IN THE GARDEN
Never buy seeds again Let your plants give them to you. By Gill Maccabe, RURAL magazine’s gardening correspondent
I
f what I saw at La Collette green waste site recently was representative, then hundreds of pounds worth of flower and vegetable seed are inadvertently being dumped daily, and that is despite last year’s Covid seed shortages. How many of you pull out and throw away spent annuals full of seed in the autumn, then go and buy a packet of the same seed the next year? Gardening contractors tend to be the worst offenders: the minute flowers have stopped blooming they rip them out of the soil, sometimes roots and all, to get everything ‘tidied up’ for the next season, whilst charging the client for the pleasure. Gardens and the wildlife that depend on them like to grow old and fade gracefully into winter with seed heads, rose hips and even grasses providing food for wildlife - and ultimately nutrition for the soil.
16
Sponsored by
Last year’s lockdown and consequent lack of help in the garden, meant we weeded less and plants self seeded without interference, which in turn provided lots of ground cover, preventing weeds becoming established. Win win. Encouraged and emboldened by listening to hours of gardening podcasts and reading copious gardening articles, I started to really focus on saving seeds, learning exactly when they were at their best, what time of day to do it, and how to separate the seed from the chaff. Lupins were easy, their big brittle seedpods were easy to collect and germinate. Where once there was one small plant in a southwest corner of our garden, they are now on the march, successfully declaring UDI over the well-established heather in the rockery, scrambling and searching out every crevice in their bid for supremacy.
In addition, plants such as hydrangeas, which I didn t get round to pruning, have never been so big and colourful; our various verbena bonariensis have reached unheard of heights and salvia cuttings have flourished. Even the delphiniums seem more robust as they have plants around them to hang onto in the wind. There are nasturtiums in the rhubarb patch, cornflowers in the sweet peas and erigeron karvinskianum daisies everywhere, all flourishing happily together; plants enjoy each other’s company, a gardener once told me. It seems as if the English country garden of my dreams is getting closer. The birds have never been so vociferous in their gratitude, the garden is full of pollinators, and we are not spending a penny on seeds.
