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Carol Klein
‘My top plants
to breathe new life
into your plot’
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Choose a position in full sun on well drained soil which has been raked to a fine tilth.
Sow thinly, 1cm (1/2”) deep in drills 30cm (12”) apart and cover seed with its own depth
of soil to exclude light. Water regularly. Germination usually takes 5-10 days. When
seedlings are large enough to handle, thin out to 30cm (12”) apart. Alternatively, sow
indoors from March-April at a temperature of 18-23C (65-73F). When seedlings are
large enough to handle, transplant and grow on in cooler conditions until large enough
to plant outdoors.
Growing Instructions: Direct sow outdoors in April-May where they are to grow.
45cm
(18in)
30cm (12in)
Sow
March-May
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June-Sept
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What to
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1Plant a
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4Dry-preserve
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Gardening
Bank Holiday!
Plant now to get colour for months
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Growing Instructions: Direct sow outdoors in April-May where they are to grow.
Choose a position in fu l sun on we l drained soil which has been raked to a fine tilth.
Sow thinly, 1cm (1/2”) deep in dri ls 30cm (12”) apart and cover seed with its own depth
of soil to exclude light. Water regularly. Germination usua ly takes 5-10 days. When
seedlings are large enough to handle, thin out to 30cm (12”) apart. Alternatively, sow
indoors from March-April at a temperature of 18-23C (65-73F). When seedlings are
large enough to handle, transplant and grow on in cooler conditions until large enough
to plant outdoors.
Water regularly until plants are fu ly established. Deadhead faded calendula flowers to
encourage more blooms to be produced and prevent them from self seeding.
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45cm
(18in)
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30cm (12in)
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August 28, 2021 £2.10
Carol Klein
‘My top plants
to breathe new life
into your plot’
THE UK'S
NO.1
GARDENING
WEEKLY
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• Hardy annual
• Single blooms of golden orange
• Fast growing, makes a great display planted in drifts
• Easy to grow in a l conditons
SWEET PEA
‘Fragrantissima’
A mass of colour!
When growing sweet peas it is essential to cut the flower stems frequently and deadhead
faded blooms to prevent seedpods developing. This wi l encourage more blooms to be
produced and extend the flowering period throughout summer.
Growing Instructions: Sow sweet pea seeds indoors in October for transplanting
outdoors in spring, or direct sow outdoors from March to April. In autumn, sow 3 seeds
per 7.5cm (3”) pot at a depth of 1cm (1/2”) . Place in a propagator or seal container
inside a plastic bag at a temperature of 20-25C (68-77F) until germination which
takes 10-21 days. Grow on in cooler conditions, before transferring to a cold frame for
overwintering. Spring sowings can be made outdoors directly into dri ls at a depth of
2.5cm (1”), and a distance of 7.5cm (3”) apart. Pinch out growing points of each stem
once the second pair of leaves has opened to encourage bushier growth.
30cm (12in)
Sow Mar-
April, Oct
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J F M A M J J A S O N D
Sow outdoors Sow indoors Plant out Flowers
• Pinks, reds, blues, purples and bicolours
• Gorgeous mix of colour and fragrance
• Cottage garden classic
• Hardy annual
‘Fragrantissima’
SWEET PEA
READER
JUST PAY £2.99 P&P
What to
do NOW!
1Plant a
hydrangea
in bloom
3Plant up a
late-summer
sedum pot
2Prune
peach and
plum trees
4Dry-preserve
your herbs
Have A Perfect
Gardening
Bank Holiday!
Plant now to get colour for months
Start sowing next year’s annuals
Save seeds in the kitchen garden
OUR PEAT-FREE PICKS!
The best new eco composts
to give your soil a boost

August 28, 2021 £2.10
THE UK'S
NO.1
GARDENING
WEEKLY
Carol Klein
‘My top plants
to breathe
new life into
your plot’
Have A Perfect
Gardening
Bank Holiday!
Plant now to get colour for months
Start sowing next year’s annuals
Save seeds in the kitchen garden
What to
do NOW!
1Plant a
hydrangea
in bloom
2Prune
peach and
plum trees
3Plant up a
late-summer
sedum pot
4Dry-preserve
your herbs
OUR PEAT-
FREE PICKS!
The best new eco
composts to give
your soil a boost

Look inside!
ABOUT NOW
4 News from the gardening world
5 Be the First to Grow... new sweet peas
6 Walled garden gets a new lease of life
8 Get Planting... late-summer grasses
10 The Natural Gardener
FEATURES
12 Garden of the Week
16 What to plant now for months more colour
20 Our pick of peat-free composts
22 Sow now for beautiful future blooms
26 Carol Klein on the warmth and optimism
rudbeckia bring to the autumn garden
58 My Favourite Place: Special Plants Nursery
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK
31 Plant a hydrangea
32 Lift and divide hostas
35 Naomi Slade finds a forgotten spot in her
garden to enjoy a new view from
36 Dry-preserve your herbs
38 Kitchen Gardener Rob Smith is saving seeds
and grows an usual tasty treat!
39 Medwyn Williams is busy with parsnips as he
prepares for the shows
40 Martin Fish’s summer-pruning masterclass
41 Terry Walton says farewell to a friend on the
plot and tries to find his pumpkins!
THE EXPERTS
42 Hooray for coloured foliage on begonias!
44 Stefan Buczacki solves your plot problems
YOU AND YOUR GARDENS
11 Your Garden Gems! You share your top tips
28 Take a look at the gardens of the GN team
51 Your letters and photos
OFFERS & COMPETITIONS
25 Free bulb collection for readers – just pay p&p
49 Win prizes with our crossword
53 Buy glorious glowing alstroemeria
55 Offers on bulbs for blooms in winter and spring
57 Save £5 on pretty magnolia ‘Sunrise’
Make the most of
the end of summer
The last bank holiday of the
year is upon us! Not sure
where the time has gone
since we were getting stuck
into those long weekends in April
and May, but here we are at the end
of August with autumn just around
the corner. It would be easy to let the
garden run its course over the next
few weeks and put it to bed until
spring, but we know Garden News
readers wouldn’t hear of such a thing!
No, instead there are things to be
done and if recent years are anything
to go by, there will be more warm
days to come in September and
October, when
we can enjoy our
outdoor spaces.
Our feature on
page 16 is full
of great advice
on plants you
can get in the
ground now
Get in touch!
#GNREALGARDENS
to guarantee colour over the coming
months – why not hit the garden
centre this weekend?
My own garden is still going
strong, though the colours are more
muted than they were a few weeks
ago. Indeed, you can see how it
then looked on page 28 – an Over
The Fence special when we invited
photographer Neil Hepworth to take
pictures of my plot along with those
of editor at large Ian Hodgson and
features editor Karen Murphy, so you
can see how GN staff have fared this
year. I’ve known Neil many years
but it was still a nerve-wracking
experience to present my garden to
him! It was also very interesting to
see his results in different snapshots,
which will help plan it next year – I’ve
been really pleased with some parts,
and I need to repeat them in the parts
that I’m less pleased with!
All in all, there’s much to be done.
Have a great gardening week!
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Garden News
Editor
■ GN staff are continuing to work from home and unfortunately cannot receive readers’
mail – but if you are able to email your letters and pictures, please do!
Britain’s most trusted voice in gardening
25
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Our cover star:
Carol Klein
Columnist Carol just loves
the bountiful and cheery
blooms of rudbeckias in the
autumn garden – you can
find out her favourites on
page 26.
28
See the GN
team’s gardens
36
How to preserve
your herbs
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August 28 2021 / Garden News 3

Every year in March my
mum would sow seed
of rudbeckia ‘Rustic
Dwarfs’, an annual
seed strain that grows to about
45cm (1½ft) and produces stocky,
floriferous plants whose flowers
cover the whole gamut of autumnal
hues, from rich mahogany to clear,
singing yellow. I’ve continued the
tradition. Here, we have the benefit
of a greenhouse. Jeannie, my
mum, would start her seed on the
kitchen windowsill and, once they’d
germinated, she’d transfer them to
the glass lean-to and prick them out,
spacing them a few inches apart.
I follow the same steps, sowing
under glass in spring and pricking
out individually then potting on
once, so that plants are sizeable
when planted out in May or June.
Annual rudbeckias are
rewarding plants to grow from
PHOTOS: JONATHAN BUCKLEY, ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK
seed. One packet will yield
more plants than most of us
can cope with, so there are
always seeds to swap or share.
The remainder of this year’s
plants are filling gaps now,
especially in the brick garden
and the beds either side of the
front door. We’ve used them
mixed with dark-leaved dahlias,
tagetes ‘Cinnamon’ and hotcoloured
antirrhinums in several
containers. Although they’re
essentially annuals, a few plants
will persist from year to year
given a sheltered situation.
Most of the rudbeckia we
grow here are perennials and
they’re all yellow. It used to
be the fashion to avoid yellow
as it was rather uncouth and
crude. But surely it’s a very
optimistic colour, representing
sunshine and warmth!
WHAT’S LOOKING GOOD NOW
Fantastic frothy umbels
The fashion for floaty, frothy flowers has been
much in evidence in recent years. Ammi majus
and A. visnaga, both umbels, members of the
family Apiaceae, create plateaux of tiny, creamy
white flowers on branching stems. Even when
the first flowers fizzle, the green seed heads
continue the show and flowering goes on into
the late autumn. At Aberglasney, which we
visited for our Channel 5 show, Great British
Gardens, a long border had been planted with
both varieties of ammi, creating a filmic effect
as they swayed in the breeze accompanied by
soft grasses. Both are easy to grow from seed,
sown first thing in spring or in autumn if you
have the facilities to overwinter seedlings.
Carol Klein
Eye-catching
RUDBECKIA
These bountiful blooms bring much-needed
warmth and optimism to your autumn garden
Rudbeckia fulgida
deamii must be one
of the happiest of
plants. Its flowers
are among the most
yellow of yellows. Large golden
discs – their colour made all the
more intense by black, velvety
centres – open in huge abundance
during early September and
continue in succession until
the end of October. In some
years they go on glowing into
the murkiness of November. It’s
an archetypal ‘Indian summer’
plant. We’re hoping for an Indian
summer when we start filming
next week for the further five
parts of Gardening with Carol Klein
for Channel 5, and rudbeckia
will be one of our key plants.
Given even a modicum of
sunshine, flower follows flower
until the entire plant glows.
We have
them in
several
places in
the garden;
typically the
best plant is
in the middle of
a potato patch!
They’re all doing well
but a plant that’s giving
us an even better show of frothy white flowers
is a self-sown clump of Pimpinella major, which
humorously has grown right in the corner of one
cut flower bed as if to say, ‘that’s the way to do it!’.
THIS WEEK AT
GLEBE COTTAGE
The latest from Carol's beautiful cottage garden... plus her diary for the week!
Floaty
Ammi majus
Rudbeckia fulgida
deamii in the
yellowest of yellows
Rudbeckia fulgida sullivantii
‘Goldsturm’ is half the height
of R. f. deamii at about 45cm
(1½ft), with perhaps slightly
bigger daisies. Both make
decent clumps and grow
symmetrically from the centre.
R. fulgida is a tough plant,
brought up in the valleys of
eastern North America. Its
requirements are simple – decent
soil and adequate moisture. It
won’t die in droughty conditions
but will look unhappy if it’s too
dry; an occasional boost of muck
in spring will be welcome. We
used to grow this in the Berryfields
garden in Stratford-upon-Avon,
but it was always disappointing in
the thin, well-drained soil there.
Rudbeckia gloriosa (formerly
laciniata) is taller and lankier;
it has deeply cut leaves and its
petals hang down slightly from
the green, raised cones of the
centres. ‘Herbstsonne’ is a muchrecommended
variety. If grown
out in the open it should need
no support; if it has to fight for
its space, it may need staking.
In the popular garden variety
R. gloriosa ‘Goldquelle’, the
flowers are fully double. Sadly,
being double they don’t offer the
nectar and pollen that the single
species and cultivars have.
I have a love-hate relationship
with Rudbeckia maxima, having
grown and lost it several times
and on at least two occasions
digging it up and adding it to the
compost heap, so totally tattered
Flowers of ‘Rudbeckia ‘Rustic
Dwarfs’ cover the whole
gamut of autumnal hues,
from rich mahogany to clear,
singing yellow’
by slugs and snails was it. Most
rudbeckia have rough foliage
that seems to present a problem
for slugs, whereas R. maxima has
glaucous, more fleshy leaves.
If you have your gastropods
under control, then this is
a stately, elegant plant with
a superior air, probably
created by the flowers’ tall
black central cones and
long, pendulous petals.
All perennial varieties can
be increased by pulling clumps
apart in spring, sometimes
several separate rooted pieces
can be gleaned from one central
stem. In common with all late
flowerers, they need the winter
to gather energy together before
they’re separated and divided.
My gardening
DIARY
MONDAY Two square iron pots
that stand at the foot of the front
steps housed 30 Allium schubertii.
This ornamental onion is exciting in
flower and in seed. The dry stems
were pulled out – they’re ideal for
winter floral decoration – and the
bulbs excavated. We’ll plant them
elsewhere in the autumn.
TUESDAY Although we rely mostly
on plants supporting each other,
some taller, later-flowering plants
often need extra help. Big clumps of
aster ‘Harrington’s Pink’ will be
enabled to exhibit their true glory
thanks to canes and some string!
WEDNESDAY The two beds in
front of the cottage looked dreamy
in June – a sea of blue cranesbills,
both geranium ‘Nimbus’ and
self-seeded G. pratense. Now all
their tatty flowered stems must be
pulled out or cut down to allow
aster ‘Mönch’, rudbeckia and blue
eryngiums to take over.
THURSDAY The pond is full of
duckweed so a fishing net is used to
scoop the worst of it out, leaving it
on the side for anything living to
return to the water. It’s impossible
to get rid of it all but important to
reduce it as often as possible.
FRIDAY Deadheading rose
‘Sander’s White’ on
the pergola in
Alice’s garden. The
main shoots that
have been trained
up and across the
horizontals are
being kept and
each sideshoot
that bore flowers
is cut back to a couple of buds. It’s
being fed too, using liquid seaweed.
SATURDAY We’ve used
antirrhinums, all named varieties,
in both containers and our two little
cut-flower patches. They’ve been
brilliant, with a kaleidoscopic range
of colour. Now we’re foregoing the
remaining apical flowers, cutting
back to the top lateral in the hope
of further flowers later.
SUNDAY Our parsnip foliage has
grown so luxuriantly, it’s shading
out leeks and beetroot next door.
A low ‘fence’ is being improvised to
prevent leaves flopping over and
stealing all the light.
26 Garden News / August 28 2021 For perfect plants at perfect prices go to www.gardennewsshop.co.uk
August 28 2021 / Garden News 27

Over the
This week you can
find out what has been
going in the gardens
of the GN team over
the summer
My canine ‘helpers’
are always on hand
The smokebush
still looks lovely
despite the rain
causing problems
SPECIAL!
FENCE
Hard at work!
Battered smokebush
but a hot border!
While it’s true that
we gardeners are
obsessed with the
weather, is it me
or has it been even stranger than
Sawfly caterpillars
make a meal of the
rose foliage
ever this year? I’m sure my plants
would agree; while some are having
the time of their lives, others have
found 2021 a bit of a struggle.
Take my smokebush, Cotinus
coggygria, a wonderful statement
plant that attracts many an
admiring glance. A few weeks
ago, when already laden down
by its flowers, it suffered badly
during an overnight torrential
downpour. The rain weighed it
down so heavily that two large
branches were bent irreparably
Simon
Caney
EDITOR
A family garden
in Lincs with
plant-packed
borders and
plenty of pots
out of shape. In fairness, it seems to
withstand pruning at any time so
doesn’t mind my running repairs!
Elsewhere I’ve been delighted
to see how many poppies had
self-seeded from last year in the
bed by the back door – they look
lovely set alongside purple phlox,
roses, lilies and salvia ‘Hot Lips’,
to create a very hot border.
Those same roses were attacked
by sawfly caterpillars though!
A solution I saw online, which I
rather liked, was to snip off the
affected stems, caterpillars intact,
and lay them on the bird table.
The apples are bountiful this
year, despite all the April frost. I
have almost no plums, in complete
contrast. Our two dogs, Pumpkin
and Pixie, will gorge on them all
day if allowed – we have to keep a
close eye on the hungry hounds!
A place to sit and
read my GN
My highlight
The self-seeding poppies
that added so much to
our borders this summer
– their hot reds and pinks
fitted in perfectly with
our existing plants.
A phormium heads
up the hot border
Lush planting in one
of the five sections of
my Victorian garden
From cottage glory
to tropical paradise
The rainwater pond
has been this year’s
labour of love
The long, thin 120x30ft
garden behind my late
Victorian home has
provided plenty of opportunities as
well as challenges! In the 12 years
of the largely empty-lawned space,
save for a quince and crab apple
trees and a few outbuildings, I’ve
divided the space into five sections.
The subtropical-style garden
nearest the house, containing
pots of shrubs, exotic gingers and
Neat box hedging
provides a formal
path down the plot
Ian
Hodgson
EDITOR AT LARGE
A plantsman’s
garden in
Peterborough
with lots of
exotic interest
hydrangeas, leads into a formal
garden, with two narrow, box-edged
borders and lawned area fronting
a timber summerhouse
and deck
that forms the focal
point of the garden.
This year I’ve
revamped the planting
in the cottage-style
garden behind, giving
the sections of hornbeam
hedge that provide
privacy a real trim.
This year’s major project
has been the creation of a
pond fed with rainwater
One of the greenhouses
is packed with exotic plants
piped from the summerhouse
roof, now home to myriads of
frogs and froglets. We’ve even
had a grass snake come to visit!
Raised beds in my kitchen
garden are currently filled with
blight-resistant tomatoes ‘Crimson
The summer house
and its surrounding
plantings is such
a sanctuary
Crush’ and ‘Mountain Magic’, along
with leafy salads, such as rocket,
lettuces, kales and Swiss chard. My
two 8x10ft greenhouses, partially
shaded by adjacent trees, are home
to various collections of tender
and sub-tropical plants that prefer
semi-shade to full sun. The smaller
houses my collection of sinningia
(gloxinia) species and hybrids,
and the taller one a collection of
colourful bromeliads, which is full to
bursting – I don’t think I’ll be allowed
another structure any time soon!
My highlight
Being amazed by the
amount of wildlife my
rain-fed pond attracts.
Continues over the page
28 Garden News / August 28 2021 Subscribe for just £6.90 a month! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn
August 28 2021 / Garden News 29

Over the FENCE
Making the most of
bright, bold colours
With help from an
excellent local
landscaper, we created
our new garden between autumn
last year and spring this year. Perfect
timing, because then I was able to
plant it all up ready for the season
– my favourite part of gardening! I
was looking at old pictures of our
garden from last summer and, while
there were lots of lovely things
in it, it’s so much better now, and
we’ve made the very best of the
space we have. Plus,
Morning glory and
black-eyed Susan
stand out as they climb
from bright blue planters
We’ve worked hard
transforming our garden
over the past year
Pretty bacopa
and petunias
Karen
Murphy
FEATURES EDITOR
A brand new,
small, urban
Lincolnshire
garden with
packed raised
beds and plenty of wildlife
there’s plenty of room now for our
labradoodle, Teddy, to lark about in!
We have a little bit of ground
planting space
and a few pots,
but mostly I now
garden in raised
beds, which
are a lot more
manageable.
I’m a sucker for
bright colour,
particularly blues,
pinks, purples and
yellows together,
so it’s a melee of
penstemons, salvias,
cosmos, verbena, anthemis,
comfrey, borage, echinacea
and more, teamed with
potsful of petunias,
calibrachoa, bacopa and,
perhaps my favourite
bedding plant, creeping
zinnia (sanvitalia).
I’m particularly
pleased with my
I mainly plant
in raised beds
herb bed, although some
giant calendula, which was
swamping its neighbours and
taking over the garden, had
to go, to be replaced by much
lovelier teucrium, marjoram,
tagetes and feverfew. My other
Our patio is home to
my sunny herb garden
favourites are my climber planters
painted in bright blue, a pretty
picture with morning glory and
thunbergia (with flowers in pink,
blue-purple and yellow, of course),
underplanted with creeping zinnia.
At the moment my sanguisorba
‘Lilac Squirrel’ is a real star, covered
in bees and hoverflies and always
a talking point with visitors. The
other plant I have my eye on is
my giant sunflower – I’m having
a competition with my dad to
see who can grow the tallest this
year. It’ll be a close-run thing, but
he’s already declared at 6ft 10in
and mine’s still going! A few more
inches and I may have pipped him
to the post. Fingers crossed…
My highlight
Watching lots of
different bees enjoy my
lavender and bee balm.
30 Garden News / August 28 2021

What to do
THIS WEEK
On your fruit & veg plot
TOP TIPS
1Dry lavender and other
woody herbs by tying
them into small bunches
and hanging them in an airy
spot out of direct sunlight.
DRY-PRESERVE
YOUR HERBS
Then use them for pot pourri as well as flavouring dishes
Drying is an effective
and popular way
to preserve all the
flavour of herbs.
Shrubby herbs are
the easiest to dry, and making
herb butter or oils are popular
alternatives for softer herbs.
Herbs can be dried in various
ways and then used not just
in cooking but to also make
your own pot pourri. Dried
lavender and other herbs can
be put into linen bags to scent
drawers and bedlinen, too.
It’s best to pick herbs in the
morning, but when dew has
dried off. It’s best not to wash
them as it will make drying
more difficult and may dissolve
some of the valuable oils. If
your herbs are a bit grubby
just rinse them with a hose
a day or two before you pick
them. Most herbs have their
strongest flavour just before
flowering but you can pick them
for drying at any time. Pick
individual leaves or branches,
and once dry they can be broken
up into small pieces. Don’t chop
them before drying – it’s easy
to ‘scrunch’ them up once dry.
Thyme, rosemary and
lavender are the easiest to dry
in bunches because of their
small leaves. Sage is best dried
as individual leaves on trays,
either naturally or in an oven.
PHOTOS: NEIL HEPWORTH, GEOFF STEBBINGS, SHUTTERSTOCK
2Individual leaves and
softer herbs can be dried
in a cool oven (no more
than 50C/122F). Once warm,
turn off and open the door.
3Soft-leaved herbs
can be dried in a
microwave. Place
between paper towels and
heat on high for 30 seconds.
4Once dried, you need
to store the herbs in
airtight jars in a cool,
dark place for best results.
EARTH UP
BRASSICAS
As we will soon move into cooler and often windier months,
it’s beneficial to keep your brassica crops stable as they
get larger and more gangly. They’re prone to falling over as
they become heavier and stem snapping means no veg to
harvest. ‘Wind rock’ means plant roots and stems become
unalterably damaged and water collects in wind-rocked
root holes, leading to rotting. Simply gather large mounds of
earth around the base of the plants and stake if necessary.
Water
pumpkins
It’s essential you keep
regularly watering squashes
and pumpkins as they’re
growing – they’re extremely
thirsty plants, and if they’re
neglected they won’t fruit
well. They can be prone to
rotting if you simply water
around the plant near
the stem, so be a little clever about it and direct
moisture right down to the roots. Place a flowerpot in the soil alongside
the plant and water directly into this. Be sure to feed your pumpkins
every fortnight with a tomato feed once they start growing larger.
REMOVE TOMATO LEAVES
Warmth ripens tomatoes and
not direct sunlight so don’t
strip tomatoes of too many
leaves. Harsh sunlight can
‘scorch’ the shoulders of
the fruit causing ‘greenback’
where the top of fruits
remains green. But as
plants age lower leaves will
turn yellow. At this stage they
should be removed. This prevents
dying leaves becoming mouldy and
maintains good air circulation around
plants. As the weather gets cooler avoid getting the plants wet
and try to water in the morning so plants are dry by the evening.
PRUNE PEACHES
AND PLUMS
Cherries, plums and peaches grow vigorously and usually need to be
pruned. This is done in summer when plants are in leaf, and never in
winter when the wounds can be infected with silver-leaf disease. For
young plums and cherries growing vigorously, the new shoots should
be shortened by about half their length. This will make the plants more
compact and encourage the production of flowers. With peaches, next
year’s fruits are produced on stems that grew this year so cut out older
stems and lightly shorten new shoots so they fit within the framework.
PINCH OFF
AUBERGINE
FLOWERS
Hopefully you’ll have a healthily
flowering and fruiting aubergine
plant – certainly the recent
warm, sunny weather has been a
boon to their growth. Check your
fruits and if you have around
five or six growing well, it’s
time to pinch off the rest of the
pretty lilac and yellow flowers.
This will halt any more fruit
growing, meaning all the plant’s
energy is diverted into the
remaining fruit, making them large, shiny and robust.
36 Garden News / August 28 2021 Subscribe for just £6.90 a month! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn
August 28 2021 / Garden News 37

My favourite
PLACE
SPECIAL PLANTS NURSERY, WILTSHIRE
Fiona Haser Bizony
Above, cosmos ‘Purity’
and dahlia ‘Twyning’s
After Eight’ in a black and
white planting scheme.
Left, late-summer borders
PHOTO: ALAMY, GAP
‘It’s like visiting a gallery
and taking home inspiration’
Queen Bee at
Electric Daisy
Flower Farm,
Fiona Haser
Bizony is a floral
artist and grower.
She is inspired by
the Special Plants
Nursery near Bath.
www.electric
daisyflowerfarm.
co.uk
Special Plants Nursery is a
fascinating place. There’s a
huge selection of amazing plants
and the garden is really well
structured. Owner Derry Watkins’
husband is renowned architect
Peter Clegg; he created the bones
and she’s peopled the garden from
all her babies at the nursery – it’s a
passion project for both of them.
I grew up in Bath and I’ve
known Derry since I was 11
years old. I advise the RHS on
cut flowers and Derry works with
them on taxonomy, so I bump
into her at Chelsea sometimes.
She’s such a character; a fantastic
plantswoman and so generous
about sharing her knowledge.
There are garden tours and lots
of courses. You can go to learn
about saving seed and propagations
and so on. I like the sense of being
among experts in the epicentre
of what’s best about horticulture
in the UK; of doing the right thing
and going in the right direction.
The nursery is intimate, there’s
no garden centre flim-flammery,
it really is all about the plants.
It makes you feel like you’re in a
professional situation, that you’re in
good hands and they’re not going
to sell you things that will croak as
soon as you put them in the garden!
The garden feels like
architecture, it feels like a
castle of flowers. It’s a floral
painting inside castle walls made
up of multi-coloured yew and
beech hedges. You go through
different rooms and every now
and again there’s a window cut
in the walls and you can see the
amazing view down the valley.
We go there for treasures.
Interesting plants that we grow by
the handful, rather than having a
10m swathe; things to trial or want
a few of for special occasions.
Horticulture may be a science,
yet there’s creativity in choosing
what you’re going to grow. The
plants are the paint that you use
and the garden is the canvas, so
the nursery is like visiting a gallery
and taking home inspiration.
It’s a very creative space.
■ Special Plants Nursery,
Greenway Lane, Cold Ashton,
Chippenham, SN14 8LA;
www.specialplants.net.
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58 Garden News / August 28 2021