Garden News November 28

November 28, 2015 £1.99

CAROL KLEIN

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

4

“How I get results from seed every time!”

easy steps to indoor lily of the valley

LEAVES TO

LOVE! Trees for colour,

structure & scent

TASTE OF THE PAST

Delicious heirloom veg varieties to try NOW!

Expert tips for growing prize-winning

CHRYSANTHS JOBS TO DO !

THIS WEEK

✔ Plant herbs for winter ✔ Cut & save holly berries ✔ Pot up hardy plants to brighten chilly days

Winter colaontueerd!

r a u g

sies n a p h t i w s y a w ● New -how w o n k s i l l y r a m ●A

AboutNOW

Mum’s the word for butterflies

Judy Barker

Late-flowering varieties have pollinating potential

Head gardener Tim Kirk (left) and his team take ownership of the chrysanthemums assessments of varieties. It will start in 2016

Words Ian Hodgson

L

Judy Barker

ate-flowering chrysanthemum varieties are to be evaluated for their attractiveness to pollinating insects.

The initiative between conservation charity the Butterfly World Project and Judy Barker, owner of a Plant Heritage National Plant Collection of late-flowering chrysanths, has resulted in the St Albans-based venue planting a range of varieties in its new British butterfly garden.

“It’s early days for the project. We’ve planted eight varieties to date, but Judy is propagating more from her collection of 200 varieties in spring,” said head gardener Tim Kirk. “These plants are potentially important for late pollinators and we’ll be monitoring them to see which insects visit particular varieties.”

Although the garden team plans to plant each mum variety in drifts of seven or nine for impact, they recommend that gardeners plant in groups of three, rather than dotting

them around singly.

Besides the new British butterfly garden, the team at Butterfly World is also developing a fruit garden with specialist

producer Blackmoor Nurseries and products manufacturer Harrod Horticultural. ● Tel: 01727 869203; www. butterflyworldproject.com

Viola wittrockiana W

VIP

Very Important Plant

hen curious Royal Navy admiral Lord Gambier had his gardener, William Thompson, cultivate new pansies, he could never have dreamed he was on the brink of creating one of the most popular plants in the future of gardening.

It was the early 19th century, and there were already 400 varieties from the viola genus. However, in 1839, Mr Thompson cultivated a hybrid unlike any before.

The hybrid was a mix of Viola tricolor, Viola lutea and the Russian Viola altacia, and was cultivated in Lord Gambier’s gardens in Iver, Buckinghamshire. This hybrid went on to be nicknamed the common garden pansy, instantly recognisable for its ‘face’, on which dark colours were in blocks near the centre, rather than in lines.

The nickname pansy is traced back to the French word pensee, meaning thought, because the flower was regarded as a symbol of remembrance from the mid-15th century.

6 Garden News / November 28 2015

Violas have been a familiar part of history since the 4th century BC when ancient Greeks cultivated them for medicinal use. Indeed, many violas, including Viola wittrockiana, do have strong antioxidant qualities, and many recipes exist in which the flower of the plant is an ingredient.

The popularity of the common garden pansy can be attributed in no small part to the speed with which they can grow and thrive. Violas are short-lived perennials, but the common pansy can bloom as little as nine weeks after sowing, and can withstand winter, making them superb for bedding.

There are now well over 600 varieties of viola, but none have had quite the impact on the gardening habits of the general public or spawned a multi-million-pound winter bedding plant industry. Viola wittrockiana is a true example of yet another thing the Victorians did for us.

Shu erstock

Weedkiller is not considered a cancer risk

T

he herbicide glyphosate, a globally important ingredient of weedkiller products, is not considered a cancer risk, an EU-wide safety body has ruled. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded glyphosate was unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans or damage human DNA. The reassessment was triggered after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, considered glyphosate was ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’.

“This has been an exhaustive process – a full assessment that has taken into account new studies and data,” said Jose Tarazona, head of EFSA’s pesticides unit.

“Regarding carcinogenicity, it’s unlikely this substance is carcinogenic.”

Out of the 28 EU states, only the expert from Sweden voiced voice concern over safety.

Glyphosate manufacturer Monsanto and other users

We’re all in for a shock!

F

Punching below the belt

Shu erstock

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

W eat h e r W is e With Ian Currie

welcomed the EFSA report, while environmental lobby group Greenpeace called it ‘a whitewash’. More than 1.4 million people signed a petition calling on the EU to suspend sale and use of glyphosate.

As part of the reassessment, EFSA also proposed a new safety limit of 0.5mg per kg of body weight to tighten control of the product in foodstuffs and exposure limits to users of 0.1mg/kg body weight per day.

Scientists gauged new safety limits equivalent to an 80kg (180lb) person eating food containing 40 milligrams of glyphosatee per day for life.

Monsanto to calculated this was identical dentical to eating 400kg (900lb) of fruit or vegetables a day.

The findings will influence nfluence EU regulators, who have until June 2016 to approve continued ontinued use of glyphosate and set maximum residue levels for it in food.

A UK robotic-engineering company has come up with a new way to banish weeds, by punching them below ground. The Deepfield Robotics machine trundles across a field, and when it encounters a weed it uses a 1cm (½in) metal rod to ram it below the soil surface.

Small weeds are killed outright, while larger ones are pummeled repeatedly until they submit. Tests on a carrot crop reveal it can handle 1.75 weeds per second at a density of 43 weeds per metre. Its onboard motor lets it run for 24 hours before needing to refuel.

Ian Currie

Rough seas on the south coast

The world’s most widely used weedkiller has passed safety checks

irst Abigail and then Barney, the first two active, named lowpressure systems, crossed the UK either side of mid-month giving winds of over 80mph in west Wales and in western Scotland. They reinforced the old saying: ‘November take flail, let no ships sail’, in the days journeys around our coast were often perilous in the late autumn and winter.

Indeed the greatest storm of all on November 26 1703 was said to have led to the deaths of between 8,000 and 15,000 lives, many of them mariners.

The windy weather at the moment is the result of a vigorous Jet Stream generated by strong thermal contrasts between cold Arctic and warm subtropical air with the UK firmly in the firing line.

The mildness over England and Wales in particular, with another record toppling when Yeovilton (Somerset) measured 17.5C (63.5) on November 17, the highest ever UK value for this date, has led to really warm soil temperatures.

The mild conditions have made worms very active with hundreds of casts on the lawn. It was Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist and geologist, who collected all the worm casts in his garden in Downe, Kent, and found that they totalled 10 tons per acre.

Those worms are going to get a shock and will dig deep as a plunge of cold air direct from the Arctic is due to affect us.

There could even be some snow across the higher parts of north east and eastern Britain. But not for long because the temperature warms up a little by mid-week.

November 28 2015 / Garden News 7

What to do this week

IN YOUR FLOWER GARDEN

Plant a winter container Give your garden a colour boost, says Karen!

Y

ou can keep your garden bright and breezy, and wonderfully seasonal too, by planting up a fantastically colourful hardy container. Far from shutting down the garden, wrapping up every pot and removing all your old plants, you can still be adding to the colour and life that winter can bring.

All quality garden centres and nurseries will have a good range of lovely plants to choose from – and hopefully not just the sea of pansies that sometimes emerges at this time of year! Pick an attractive, roomy container and a mixture of evergreen shrubs, conifers, hardy ferns, grasses, bedding or even some hardy herbs too. For an addition to take your pot through to spring, plant some tulips deep in the soil, to pop up almost unexpectedly next year!

Ste p by ste p

1

Create a colourful pot to brighten winter days!

Winter pots particularly need excellent drainage, so start by adding crocks to the bo om of your container. Make sure your pot has holes in it too.

2

Fill your pot two-thirds full of compost, and begin tucking in your plants, arranged with taller ones at the back, or in the middle.

24 Garden News / November 28 2015

3

Make sure you back-fill any gaps between your plants with lots of compost, to make for tight, dense planting and no roots showing.

4

Once you’ve the perfect spot for your pot, to protect from winter wet, raise with pot feet. Good drainage means less chance of frost damage too.

Garden News RECOMMENDS

Winter wonders

Pot up lily of the valley indoors This is one of the prettiest and most hard-working plants you can have in your home or garden, and it’s time to plant some now. Either you can order some bare-root buds (or ‘pips’) online, or buy at some garden centres and nurseries, or you can divide existing garden plants and pot them up. Forcing lily of the valley for indoor blooming is a great way to get delicate winter windowsill flowers in only around four weeks.

Ste p by ste p

Force lily of the valley

Bronze sedge grass Adding softness to any pot, sedge grass is easy to look after – it’ll look lovely and bronze all year round.

1

If too dry-looking, soak pips and roots for around an hour, then half fill a windowsill-sized pot with compost.

2

It’s optional, but trimming the roots a li le with scissors or secateurs can stimulate root growth.

Variegated ivy A little brighter and more colourful than ordinary ivy, a little bit of this will cascade nicely over pot sides.

Solanum (winter berry) A great value plant, up until March it looks super with shiny inedible berries, and then little white flowers.

Cineraria A classic for a wintry scene, with snowflake-like frosty foliage. Evergreen with yellow summer blooms.

3

Place roots and pips in the pot, with pips facing upwards, so there’s room at the top for them to poke through.

4

Fill up the pot with compost, leaving the pips’ ends just under the surface, or a li le exposed.

Clear pond nets now Netting ponds and water features is essential to keep water clear, and never more so than in autumn! Leaves, fallen fruits and windblown debris are all caught by the pond netting, so they can’t fall into the water and rot. But the nets need clearing regularly to stop the weight of the debris tearing them or dragging them underwater. Tip the contents onto the compost, or put in your green waste collection.

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

November 28 2015 / Garden News 25