebores, mahonia, snowdrops, violets

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:43 AM 0 Comments

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Monday, January 12, 2009

January in the greenhouse

I wish I’d had my greenhouse long enough to actually be doing anything in it, but all I can do, at present, is go and gaze at my pea seedlings (22 at this morning’s count). The rain is unbelievable – 2009’s weather is setting out to be as horrible as 2008: heavy frost for days on end, followed by torrents of rain and mudslides everywhere. Ugh.

Anyway, if I’d had my greenhouse a bit earlier than November, I’d have been taking any container-growing peaches and nectarines out from the conservatory to the greenhouse. This is because while keeping rain off these fruit trees prevents the spread of spores of peach leaf curl disease and protects from frost, letting them get the maximum light now also toughens new growth and encourages good bud development

I am also be getting my hyacinths and crocus out of the plunge box and into the greenhouse as soon as the leaves show above the surface, after brushing the loose compost from the posts with a soft brush. As soon as they hit the high light levels of an unheated greenhouse they really go into insane flower production. My plunge box is simply a big wooden box in the shed, filled with compost, into which I sink the early bulb pots so they are completely covered. Old fashioned gardeners used to do this with a pit dug under a beech tree (dry and soft soil). It’s a much better idea that the cupboard under the stairs because that is usually too hot and dry.

Labels: autumn crocus, hyacinths, january greenhouse, nectarines, peaches, peas

The All Seasons Gardener at 8:06 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, January 9, 2009

What to do when you can't garden

If you’re anything like me, you’re struggling to stay garden-positive in this bitter weather. Our pond has to be somewhat defrosted every morning with a pan of warm water (it's more or less frozen again by dusk, which is why I say 'somewhat') and the lawn is beautifully covered in hoar frost, but of course we can’t walk in it or bits of it will end up as brown slime as soon as the thaw arrives.

None of this is encouraging – and when the weather is this nasty there’s almost nothing garden oriented to be done, even if you can bear the low temperatures outside.

I’m cheering myself up by looking back at last year’s summer photographs – it’s not just a nostalgia trip: looking at what worked and what didn’t last year helps me plan the garden better this year. I know that I want more space for ‘love lies bleeding’ for example, but that once again my columbines were really disappointing and I shall have to find something to replace them.

Taking a couple of snaps every week is a good way of keeping track of what you did in the previous year – and at times like these, it reminds you that the sun will reappear one day: honestly it will!

Labels: garden photographs, winter garden

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:39 AM 0 Comments

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Gardening in Snow

If your garden is anything like mine, today, it’s frozen solid with small drifts and layers of snow from yesterday that didn’t melt. Snow is rare in Southern England and snow that stays for more than a few hours is rarer still, so many of my plants are having their first experience of this unusual situation.

Almost all native plants will cope well with snow and heavy frost, especially if it happens early in winter – the problem comes when extreme weather arrives late in February or even in March, when sap has started to rise in the plants and buds may even have opened, and then the plants’ new growth will be blighted by the freezing of watery sap that literally explodes the plant cells, leading to rot.

There are several things you can do to minimise the effects of extreme weather on your garden. The first and most important is to stay away from high-nitrogen fertilisers as they encourage plants to make lots of sappy leafy growth – this growth is then very liable to that exploding cell situation, even in the lightest frost.

The second step, if you live in an area prone to heavy frost, is to leave your pruning until spring. If you have last year’s growth on tender plants over the winter, it will protect the new inner growth and if it is damaged it doesn’t matter, because you’re going to cut it away from the plant as soon as the frost risk is over.

Something that many people don’t realise is that chilled air and frost always descend to the lowest point of your land and stay their longest, so if you have delicate plants, avoid putting them in dips and dells in your garden as they will be exposed to potentially damaging frost for much longer that plants on higher ground.

If you have snow, you need to calculate your risks. If you have heavy snow and it looks like staying around, you may want to go and shake it off the branches of trees and larger shrubs so they won’t be damaged by its weight. On the other hand, remember that shaking fragile branches is likely to snap them, especially if they are already frozen, so it may be better to let light snow melt away on its own.

You should always remove snow from greenhouses and cold frames to let in the light if you have plants inside. It also stops them bending under the weight.

Above all you mustn’t walk on snow-covered lawns, put down planks if you have to cross the grass, or you’ll end up with dead areas of lawn.

Labels: all year gardening, garden frost, garden in snow

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:44 AM 2 Comments

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Saturday, January 3, 2009

New Year, New Greenhouse News!

We couldn’t wait to try out the greenhouse, so we decided that even though December is the month when NOTHING germinates, we’d try and get something to grow for us from seed.

We started with peas, hardy peas. Now they aren’t going to grace the garden (because they are going to the allotment) and they aren’t even a variety that I particularly like (because they are early hardy peas and I like the later super-sweet petit pois) but my impatience knew no bounds and we’d been assured that if there was anything other than mustard and cress that would germinate in the dark of December, it was hardy peas.

And our advisers were right. As of this morning, with icicles forming on the inside of the greenhouse glass, the pond frozen over and even the dogs not very keen on going outside in the chill air, we have fourteen pea seedlings.

Suddenly all the money we spent on the greenhouse seems worthwhile …

Labels: greenhouse, peas, winter garden

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:34 AM 0 Comments

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