Gardening Week with AG’s gardening expert Ruth Hayes Your
Leaf spot is a common fungal issue affecting pansies and violas
‘Early Mixed’ pansies offer low-growing clumps of brilliantly cheery blooms in early spring
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Sow seeds thinly on damp compost
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F you have moved most of your seed trays of summer seedlings off your windowsills to harden off or plant out, you will have made room for more. So why not fill those empty spaces
with this week’s free seeds, which guarantee a blast of long-lasting, early year colour? Mr Fothergill’s ‘Early Mixed’ pansies flower in a rainbow of shades, the blooms having either solid colours or
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The colours of spring Sow pansies now for early brightness, says Ruth
Add a lid to retain moisture
blotched to bring variety and interest. The flowers are large and showy, and the plants grow to a height of 6in (15cm), making them ideal for baskets, containers and the front of borders. Although you can sow your pansies directly (they are hardy perennials, so can withstand the cold), you will get more reliable results undercover. Scatter the seeds thinly over pots or trays of dampened seed compost, covering them with a little compost or vermiculite. Add a lid to the tray, or seal the pot in a clear plastic bag, and set the seeds on a warm, light windowsill. Once the seedlings show through, remove the lid/bag and grow them on until they are large enough to transfer to individual pots. If you would rather start them off in your borders, sow in soil that has been raked to a fine tilth and cleared of roots, stones and weeds. In a few months’ time, harden off and plant your undercover pansies outside, avoiding areas where they (and violas) have been growing previously, as the soil may contain leaf-spot fungal spores.
ButterflyWatch: The comma (Polygonia c-album) The colourful comeback kid of the butterfly world
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in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire THIS week’s butterfly is a canny master of disguise, as an adult folding and Monmouthshire to almost its wings to resemble a battered old everywhere in the UK. The comma is sometimes described leaf, or as a larva hiding in plain sight as a ‘tatty tortoiseshell’ thanks to by looking like bird droppings. the scalloped edges of its The comma is also making wings. I prefer to think of it as a remarkable recovery after a slightly tattered Persian nearing extinction in the carpet, as its fiery colours 1800s, which was thought shine out magically to have been caused by a wherever it flies. reduction in hop farming, It gets its name from the that led to a sharp decrease The rich colours comma-shaped white marks on of its favoured caterpillar of a comma its underwing, and is usually found food plant. in woodland glades, though in late But over the past 50 years, the summer it will stray into gardens and butterfly has increasingly used nettles as its main larval host and has feast on nectar to build up strength for expanded its range from a few sites hibernating among fallen leaf litter.
12 AMATEUR GARDENING 19 JUNE 2021
The caterpillar is eccentrically patterned, with predominantly black and orange markings and Caterpillar with ‘bird fearsome spines. It poo’ markings also carries white blotches at one end, making it look like bird droppings to passing predators, which will hopefully then leave it alone. Once they have reached maturity, the caterpillars pupate in silver-spotted green pupae and, as in all stages of the lifecycle of a comma, these too are wonderfully disguised so they look like dying, withering leaves. Ruth Hayes
