Garden News April 25

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April 25, 2015

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

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Super no-fail vegetables

2.49

Carol Klein "Grow the perfect spring mixer: euphorbias!"

S D E E S E FRE 2.49!

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Pond plants for vibrant fowers right now

THE IRISES THAT GROW ANYWHERE!

Try unfussy Siberians

" You only need a few square feet to grow an orchard" says Chris Beardshaw

3 steps to weird and wonderful beans

Colour all year!

Fill your garden from top to bottom using our guide to climbers

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IN G IN R P S G IN R B Beautiful ways to display your tulips

AboutNOW

Lettuce is a fexible friend

Prototype tyre made from Russian dandelion rubber

Global scramble for new sources of natural rubber Prickly le uce, a potential source of rubber

reserves, used to make over half of synthetic rubber products, are also a looming threat. With no commercial supplies of the product generated in cooler parts of the world there is an urgent need to find alternative sources.

The new finding could stimulate breeding better forms of prickly lettuce to improve yields. “I think there’s interest in developing a temperate-climate source of natural rubber,” said weed scientist Ian Burke of Washington State University. “It would be great if prickly lettuce could become one of those crops.”

A number of potential new crop plant are under evaluation.

Words Ian Hodgson

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Alamy

lettuce-relative could be the next important source of natural rubber. The sticky white sap of prickly lettuce, Lactuca serriola, has been found to contain substances similar to that in natural rubber, currently tapped from the trunks of tropical rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis, mostly from South East Asia. With world demand, particularly from China, continually increasing, use of natural rubber often outstrips supply, particularly as viruses and other diseases continue to decrease yields. Dwindling oil

Alternative rubber sources being considered

Alamy

Alamy

Alamy

Russian dandelion

Guayule

Guttapercha tree

Golden rod (solidago)

First tried as an alternative in WW2, Taraxacum kok-saghyz is being evaluated in Europe, the USA and Canada. Tyres from its sap are under trial.

Mexican desert daisy-shrub Parthenium argentatum is being grown in Spain, south USA and Australia, with latex yields looking very promising.

Deciduous tree Eucommia ulmoides, from mountainous central China, produces strands of rubber latex when its leaves are torn, and in bark.

Although only producing at best 12 per cent of latex from their leaves, many species were assessed in the 20th century as sources of rubber.

Simon Kemp

Wilde about gardening

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n 80’s pop-star has disclosed gardening helped her through anxiety nxiety triggered by the pressures of the pop industry.

Kim Wilde, daughter of 60’s singer inger Marty Wilde, had a number of hits in the 1980’s, but success uccess brought stress. “To the outside world all seemed Singer Kim Wilde, wonderful, but I was helped through plagued with anxiety gardening and it badly affected my

mental health,” said Kim, crediting gardening with helping her create a balance in her life and restoring confidence.

Now she’s fronting a BBC Lifeline Appeal on behalf of horticultural therapy charity Thrive, which works with those with physical injury or learning or metal impairment, by running training courses and carrying out research. The charity has gardens in Reading, London,

Birmingham and Gateshead.

“I really believe in the benefits of being outdoors in a garden and that’s why I think the work of Thrive is so important,” said Kim, also patron of horticultural social enterprise Waste Not Want Not. The programme can be seen on Wednesday April 22 at 11:50am, or afterwards at BBC online www.bbc.co.uk/lifeline Visit Thrive at www.thrive.org. uk or tel: 0118 988 5688.

Plant

OF THE WEEK

Best varieties for spring colour Shuterstock

These beautiful plants are at their best in the last few weeks of April

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‘Gavota’

Fringed tulips such as spicy ‘Lambada’ look like they’ve had an encounter with a shredder – in a good way!

Deep red flowers have a bold flare of yellow around the edges of the petals – truly eye-catching!

‘Purissima’

‘Estelle Reynveld’

Tall and elegant ivory flowers on strong stems characterise this slightly fragrant variety.

Parrot tulips like this one, with curled, streaked and feathered petals look glorious gathered in a vase.

almost black. ‘Queen of Night’ is arguably the darkest.

If you didn’t get round to planting tulip bulbs last autumn buy potted bulbs in flower now.

Pam Richardson

Keep them happy Native to mountainous regions, tulips are remarkably tolerant of cold winter weather. In fact, a spell of cold encourages the bulbs to produce flowers. But once in flower they need the sunniest spot in the garden and they’ll do best in deep, welldrained, rather gritty soils.

If you’re growing them in a pot make sure that it has good drainage. Add crocks to the bottom of the pot and water sparingly. Let the foliage die back naturally after flowering.

In March 1637 at the height of ‘Tulipmania’, one bulb sold in Holland for 3,000 gilders – around 10 times a craftsman’s annual salary.

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Garden World Images

Fa ct

‘Lambada’

Pam Richardson

ulips flower from March to May but are at their best in the last weeks of April.

The earliest are still in flower and the late varieties are coming into bloom, so now is the time to really appreciate them, and to make notes on the ones you’d like to buy as bulbs in autumn.

Tulips originate from Turkey and grow wild in many parts of the Middle East. They are an incredibly varied flower, differing not only in colour, but also flower shape and size.

There are 15 separate tulip classifications that help to group tulips by flowering time, shape and height, from small species to tall goblet-shaped Darwin kinds and flamboyant parrot types, and in every colour from white to

Pam Richardson

Tulips!

‘Attila’

‘Antoinette’

This vibrant purple-pink variety has simple gobletshaped flowers on sturdy stems.

Get more tulip for your money with a multi-headed variety that develops raspberry tints as it ages.

April 25 2015 / Garden News 5

AboutNOW

60

SECOND

Expert

Blackbirds often choose to nest in ivy

With Julian Rollins

Top three climbers These wildlife-friendly choices will help to up your garden’s eco-credentials

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pring’s a great time to put in new climbing plants and in the wildlife garden they add an extra dimension to what would otherwise be a bare wall or fence.

Most provide cover that birds can make use of as a nesting site. A nest tucked inside the tangle of honeysuckle or ivy is well away from trouble-making cats. They also offer a source of food for insects and other small invertebrates, which are the mainstay of your garden’s ecosystem – especially native species.

So, if you can, find some space to include at least one native climbing plant somewhere in your garden. The best wildlife-friendly options are ivy, honeysuckle and dog rose.

Ivy punches above its weight as a wildlife

garden plant. Being an evergreen, its foliage provides shelter from wind and rain during winter, for everything from wrens to hibernating butterflies.

It’s also perfect for nest-building.

Blackbirds, wrens and dunnocks often build their nests in the privacy of a mature ivy, safe from most predators. Plus its strange little bundles of flowers at the back end of the year provide a source of nectar for insects right through to early December. And blackbirds, thrushes and wood pigeons feast on its little black berries during winter.

Our native honeysuckle – Lonicera periclymenum – likes to have its roots in shade and its top in full sun, and does well in moist, well-drained soil.

It will do well along the top of fence panels and against a shed, trellis or pergola, where its sweet-scented flowers will attract ● Climbers ofer protection for a bumblebees by day and moths by night. Its variety of birds and a nest box or two shoots are home to aphids, which make a placed high on a wall, post or tree trunk meal for lacewing larvae and ladybirds. Plus, among the foliage of a climber, will be sparrows and blackbirds strip honeysuckle’s attractive to house sparrows. papery bark to build their nests.

Dog rose (Rosa canina) can be trained over trellis or wires and in time becomes a dense, prickly structure that makes a great refuge for birds. Hundreds of different insect species feed on roses, which makes these plants a boon to insect-eating birds and animals. They also produce glossy red hips that provide a good source of food for Encourage birds to larger birds in winter. nest with a readymade box

Install a bird box

Photos: Shu erstock

Wil dlife Wat c h

Photos: Shu erstock, Words: Andi Clevely

pH is shorthand for potency of H, the chemical symbol of hydrogen

Your soil’s acid test

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oil acidity is measured on a scale ranging from 1 (extremely acid, the digestive acids in your stomach) up to 14 (very alkaline oven cleaner). 7.0 is neutral, neither acid nor alkaline. Most garden soils lie between 4.5 and 7.5.

The acid test You can easily test the acidity of your soil with a simple kit or inexpensive pad of litmus papers if you follow the instructions.

Why is this worthwhile?

Specialist plants might enjoy one extreme or the other. Rhododendrons love acid soils, while ceanothus prefers alkaline conditions, but the majority are happiest at about pH 6.5.

A fine lime Soil pH is usually controlled by its calcium (chalk or lime) content. This element affects the availability of various minerals essential to a plant’s diet. This is particularly important for some vegetables and fruits. Stone fruit such as plums need calcium, for example, potatoes get scabby skins in alkaline soil.

Veg gardeners add lime (a quickrelease form of calcium) to ground earmarked for cabbages and other brassicas, which like pH 6-5-7.5 and suffer Calcium is various ailments in soluble and gradually acid soil. washed out of plants’ reach, so carry out a pH test every 3-4 years.

April 25 2015 / Garden News 11

What to do this week

IN YOUR FLOWER GARDEN

Cut back borderline hardy plants Time to trim lavender and penstemon, says Victoria

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armer weather and longer days mean plants are starting to make lots of new growth. Now that the worst of the cold weather is hopefully behind us, it’s safe to prune perennials or shrubs that are sensitive to very cold, frosty conditions.

Although we can still get ground frosts at this time of the year, we’re not likely to get prolonged frost, so borderline hardy plants can be trimmed now.

Plants such as penstemons, lavender and teucrium are always best pruned in spring, just as they are about to start into growth. If they are pruned in winter when it is cold and frosty, the shoots can be damaged or killed.

Pruning now means they will grow away quickly without any harm.

Garden News RECOMMENDS

3 to prune now

Garden World Images

Penstemons

Lavender

Any dead or damaged shoots should be cut back to a healthy bud or sideshoot. If the plant is ge ing too tall, reduce its height to form a be er shape. In most cases you can prune hard back to encourage strong new growth to develop. Hard pruning does delay flowering until later in the summer.

Lavender is best pruned when new growth is visible. It is on the new shoots that flowers develop in mid-summer. Secateurs or shears are ideal for trimming the bush over, but don’t be tempted to cut hard back as lavender doesn’t re-grow well from old, bare wood. Cut back only to where there are new shoots growing.

30 Garden News / April 25 2015

Teucrium

Teucrium fruticans is grown for its a ractive grey-green foliage and pale blue flowers in summer, but it can get very scrubby if it’s not pruned regularly. It’s best to cut it hard back now to within a few inches of ground level.

New growth will develop and this is followed by a lovely display of flowers in the summer.