Garden News 18 Jan

Over the
FENCE
Rain's slowing
my progress
Istill haven't finished weeding
the allotment beds because of
the rain. I’ve just been
carrying on with it on the few
dry days we’ve had. I’ve ordered a
load of manure, as I do every year, to
be delivered this month. I hope I can
finish the weeding before it arrives
because I barrow it straight onto the
beds. I later spread it out and fork it
in but the job takes a few weeks.
I rotate crops on the four beds I've
got. The first houses potatoes, the
second other root crops, the third
brassicas and fourth ‘others’ (this
bed includes marrows, courgettes,
sweetcorn, broad and French
beans). Onions, leeks and shallots
have a bed of their own and so do
runner beans. All these beds are
My 2020
allotment
plan
Derek
Brooks
Prize-winning veg
from the allotment
and a smaller
garden in greater
Manchester
with impressive
summer bedding.
Turnips ready
for harvesting
manured each year except bed
two (the root crop bed). I also
manure the chrysanth, dahlia
and gladioli beds but not the
ones where I grow annuals.
I test the pH of each bed before
the manure goes in and if any
needs lime, I wait for at least a
month before I add the
manure to give the lime
time to raise the pH.
At home, much of the
work has been preparing for
the coming propagating
season. I last told you about
cleaning my propagating
greenhouse. I’ve now washed
all my seed trays and the
sheets of glass that go on top of
them and I’m washing all my pots,
there are hundreds! This takes me
several weeks and it's a job I can do
when I can't work outside.
I’ve put the boxes of chrysanth
stools on the warming benches
and will soon be taking the first
cuttings. I’ll be boxing up the dahlia
tubers soon and also putting
them on the warming benches.
I’ve planted the shallots into 9cm
(3½in) pots to start them into
growth in the greenhouse. Some
leeks have arrived and these have
been potted into small pots.
Real
readers'
gardens!
Chrysanths on the
warming bench
Cabbages ready
for picking
Shallots potted
up and sprouting
I’ll be sowing the first seeds
before the end of the month. These
will be the large onions and the first
flower seeds, such as salvias, lobelia,
petunias and penstemons. I also
ordered some plug plants for my
summer hanging baskets and
other containers.
My highlight
Starting propagation and
looking forward to the
coming growing season.
Pete's done
a good job
neatening
the shrubs
Our winter garden is
dense and colourful
No dinner
until I name
that plant!
Tom
Pattinson
A garden full of
unusual plants and
a big collection
of fruit and veg
in Alnwick,
Northumberland.
Home-grown produce
once again came to the
fore in our Christmas
and New Year celebrations. A
quarter-acre garden rules out total
self-sufficiency but we generally
manage to harvest something
I'm getting excited
about the year ahead
Christine
High
A Norfolk garden,
with shady
borders, wildlife
areas and a large
herbaceous bed.
There are several shrubs
around the garden which
are still giving a floral
display, Viburnum bodnantense
'Dawn' and Choisya ternata, both
with their heady perfume. Fatsia
japonica with its almost prehistoriclooking
flowers and mahonia
'Charity', whose sulphur-yellow
blooms are just beginning to open.
We've even got a few roses still
producing flowers.
A couple of chilly
nights meant the
new heating in
the greenhouse
has been used
for the first time.
I've cuttings of
penstemons,
Verbena
bonariensis,
lavender and
perennial salvias
that all need a
bit of protection,
I cut the
lawns last
month
fresh from the vegetable beds each
week throughout the year. Similarly,
the fruit supply comes from the
garden all summer, and the freezer
is packed with surplus for winter
along with some ragged robin
and nigella seedlings I’m growing
on, ready to be planted out in the
wildflower area next spring, and
some lupin seedlings – just in case
I need any replacements next year.
The wild bird feeding
stations are extremely busy at
the moment and the tits seem
to have had a very successful
breeding season, as the garden
is alive with them. They’re
particularly fond of the peanuts
we provide this time of year.
Rather than using conventional
feeders, we try to make them more
easily accessible by putting them
in open-fronted nest boxes and
the constant stream of blue tits,
coal tits and great tits, together
with magpies, jackdaws, jays
and even blackbirds means we
have to refill them every day.
The pond has had a thorough
tidying, with all the iris cut back
and old water lily leaves removed
before they begin to decay.
Pete has also tidied up the
shrubs that form our front
boundary. It's made up of a mixture
of large yew, elaeagnus, viburnum
and choisya. He uses long-reach
loppers, which make the job
much easier and saves the need
for ladders close to a busy road.
use. Trays of apples, culinary and
dessert, are currently stacked high
in the garage. Flowers and foliage for
indoor displays are ever present and
welcome during these shorter days.
Brussels sprouts, leeks, parsnips,
carrots and perpetual spinach cover
the festive period and beyond. There
are also the two leaf lettuce crops in
the greenhouse borders, one a ‘Spicy
Mix’, the other ‘Salad Bowl’. Potatoes
(‘Charlotte’), started in a large pot
mid-October, have been successful
in recent years, but you never know
until the container is tipped up.
Foliage for floral arrangements
is gathered from gold and silvervariegated
shrubs and slow-growing
conifers in various borders.
Elaeagnus pungens ‘Aureovariegata’,
pittosporum ‘Garnettii’, choisya
‘Sundance’ and Chamaecyparis
pisifera ‘Filifera Aurea’ are favourites
that seem to thrive on what
Our pond after it
had been tidied
We do have a few projects
planned for the year ahead. The
gravel path is in need of a top-up;
The new border that we created at
the end of the garden a couple of
years ago has a path in front of it
which, up until now, has only ever
had a temporary surfacing with
conifer litter, which is beginning
to rot down, and now needs a
more permanent solution. In the
front garden the box parterre
is, as the years go by, becoming
more difficult to maintain and
so needs a rethink. I’ve already
decided what I’ll be growing in my
little veg garden so there’ll be lots
of seed sowing to look forward
to. That's the wonderful thing
about gardening – there's always
something new to get excited about.
amounts to winter pruning.
I love the way some plants spring
a surprise by continuing to flower
well into winter. For example, hebes
are still going strong, joining the
viburnums, jasmine, ericas and
so-called autumn cherry in bloom.
We’re picking late chrysanths
for vases, and given a few mild
December days, several other
flowers will decide to reappear
in the borders. That’s when Judy
makes a table arrangement and asks
me to give the full botanical name
of each one before food is served!
Recent frost-free periods have
encouraged us to relocate some
existing herbaceous perennials
and two birch trees, Betula pendula
and ‘Jermyns’, will soon have
their delayed annual prune.
The lawns were cut in mid-
December and transformed
the area. One lawn is rather
Our bird feeders
are very popular
My highlight
Looking out the
window on a misty,
frosty morning.
Judy picked some
welcome late
chrysanths
mossy but that's OK, the birds
collect it for nesting in spring,
and we line our hanging
baskets with it in summer.
My highlight
Bringing bowls of
forced bulbs in from the
cold garage, topping
them with moss and
observing the fragrant
hyacinths and narcissi
shaping up to bloom.
26 Garden News / January 18 2020 Subscribe for just £4.50 a month! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn
January 18 2020 / Garden News 27