Garden News september 12

THIS WEEK'S ESSENTIALS!

September 12 2015

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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Colourful heathers for a carpet of flowers

✔ Over-winter your half-hardy plants! ✔ Get your lawn in good nick for winter ✔ Plant sets for an early onion crop

S D E E S E FRE 1.99!

Worth

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MAKE MORE IRISES Break the rules and divide now!

EXOTICS

FOR LONGER

Our picks for dazzling colour

Carol Klein

Ideas for

autumn!

w "My secrets for Choose royal varieties to plant no collecting be! ow the plants on the coronation ro Gr seeds" s Fail-safe tips for super spring bulb WHAT A LOVELY PEAR! Make the most of the season’s juiciest crop

Celebrate THE BEST OF

BRITISH GARDENING

AboutNOW Latest graze in mowers X xxxx xxx x Xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxx xx x xxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxx x xxxxxxs x xxxx xxs

Frank P Ma hews

‘Core Blimey’ is ideal for small gardens

Cockney tang Shugborough Hall

Goat power Bagot breed is proving useful footprint enables them to graze around structures with ease, eating plants modern breeds find distasteful.

Owned by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, the Bagots are homed at Shugborough as its farm has Rare Breed Status, one of few UK establishments nominated.

It is hoped the goat-powered conservation move could form a blueprint to encourage others to use the threatened breed in the same way.

To visit, tel: 0845 459 8900; www.shugborough.org.uk

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are farm animals are currently helping keep turf in trim at an historic estate. A 24-strong herd of Bagot goats has been drafted in to tackle an invasion of weeds and tree saplings in a semi-derelict walled garden at Shugborough estate, Staffordshire.

With conventional equipment deemed unsuitable and timeconsuming, the medieval breed, one of the rarest in the world, is perfect for the job. Their small stature and light

Talking plants & Tenerife

Timothy Walker

In October, Dr Timothy Walker, ex-Director of Oxford Botanic Gardens is to give the third Max Walters Memorial Lecture in Cambridge, for conservation charity Plant Heritage. Dr Walker’s talk will be on ‘Tenerife – a botanical honeypot’. The talk will take place on Saturday October 24 from 2-5pm at the Old Hall, Girton College. Tickets £10 or £13, including refreshments. Tel: 07798 732747.

A s h a d e G re en er ndlessly fascinating to watch and a crucial link in the food chain, a garden wouldn’t be a garden without birds. But from bird-friendly plants to design considerations, taking care of our feathered friends can be much more than putting out peanuts when the weather turns grim.

Trees and shrubs not only give birds much-needed

6 Garden News / September 12 2015

nesting spots during winter, but food too. Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) is attractive yet compact and delivers cheering bunches of bright red berries in the autumn. These are of particular interest to the thrush family.

Firethorn (pyracantha) is equally attractive, with its spiky, dense foliage and yielding beautiful red, yellow or orange berries in the

Rowan berries provide a delicious feast for greenfinch

autumn and winter. It works well trained against walls or fences, or used as evergreen hedging, and provides great shelter for birds.

Van Gogh might have been wise to the fact that sunflowers (helianthus) produce a veritable buffet of seeds for birds, while lavender

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Words: Lucy Purdy

Wildlife winter care E

‘Core Blimey’, a new dessert apple, looks set to become a darling of the garden. It has been bred by top fruit supremo, the late Hugh Ermin, who also bred ‘Scrumptious’.

‘Core Blimey’ is a cross between ‘Pixie’ and ‘Fortune’ and has a good acid-sweet balance, with a fruity flavour and is ready to pick by late September. A semi-weeping habit, fairly slow growth and self-fertility make it ideal for small gardens where there is only space for one tree, or even containers.

It also shows good scab resistance. Trees are available grafted on dwarfing MM106 or M9 rootstocks, reaching 1.8-3m (6-10ft) after five to 10 years.

The amusing name came from a schools competition launched by raiser Frank P Matthews and charity the Urban Orchard Project (UOP), with trees already planted on many publicly accessible sites around London. “We’ll also now plant it in new regions outside London as part of our ‘Helping Britain Blossom’ project,” said UOP CEO Katherine Rosen.

‘Core Blimey’ is available in 12 litre pots for £29.99. Visit www.frankpmatthews.com for stockists. Bare-root trees are available by mail order from other companies such as Ken Muir for around £19.99. Tel: 01255 830181 or visit www.kenmuir.co.uk

(lavendula) also offers a feast when the purple blooms turn to seed. Warblers and thrushes enjoy the berries from honeysuckle (lonicera), which also attracts nectar-loving insects in the summer.

Echium wildpretii in the wild

Matthew Biggs

MY LIFE In Plants

Exquisite passionflowers had Ma hew hooked

Shu Shu u erstock e stoc

Kew-trained gardener and Gardeners’ Question Time panellist Lives: Bedfordshire

“I’m excited by anything that’s quirky or unusual” The first plants I ever grew Radishes. My mother kept a vegetable garden and my father, Ivan, loved hot food. We must have been one of the few families who regularly ate vast quantities of radish and spring onions in salads, when their heat was at its most ferocious.

Mount Teide in Tenerife.

I grow just one every year in my garden to heighten the impact. I’ve seen its remains freeze dried after flowering, eaten the honey, seen paintings on ceramic tiles in a market, but have yet to see it flowering in the wild.

The plant that shaped the gardener I am today As a student, I knocked on the door of the house where my grandfather once lived to beg budwood from the apple ‘Wyken Pippen’. I began researching apples and realised their sheer range and diversity. I then began researching all kinds of plants.

Now my garden is full of all sorts of trees, shrubs, herbaceous, alpines, heritage fruit.

The plant that changed my life Passiflora caerulea. I couldn’t believe that something so beautiful could grow in Britain and in a cold conservatory, too.

When it flowered I was wide eyed with amazement. I love every inch of it, from the tip of its tendrils to the fabulous flowers – so complex and exquisitely designed.

The plant that’s made me work hardest I ordered Tropaeolum smithii, a dainty orange-flowered climber for my collection of

travelling, but there is sure to be at least one plant which is at its peak while I am away. Flora has a wry sense of humour!

The plant I am in human form Not a couch potato, more of a runner bean!

The plant I’d love to grow more of I’m excited by anything that is quirky and unusual, like arisaemas. There are only three in my collection but I recently visited the National Collection and am desperately making space for more. It’s not just the unusual shape and colour of the flowers but their impressive foliage and fruits after pollination.

The plant I miss most while I’m travelling This varies according to what time of year I’m

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

Fascinating arisaemas

September 8 2015 / Garden News 7

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My favourite plant in the world Echium wildpretii, found only in the sub-alpine desert on

plants introduced by plant hunter, William Lobb. The plant had been mis-labelled and I received Tropaeolum ciliatum instead. Nightmare! It makes bindweed look sluggish, smothering everything in its path. I have yet to get rid of it!

What to do this week

ON YOUR FRUIT & VEG PLOT

Plant your overwintering onion sets Put them in the ground now for an early crop, says Clare

Garden News RECOMMENDS

‘Senshyu Yellow’ These elongated Japanese onions have a mild flavour, with white flesh inside their golden skins.

‘Snowball’ Try this white-skinned variety that has a mild flavour, keeps well and is just the right size for baking whole.

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f you want an earlier crop of onions next summer, compared to sets planted in spring, get some overwintering varieties in the ground now.

They’ll give you a harvest a good month or so before your spring-planted onions mature, hopefully filling a handy gap.

Sets save you the trouble of growing overwintering onions from seed, which should have been done earlier in summer anyway, and they’re heattreated to minimise the risk of bolting next year. Just make sure you pick ones labelled for autumn planting.

They need a sunny spot and well-drained soil to thrive during the winter. Soggy, waterlogged clay is liable to make the onion sets rot when the weather takes a turn for the worse. They’re also better in milder parts of the country because extremely cold weather and severe frosts could finish them off. A little cloche protection may help in cold snaps.

St e p by st e p

‘Electric’ Red-skinned onions with their pink-tinged flesh look beautiful in summer salads. ● All available from D.T. Brown, tel: 0333 003 0869; www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk

42 Garden News / September 12 2015

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Lay out a string line so your Use a trowel to make a row is straight, and space out small hole and pop each the sets about 7-10cm (3-4in) set in. They only need to be apart. Snip the papery tops off. planted about 2cm (1in) deep.

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Remove the line, water them in if the soil is dry, and label the row so you know what’s where.

Gardening

GENIUS Nuggets of pure wisdom

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magining carpets of beautiful bulbs later in the year and into next is always exciting for a gardener at this time of year – and now is the perfect time to get ordering and planting them! We asked readers and experts which bulbs they’re planting, and how they give their gardens an element of surprise as they pop up almost unexpectedly…

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2 This year I’ll be planting quite a few different alliums. A new one I will be trying is Allium obliquum, which has narrow blue-green evergreen foliage and yellow bobble flowers in summer, which I am planting in my yellow, blue and white themed border. It’s become more readily available in the last few years. I’m also

Anne and Jack Barnard of Rose Co age Plants in Essex grow and sell many unusual bulbs.

Visit www.roseco age plants.co.uk to see their large range, call 01992 573775, or see them at the Malvern Autumn Show on September 26 and 27.

! t u o s s i m ’t n Do

NEXTK WEE

bulbs! impressed by allium ‘Spider’ which is taller than Allium schubertii, with flowers of a deeper cerise but with a typical flower head like a bursting firework. I also plan to plant allium ‘Silver Spring’, with clear white, red-centred flowers on 1m (3ft) stems. Gorgeous!

Ian Hodgson, editor-at-large

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I always pot up any ‘spares’ in plastic pots and keep them in a corner at the top of the garden. Then I can use them to fill gaps or to add to mixes of bedding in spring containers when they’re about to flower.

Clare Fogge , editor

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I want to turn a patch of rough lawn into a lush spring meadow, so I’ll be planting fritillaries, camassia and lots of crocuses, and crossing my fingers that they naturalise and spread.

Melissa Mabbi , garden writer

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Every year I plant two big pots of hyacinths – they always put on a feast for the senses in spring, and never fail to impress family and friends. This year I‘ll be trying crown imperials for the first time, as well as the usual tulip, daffodil and crocus.

Tracy Maltby, Facebook

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There are bulbs that love damp and heavy soil. Camassias throw up spikes of blue or cream flowers.

Or, for the effect of a giant snowdrop, try Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’. Both flower in mid to late spring.

Lovely open-cupped and brighten sun-lacking garden corners. Laevigatus fontenayi

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Ipheions, in white, pink, blue and violet, prefer sun to flower well. They grow in early summer, and again in autumn once established.

A few blooms in a mild winter are not unknown.

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S D E E S E E R F ’ Echium ‘Pastel Mix I love Ornithogalum magnum with their starry white flowers in early summer. They’re easy to grow in well-drained soil, sun or partial shade.

Corydalis are charming little plants, and produce flowers like mini snapdragons. They like shade

anemones

Rose Co age Plants

E x p e rt I n s ig ht

Bring ring on the Shu erstock

Always plant the bedding first, then the bulbs. It’s too easy to spear the hidden bulbs as you plant if you do it the other way round! Plant in groups, not rows, as nothing looks meaner than a single row of daffs! Plant tulips with bearded irises – the irises help disguise the tulips’ dying foliage at the end of flowering – and plant multiheaded tulips to increase your flower power without increasing planting time. My favourite tulip is ‘Carnaval de Nice’, closely followed by ‘Prinses Irene’. ‘Quail’ is a late-flowering multi-headed yellow daffodil with superb scent, but ghostly white ‘Thalia’ runs a close second!

Pam Richardson, garden writer

Crown imperials will look majestic in late spring

The little crocus, Laevigatus fontenayi, is quite reliable for blooms over Christmas. It’s not a showy crocus, but its flowers last well.

● Best autumn ot metal foliage!

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Echium

‘Pastel Mix’

Perfect for pol

linators

WORT

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