Garden Centre

Friday, March 13, 2009

Greenhouse Gardening – Fuchsias

The fuchsia is a beautiful plant, which can be found in a wide range of colours but predominantly a mixture of pinks, purples, whites and reds.

All fuchsia flowers have three parts: the upper tube, the sepals beneath it, which are a bit like wings furling outwards and the corolla or skirt-like growth underneath the sepals. Each part of the blossom may be different colour which is one of the things that gives this shrub its appeal to the gardener. There are two basic categories: hardy ones that can be left outside all year, some of which are particularly good for hedging, and the tender kind, which may either be bushy or upright and grown in pots, or as a trailing plant for hanging baskets.

Now I have a greenhouse, I can start to invest in tender fuchsias, most of which are prone to frost damage but can be grown outside from June to early autumn in the UK, at which point they need to be taken into a frost-free greenhouse to over-winter.

I’m buying young plants which means I will be spending the early spring pinching out young shoots to encourage the plants to stay bushy and because it’s a waste-not-want-not world these days, I shall be using those cuttings in a pot of quite gritty potting medium with a bit of hormone rooting powder, to make new plants.

I’ll stop pinching out in late spring or the flowering will be delayed. To flower well, fuchsias need humidity in the warmth, and this can be given by mist-spraying the plants, never letting the pots dry out while the plant is in flower and avoiding the full intensity of the noon sun.

Once the plant has given its glorious blossoming, say around mid September, I shall have to cut back on watering so that the wood hardens a little – this helps it get through the winter and by October, the plants should be kept almost dry – at which point I shall take them into the greenhouse and stop off any really leafy areas so that I don’t need to water any more. Through the winter I shall only water if the plant is utterly bone dry and the growing medium is cracking, and I shan’t prune until early next spring, when I can see the new shoots coming up from the base and then I will cut off all the old wood and re-pot the plant.

Fuchsia courtesy of Tanakwho at Flickr

Labels: fuchsia, greenhouse gardening, tender perennials, tender shrubs

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:45 AM 2 Comments

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Friday, February 6, 2009

February - perennial plants

February is the time to get your perennials sorted! Where there isn’t a threat of snow or frost (which is absolutely nowhere in the UK, right now) you can be planting vegetables such as artichokes, asparagus and rhubarb, which live for several or many years in the same place. If, on the other hand, you’re expecting snow or heavy frost (like everywhere in the UK, right now) you can keep these plants in a light but frost free place for at least a further 3-4 weeks, if they are not bare-rooted. If they are bare-rooted, it’s probably better to get them into some compost in a tub now, so that the roots, which will want to start swelling as day-length increases, aren’t starved of nourishment.

If you have summer-flowering perennials that you have brought indoors for winter, and they start to grow now, find a cooler spot in which to store them or they won't flower well at the correct time.

If, like me, you’re fed up with the weather and want to be planting, then there are things you can do.

• You can buy a greenhouse. Mine is filling up worryingly fast, given that I can’t get anything into the ground.
• You can build raised beds – because they are better insulated and because you can control their soil content, filling them with warming compost, for example, and because you can cover them with horticultural fleece, you can plant in them earlier than in the cold bare ground.

But mainly this February seems to be about thawing the pond and preserving my patience – and I’m not good at either!

Labels: artichokes, asparagus, greenhouse, raised beds, rhubarb, tender perennials

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:40 AM 0 Comments

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Friday, December 12, 2008

December greenhouse

Next year, I promise, this blog will be full of pictures of glorious forced bulbs, flowering in perfect time for the festive season, and lovely tender perennials, lovingly being overwintered in my brand new greenhouse. As it is though, what I actually have in there, right now, is one rhubarb crown being forced under a black plastic box (yes I know it sounds stupid to put something under black plastic to remove light, and the stick it in a bright greenhouse, but forcing rhubarb requires both dark and warmth, you see) and a tray of pea seeds that I’m hoping will germinate, and some bubble wrap.

Yes, just about the only thing that is flourishing in my wonderful greenhouse is the bubble wrap I’ve lined it with to keep it warmer. I’m also on the look-out for families that are buying big electrical goods for Christmas so I can go and beg the polystyrene packaging from them, as no less a resource than Gardener’s World says that sheets of white polystyrene can be used to line the sides of a greenhouse below staging level. Good enough for them is good enough for me!

And of course, given that I have only one rhubarb to examine, there’s no difficulty for me in examining the contents of my greenhouse for overwintering pests! By next year though, I hope to be having to search a dozen lush plants for infestations of whitefly, red spider mite and greenfly.

Icy greenhouse courtesy of Aunt Owwee

Labels: december greenhouse, forced bulbs, greenfly, red spider mite, rhubarb, tender perennials

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:18 AM 1 Comments

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Overwintering

Tender perennials will last for years if you can give them a little help to survive the winter. Indeed, many put on even better display in their second and third years.

What is a tender perennial? Well, unlike other definitions, this one isn’t fixed – it depends on where you live! Basically it means any perennial plant that will grow outside successfully in temperate climates during the summer months, but requires some winter protection. So in Sussex my agapanthus are not tender, but in Yorkshire they would be – and sadly, the only way to find out is to see if they survived that first year!

If you have limited space for overwintering plants, make it a priority to save those which are expensive to buy, such as pelargoniums and large fuchsias, as well as anything unusual that might be difficult to replace – for me that’s my south American shrubs, which rarely make it to British nurseries, even specialist ones. After that, pick your favourites and take cuttings as insurance

Once you’ve got your cuttings, root them in a heated propagator or on a sunny windowsill. Choose healthy looking, non-flowering shoots and trim them to about two inches, just below a leaf joint. Remove the lower leaves and any flower-buds and insert them around the edge of a pot filled with cuttings compost – or compost and sand, mixed. Cover the pot with a clear polythene bag (but not for bedding geraniums/pelargoniums which hate the damp and will rot off) and place in a well-lit position out of direct sun. Remove the bag when rooting has taken place (yes, I know it’s hard to tell, assume six weeks from potting up) and keep the plants cool all winter. Pot them up individually in spring and plant them out after the last frosts.

Labels: overwintering, tender perennials

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:39 AM 0 Comments

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