Garden News December 12

A bumper Christmas treat for all our readers

3 PACKETS OF SEEDS December 12, 2015

£2.50

WORTH

B rit a in'sed st m o st t ru in e ic vo g a rd e n in g

£+ D7IB.2BE7R!!

Transform your garden for

! s a m t s i r h C Pots packed with FESTIVE colour & scent!

Carol Klein "Make my fruitpacked ivy wreath"

Enhance structure and form with

FAIRY LIGHTS Grow your own

mini Christmas tree

PLANT HELLEBORES for exquisite late winter blooms

SPARKLE & SHIMMER! Plants that come alive in the frost

AboutNOW

Miracle fruit tickles the taste buds!

Eden’s power plant – substantial fundraising is still required

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Ben Foster

Eden to tap into ‘hot rocks’ £37m venture to drill three miles into bedrock

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Eden project

The geothermal plant ornwall’s Eden Project is planning to tap will make Eden selfinto a heat source miles below ground. sufficient in energy The new £37m venture will see the eco-attraction drill 4.8km (3 miles) into granite bedrock to utilise natural geothermal heat.

This will generate enough electricity to power the site, including its domed greenhouses and up to 4,000 homes.

Other uses for the excess energy generated include a tropical fish farm, medical facility and greenhouses to grow food.

To kick-start the project, Eden is bidding for a stake in a £12m EU fund awarded to the county of Cornwall. Planning permission was obtained a few years ago, but financial setbacks have prevented the project from moving forward and further fundraising is needed.

The new 3-4 MW facility is as ● Two 25cm (10in) bore-holes will be drilled large as a football pitch, and 4.8km (3 miles) into the bedrock below Eden. would take three years to build Cold water pumped down one bore-hole once money is found. A second permeates natural fractures in the rock, picking geothermal project in Redruth, up heat as it does, and is then pumped back to the Cornwall, has also gained surface at about 180C (356F) where it will be planning permission and is used to drive a turbine. looking for funds.

fruit that makes sour things taste sweet is exciting the attention of scientists and the food industry.

Miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum, an evergreen shrub from West Africa, produces mildly-sweet red berries that release a substance called miraculin. This glycoprotein binds to the tongue’s taste receptors and acts as a sweetness inducer, tricking the tongue into sensing that bitter and sour foods like lemon and vinegar taste sweet. The effect is temporary, lasting between 30 minutes and two hours.

It was first discovered in 1725, when explorers were intrigued when local tribes chewed synsepalum berries before meals.

Now scientists think this could be used to help reduce intake of sugar or artificial sweeteners such as saccharine or aspartame. Products made from synsepalum fruit are already being sold as novelties as tablets, granules or frozen fruit.

The shrub can also be grown as a conservatory or greenhouse plant, reportedly hardy to 0C (32F), but preferring temperatures above 12C (55F). It must have acidic soil, preferring ericaceous compost. ● Visit www.miraclefruit.co.uk

How it works

A S h a d e G re en er Help bring back front gardens

Words: Lucy Purdy, Photo: RHS

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Can 6,000 front gardens be transformed by 2017?

6 Garden News / December 12 2015

s the time for making new resolutions approaches, why not get involved with the RHS’s Greening Grey Britain campaign?

The scheme is urging our nation to transform hard, grey areas into living, planted places that enrich lives, and with an estimated 7 million front gardens containing concrete and cars rather than flowers and grass, the RHS wants to reverse this unhappy trend by transforming 6,000 of these spaces by 2017.

Gardens are particularly important in urban and suburban areas and are set to become even more crucial in the future as our climate continues to change. From helping protect against flooding to supporting wildlife, gardens

can provide a huge range of benefits.

Ideas for greening front gardens include using water-permeable paving materials, installing window boxes, hanging baskets and containers in small spaces, growing climbers up fences and walls, and planting hedges as living boundaries.

Since launching in April, more than 1,300 people have ‘promised to plant’ with pledges ranging from creating wildflower containers and establishing new trees. Organisations and schools have been planting shrubs, flowers, climbers and pots to give outdoor areas a green boost. These green makeovers are being shared through social media, using the hashtag #GreeningGreyBritain ● Visit www.rhs.org.uk/greeninggreybritain

Shu erstock

Miracle fruit synsepalum temporarily makes sour food taste sweeter

Bed s i d e Bo o k s

Humus

You might not be able to commission these top garden designers, but you can at least enjoy a view of their worlds...

Hummelo: A Journey Through a Plantsman’s Life Noel Kingsbury & Piet Oudolf A skilfully told story that weaves together Piet’s development as a garden designer, with changes in the wider world of horticulture. It may be based around his private garden and testing ground, but it also describes client projects and Piet’s changing plant palette.

Invaluable to anyone interested in the natural planting movement.

Best line: ‘… I began to appreciate the simple, scientific reason for Piet’s success as a designer: his plants survive.’

Monacelli Press, £40

Real Gardens Adam Frost Journey through Adam Frost’s seven gold-medal-winning Chelsea gardens. Adam is an excellent communicator and reassuringly unpretentious, talking the reader through the steps he takes to turn early inspiration into a finished show garden. The result is an inspirational journalcome-sourcebook with photos, key plant groupings and scale drawings to illustrate.

Best line: ‘I promised myself that if I ever got to design my own Chelsea garden, it would be as close as I could possibly make it to a ‘real’ garden.’

Ovolo Books, £16.99

The Gardens of Arne Maynard Arne Maynard A beautiful book showing 12 of garden designer Arne Maynard’s gardens, from a client’s Long Island beach house to his own Welsh home. Arne explains the design process behind each and looks in depth at some of his signature styles, such as roses, pleaching and kitchen gardens, while gloriously dreamy photos show the result.

Best line: ‘… installing a standard gate or an off-the-shelf bench represents a lost opportunity; instead, I am looking for uniqueness, and for elements that connect a garden to its location.’

Merrel, £45

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60 SECOND Expert

he bulk of soil comprises two key materials: its mineral ingredient (which decides if it is chalky or sandy, for example) and its organic content, which acts as a reservoir of nutrients to feed new plant growth, fibres that help improve soil structure, and a kind of 'glue', which opens up soil texture by sticking minute soil particles into larger crumbs.

This is humus, the partly-rotted remains of things that once lived, a complex mix of plant and animal waste, plus dead microbes and the other soil organisms which break it down. When we add compost or manure to soil it decomposes to become humus. Without it, soils seem starved and lifeless.

Under natural conditions – for example, in a wood – humus is topped up by a seasonal rain of leaf litter and dead organisms that break down slowly on the undisturbed surface. In the garden, cultivation loosens soil, admitting air and speeding up humus decay by as much as 10 per cent a year, while harvesting crops and tidying away dead top growth robs the cycle of raw material.

Ideal topsoil contains 5 per cent or so of organic matter; spreading 2.5cm (1in) of garden compost annually can maintain this level. Add a little more in a hardworking vegetable garden (supplemented with a balanced complete fertiliser), but not too much.

An excess of humus may boost yields but also upsets food quality because vegetables prefer to take up the extra potassium at the expense of vital nutrients we need in our food. It's a matter of keeping the balance right.

The Garden: A Year at Home Farm Dan Pearson What is it? Dan Pearson charts the rhythms of a gardening year at Home Farm, a four acre Northamptonshire garden he helped to create.

Why is it a classic? Today Dan Pearson is one of the most well-known garden designers worldwide. This story, however, starts in 1987 when his career was just beginning. His friend Frances Mossman moved to a near-derelict house and commissioned Dan to help create a series of gardens.

Thirteen years later A Year at Home Farm was published, showing the extraordinary results of their working friendship that yielded a series of thoughtful and very beautiful gardens.

What’s it like?

The gardens are not only beautiful, but also testament to Dan’s lifelong drive to garden ‘on the side of nature’. Equally helpful to the reader, the book shows how the gardens evolved, including the mistakes and changes that contributed to their creation. Reading it leaves you ready to move mountains and achieve anything.

Ebury Press, £20

Subscribe now for £1 an issue! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn

Digging compost into garden soil helps create humus

December 12 2015 / Garden News 7

What to do this week

ON YOUR FRUIT & VEG PLOT

Trim grapevines

Garden News RECOMMENDS

The best vines to grow

Hard pruning will keep them healthy and productive

G Photos: Marshalls

‘Boskoop Glory’ A very hardy, old, reliable variety for eating fresh from the vine. Deep blue fruit with a frosted coating.

‘Flame’

Ste p by ste p

Photos: Neil Hepworth

A popular, delicious, crunchy, seedless grape variety for a sheltered site or greenhouse. Self-fertile.

rapevines instantly conjure up the warm weather and hillside vineyards of the Mediterranean, but more and more of us are growing them in the lessthan-balmy UK! Between now and the end of the year is the time to hard prune vines. They’re dormant at the end of the year and sap is low in the stems. If vines are hard pruned when sap is high, they may bleed it out, which weakens the plant and can even kill it.

Whichever growing method you choose, grapes normally have one main stem with side branches off it that are trained on wires. These produce spurs that bear the grapes. The vines grow fast, and hard pruning in December and January (see box below) keeps plants productive.

Crowded grapevines with poor air circulation are susceptible to powdery mildew, especially in hot, dry weather, so reducing congested stems now will have the added benefit of keeping vines healthy next summer.

Tend to vines now they’re dormant

‘Golden Champion’ Large bunches of goldenyellow, sweet, delicious grapes. A vigorous grower with lots of fruit.

36 Garden News / December 12 2015

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Remove damaged, weak stems from the vine. They get in the way of new growth.

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Reduce the main stems back to two or three buds, for strong growth in spring.

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Tie in remaining stems to maintain the framework and keep them secure.

TERRY WALTON

Tales from the

ALLOTMENT

Star of BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show and best-selling author. His allotment sits in the Rhondda Valley

Garlic and winter onions (top-right) were running away

My bubble-wrap chrysanths cover

ItÕs a winter wonderland!

Frosty nights and crisp days are a magical combination

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he festive season gathers momentum and winter-time is truly upon us with cold, frosty nights and sunny days that are a joy. When you open the curtains, you gaze out on scenes that look as if they’ve been dusted by a large salt cellar! White frost glistens under azure skies giving that view often found on Christmas cards. The sun

The taste of success!

Thankfully, recent frosts have stopped the growth of my experimental oca. Now that the foliage had died back I could see what ‘goodies’ lay beneath the surface. I was pleasantly surprised to find a multitude of tubers that were banded with red stripes, but also a bit shocked at the amount of odd-shaped tubers.

My wife washed them well and then baked the oca in the oven before serving them with fish and peas. Their pleasant tang of lemon complemented the fish, so I’ll make room on my plot plan Unearthing my for a further crop of oca first oca crop next season.

may be a late riser at this time of year but boy is it worth waiting for!

These low temperatures restore dormancy to the garden and all plants benefit from this opportunity to rest. Rhubarb crowns love frost on their buds, which creates energy at their deep roots. It’s stored and ready to explode into magnificent stalks of delicious rhubarb when the lure of spring calls.

Pesky annual weeds that have thrived in mild winters past are at last no more and, along with them, hopefully a few pests and diseases will perish. Winter green manures have finally been checked in their growth cycle and will send all those nutrients back to their roots to enhance the soil’s fertility.

The other wonderful benefit of these clear, frosty nights is the chance to step out and wonder at the beautiful night sky. Look up and stare at those thousands of diamonds shining up there. Bathing the surroundings in its pale white light is the moon, our nearest neighbour in the galaxy. Said to have a major gravitational effect on our earth, it controls the ebb and flow of the great sea and ocean tides.

However to some gardeners it controls their very actions and they grow by the lunar cycle or, to give it its technical name, biodynamics. It’s said that the new moon enhances root and shoot growth, while the waxing moon rests the roots and the shoots

Subscribe now for £1 an issue! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn

Photos: Terry Walton

I’m delighted that frost has arrived at last

Jobs to do now

l Put new strawberry pla grow. Full moon nts in a cold frame to protec has the opposite t them from severe weath effect and roots er. l Pick the last peppers grow while and consign old plants to foliage rests; the compost heap. and both roots and foliage l Time to harvest the firs t crop rest during a of purple sprouting brocco li. waning moon.

As for me, I’ll stick with my way, which is to sow when the ground’s warm and damp!

I was rather concerned with the amount of growth my winter onions and garlic were making in the mild November. This colder snap at least stopped their runaway gait and will hopefully slow the growth above ground. This should encourage them to make a strong root system that will then make plenty of foliage, which will later transfer into big bulbs!

At last all my chrysanthemum plants have been lifted and re-potted into large pots ready for next year’s cuttings, so it’s time to protect them inside my greenhouse. They’re draped with a frame of bubble wrap I’ve made that can be rolled up by day to allow plenty of air in. They stay unheated until January, when I’ll put a paraffin lamp under them to warm the roots and encourage new shoots.

ng i k or : Warm k ee e w w t th ex Garden in News 39 December 12N 2015/