5 minute read
GARDEN NOTES
by Dales Life
KNOW YOUR ONIONS
This year’s garden produce has mostly been harvested by now, and newly cleared beds are available to be planted with vegetables tough enough to sit out winter and provide an early crop next year. So if you want to enjoy plump, home-grown onions next summer, now is the time to plant winter onion sets. You can do this any time from now until December providing the ground isn’t actually frozen solid, but by and large the earlier the better. You’ll get the best results if you choose a sunny spot and dig a decent amount of compost into the soil. Plant the onion sets so the tops are just showing, spaced 10cm apart and with around 25cm between rows. Tall and elegant, Japanese anemones (Anemone hupehensis and Anemone × hybrida) are perfect for cheering up a dull corner, and they’ll carry on flowering late into autumn. Japanese anemones like rich, fertile soil, preferably in partial shade, so they’re ideal for combining with ferns or ornamental grasses such as Hakonechloa macra (Japanese forest grass). They need moist conditions until they’ve settled in, but once established they can cope with the relatively dry and gloomy conditions under mature deciduous trees. Super-hardy and sturdy enough not to need staking, they require very little by way of ongoing care, although they’ll appreciate a mulch of organic matter in spring. You can buy Japanese anemones locally at Ravensworth Nurseries near Richmond ravensworthnurseries.com
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Replicating Roses
Do you have a favourite rose that you would like to propagate? Hardwood cuttings are an easy way to do it, and autumn is the ideal time. Choose green stems that have grown this year – older wood won’t work – and remove all the leaves. Using sharp secateurs, divide the stems into sections 15 to 20cm long, cutting each above a bud at the top end and below a bud at the bottom. Pare off some of the outer surface of the stem at the base of each section. Your cuttings can now be pushed into pots of compost, watered in and left in an unheated greenhouse or even outside. By next summer they should be taking root and showing signs of new growth.
Seasonal Sensation Japanese anemones
Topical Tip: This the perfect time to install nest boxes ready for next year’s breeding birds – and to clean out and disinfect existing nesting boxes and bird feeders.
Brilliant for Bulbs
Autumn is the time to plant spring-flowering bulbs like tulips, daffodils, squills, crocuses, muscari, hyacinths and camassias. Ideally bulbs should be planted in generous drifts – the more the merrier – but of course that potentially means a lot of hard work, especially if you’re planning to establish them in turf. You could get down on your hands and knees with a trowel, but a far easier way to get the job done is with a long-handled bulb planter like this RHS-endorsed one from Burgon & Ball burgonandball.com. Simply push the cylindrical blade into the ground, twist and pull up a plug of soil. Pop in a bulb and replace the plug… job done!
CHEERY CONTAINERS
This is the time of year to start thinking about planting containers to jolly up your garden, yard or house front through until next spring. Winter-flowering heathers and pansies are a good choice for colour, along with hellebores, cyclamens, ornamental cabbages and Ajuga reptans. For structure, trailing ivy, skimmia, carex and Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ are a good bet. If you’ve got large pots then a big, bold phormium such as ‘Pink Stripe’, ‘Jester’ or ‘Platt's Black’ can make an excellent centrepiece. Once you’ve planted up your containers it’s a good idea to keep them in a greenhouse or other sheltered spot for a few days to allow them to get established before they are exposed to potentially frosty nights.
Good Havens
During lockdown many of us found solace in our gardens. And now that the gardening year is drawing to a close it’s worth reflecting on what aspects of your outdoor spaces you especially value, and how you might enhance your garden in years to come. A good way to find inspiration is to take a look at what other people are doing, and that’s where leafing through a well-illustrated book can really get your ideas flowing. Here’s one you might find helpful: Pure Style in the Garden: Creating an Outdoor Haven by Jane Cumberbatch (Pimpernel Press, hardback, £20). Packed with photos, paintings and ideas for all seasons, it celebrates the potential of gardens, large and small, to create a calm refuge from the stresses of daily life.
PEA SHOOTER
Most people sow sweet peas in spring, but if you sow them in autumn and overwinter them in a frost-free greenhouse or cold frame you’ll get sturdier, earlier-flowering plants next year. Use root trainers or cardboard tubes, sowing two seeds into each one. Put them somewhere warm until the seeds have germinated. In mild weather they can be grown on outside, but bring them under glass before the weather gets really cold. They’ll be fine in a frost-free greenhouse all winter, but pinch out the tops of the shoots every now and then to encourage your young plants to branch and stop them getting too leggy. You can plant them out in the garden next spring once the soil has warmed up.
Planting a selection of dwarf evergreens is a good way to ensure year-round colour and structure in borders and containers. And Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Star’, with its compact mound of steely blue foliage, is one of the most eye-catching examples you’ll find. The parent species hails from the Himalayas, so it will survive the harshest winter providing it’s in a well-drained spot. It tolerates both full sun and part shade and isn’t fussy about soil pH. Like all junipers, ‘Blue Star’ is slow-growing – even after a decade or two it’s unlikely to grow more than 50cm high – so you’re unlikely to need to prune it. You can find Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Star’ at Braithwaites in Leeming Bar braithwaitesnursery.co.uk
