Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Garden Answers

GARDEN OPENING October 2, 10.30am-4pm, Humbie Dean, Humbie, Scotland EH36 5PW Enjoy the autumn colours in the two-acre woodland garden, £6. • scotlandsgardens.org LIVING WILLOW OPEN WEEKEND October 4-6, 10am-4pm, West Wales Willows, The Mill, Gwernogle, Carmarthenshire SA32 7SA National Plant Collection of willows opening with guided tours, plants and willow products for sale, £3. • westwaleswillows.co.uk FESTIVAL OF FLAVOURS October 5-6, 10am-4pm, RHS Rosemoor, Great Torrington, Devon EX38 8PH Join growers, chefs and RHS experts for advice on cooking and growing for flavour, with guided walks and activities, £15.85. • rhs.org.uk APPLE DAY October 6, 11am-4pm, Fulham Palace, Bishop’s Avenue, London SW6 6EA Celebrate the orchard harvest with games, activities, crafts and harvest-themed goods and gifts market, £3. • fulhampalace.org APPLE TASTING DAY October 13, 10am-4.30pm, Blackmoor Estate, Liss,…

Roses are one of the most iconic of all flowers and an integral part of a quintessential, romantic English garden that brims with blowsy blooms, but there’s more to roses than chocolate box borders. This is such a wideranging group of plants that there are roses to suit a variety of different garden situations, whether it’s compact ones for containers, rampant ramblers that will scramble up through mature trees, species roses for wilder gardens or robust roses that can even tough it out in exposed coastal spots. Tailor your choice of rose to where you want it to grow, and you’ll be rewarded with an abundance of flowers, and in some cases, a colourful display of hips in autumn. Between November and March is the best time to plant a…

KEEP CARING FOR DAHLIAS Glorious dahlias are one of the stalwarts of the autumn garden. With a little care and attention they can keep flowering for several more weeks. Deadhead old blooms promptly so plants can put their energy into their final flowering display and snip off any dead or dying leaves. Keep plants well staked, especially if high winds are forecast, and clear up any fallen leaves and debris that have accumulated around their ankles. If you’re planning to dig up your dahlias for overwintering, remember to fix a label with the dahlia name to the stem now, so that when the flowers are gone, you’ll still be able to tell your tubers apart. PLANT GLADIOLI Unlike the corms of large-flowered, summer-blooming gladioli, which are planted in spring, some daintier…

Towering dusky pink Joe Pye weed flowers give this border its naturalistic flavour, with long-flowering perennials and a selection of grasses backing up the display to fantastic effect. This planting ensures the garden sparkles right into autumn and doesn’t fizzle out in late summer. All these plants appreciate a moisture-retentive soil to thrive. They’re also not backwards in coming forwards – a tight rein may be needed to limit their spread or self-seeding but it’s fun to have a border that flourishes rather than needing to be cossetted into existence. The backdrop of a dark green yew hedge really helps to set off the apple green of the perennials’ foliage, and it will be worth spending a bit of time thinking about your display’s backcloth and where the low rays…

October always creeps up quickly. One moment, it’s a rush from one greenhouse to another with watering cans in each hand, and before long it’s time to put the clocks back! Autumn always seems to arrive unexpectedly, and it often feels like there is never enough preparation time. However, over the years, I’ve learned to enjoy the season. There is plenty to do on the plot and having a list ready helps. Whenever a free hour or two can be found, it’s satisfying to tick off a couple of tasks. It can be overwhelming to see how much still needs to be done, so my approach is always little and often. Over the years, my attitude to clearing the plot in autumn has changed. Now, plants are left in some…

WRITE TO US AT Garden Answers, Bauer Media, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA EMAIL gardenanswers@bauermedia.co.uk WEBSITE gardenanswersmagazine.co.uk Savouring our GA seeds In a difficult year of illness for both my husband and myself, our new garden has given us immense joy and our free GA cosmos, antirrhinum, marigold and ammi seeds have brought lots of insects and a few birds into the garden. Janet Boast, Cowbridge Star letter RISING TO THE CHALLENGE I’m really passionate about new-build home owners making an effort to give back to the environment. After all, it’s likely your new house is standing on ground that was previously occupied by all manner of wildlife. Over the past three years, we have transformed our bare new build garden into an outdoor sanctuary for ourselves as…

“Turning leaves, weeds and prunings into wonderful leaf mould, compost and mulch.” Compost with Sue Fisher on p20. “Putting up nest boxes so that birds have plenty of time to check them out.” Louise Curley on fabulous roses, p14. “Sowing an area of poppy field to compare autumn sown with spring sown.” Adrian Thomas talks climate on p40. “Spending as much time as I possibly can on the allotment, before the short days arrive.” Join Olga Grieves on p68. “Moving houseplants back indoors after summer on the patio.” Geoff Hodge gives the lowdown on garden storage, p88. “Shopping the sales for spring bulbs – I’m such a sucker for a good deal!” Turn to p106 to Dan Masoliver’s column.…

Enter for a chance to win a pair of Henchman’s versatile ARS KR-1000 hedge shears, which are perfect for trimming, pruning and tidying lawn edges. The durable carbon steel blade provides a clean, precise finish to help keep plants healthy while the curved handles help you to reach even the most awkward places. The winner will also receive a pair of Henchman’s comfortable and hardwearing gardening gloves made from premium leather. The snug elasticated back and wrist strap offer ultimate protection and flexibility, perfect for getting the garden in tip-top condition this autumn! • To enter visit gardenanswersmagazine.co.uk/freeforyou by midnight on October 8, 2024.…

The prestigious Brickell Award, which celebrates excellence in cultivated plant conservation, has been bestowed upon orchid experts at The Mathers Foundation. The Foundation, in West Sussex, is home to three National Plant Collections of orchids – oncidium, pleione, stanhopea and acineta. The Plant Heritage honour was given to Gill Mathers, David Mathers and Jim Durrant in recognition of their outstanding orchid conservation work. Sustainable growing techniques, minimal chemical use and their active laboratory propagation programme of existing and new cultivar seedlings were just some of the reasons they were recognised. Since the foundation was established in 2019, Gill, David and Jim have worked tirelessly to conserve a variety of orchid species and hybrids that otherwise might be lost. Preserving unique collections of plants outside their natural habitats is becoming ever…

Fallen leaves, weeds, spent annuals and prunings really pile up in autumn, but don’t let your waste go to waste. Transform it into lovely fertile compost and reap the benefits for your garden, bank balance, and the environment. It saddens me how much of what our gardens produce is burnt, binned or driven to the tip, then money spent on plastic-bagged compost and soil improvers. This just doesn’t make any sense, especially to ardent composters, which I certainly am. Homemade compost, often nicknamed the gardeners’ ‘black gold’, is easy to make and a fantastic resource: use it to enrich and improve soils, increasing their resilience to weather extremes from drought to downpours as well as boosting productivity, and enhancing the biodiversity of our gardens. As I was told at the…

With their large blowsy blooms, vibrant colours and handsome foliage, peonies are the epitome of an English cottage garden plant. Bareroot peonies are available until late winter, but it’s best to plant them now while the soil is still warm. They need full sun and fertile soil that doesn’t get waterlogged. There are three types: • Herbaceous peonies flower May-June and die back in winter. Dig the planting hole the same depth as the roots but twice as wide. Incorporate well-rotted compost. Make sure the buds are covered with no more than 2.5cm of compost. • Intersectional peonies, known as ‘itohs’, are a herbaceous and tree peony cross with sturdy stems so need little or even no staking and flower June-July. Plant as above. • Tree peonies form mediumsized shrubs…

Every autumn, garden hedgerows and shrubberies everywhere are polka-dotted with ripening berries. Being nibbled by wildlife is usually what plants seek to avoid, but right now they are flashing a vibrant message: ‘Eat me, eat me!’ This apparent sacrifice is, of course, a quid pro quo. By offering up succulent, sweet fruit for wildlife, plants get a vital service in return. The berry is a bribe, a lure, hiding its real purpose within. The seeds at the heart of each berry need to be distributed if the plant is to spread, and having couriers to transport those seeds is a wonderful solution. Of course, the risk is that the seeds get digested in the berry-eaters’ stomachs, so they are protected by a tough outer seed-coat and can miraculously survive passing…

How long have you been at Exbury Gardens and how did you get here? I have been at Exbury Gardens, in Hampshire, for eight years. I had been on several trips to the Himalayas with the former Head Gardener John Anderson, and Exbury then asked if I’d be interested in following him into the role as I had quite a bit of experience and a real interest in woodland gardening, particularly with rhododendrons and azaleas. Tell us about the garden It is in a fantastic location in a beautiful corner of the New Forest. Exbury Gardens was created in the Edwardian era, which was the golden age of woodland gardening, by the banker and plantsman Lionel de Rothschild. The garden spans over 200 acres and is a lovely, elegant landscape…

1 Source quality elephant garlic seed bulbs from garden centres or specialists, rather than supermarkets. You need peat-free compost, modular trays or 6cm pots, a label and a watering can. 2 Half fill the pots with compost and break the garlic off into cloves. Choose the largest ones and place one clove in each of the pots, with the pointed end facing upwards. 3 Top up the compost and label them clearly. Water the bulbs in lightly and place the pots in a greenhouse or cold frame where they will be cool and protected from the elements. 4 Keep the compost moist, but not wet. Elephant garlic needs a long, warm growing season so look after them inside until springtime, when they will be ready to plant out. 5 Find…

Q How can I find a way to keep dogs off my front garden? This new front garden is heavy clay and gets bone dry in summer. A low hedge would help to keep curious canines out but the site has a lot of potential – these conditions would really benefit from prairie-style planting. However, to create a naturalistic, wild-and-airy prairie look, you don’t really want to start laying a formal evergreen hedge at the front – the planting would then look far too ‘hemmed in’. Instead, the same canine deterrent could easily be achieved by simply planting up the front edge with some beautiful evergreen perennials, perhaps a staggered row of Stipa tenuissima grasses, or a scattering of relaxed-looking sub-shrubs such as Hypericum hidcoteense ‘Hidcote’ (H: 1.2m, S: 1.5m),…

Free* 100 bulbs worth £27.81 Snap up this wonderful free offer and enjoy awesome alliums in your garden. This collection features the following superb varieties: 5 x allium ‘Purple Sensation’ These violet-purple alliums are great in your summer borders. Upright stems carry globes of starry flowers that measure up to 8cm across. Flowering only once in a season, the blooms of ‘Purple Sensation’ are followed by skeletal seedheads for a spectacular autumn display. H: 90cm, S: 10cm. 10 x Allium caeruleum Bright blue globes of starry flowers are carried on stiff upright stems in early summer. Punctuating sunny borders with architecture and a bright splash of colour, Allium caeruleum is easy to grow and makes a great cut flower, too! H: 60cm, S: 8cm. 10 x allium ‘Graceful Beauty’ Effortlessly…

CLUES ACROSS 1 Small-leaved aromatic evergreen herb in the mint family (5) 3 Popular yarrow ‘-- - - - of Gold’ (5) 5 Carline thistle, biennial botanically known as - - - - - - - vulgaris (7) 7 Tender exotic Strelitzia reginae or - - - - of paradise flower (4) 8 Purplish flowering plant sharing its name with a colour of the rainbow (6) 10 - - - - - - ornata, vine of the greenbriar family and a source of sarsaparilla (6) 11 Long-flowering yellow, orange or red perennial also called avens (4) 14 Brassica juncea, small leaf crop often grown and eaten with cress (7) 15 Blue-flowered perennial flax, - - - - - - perenne (5) 16 Miss Doolittle whose favourite flower was the wild…

`Patio project A theatre of autumnal wonder Great Dixter, in East Sussex, is known for breaking rules and experimenting. This wonderful patio display does just that. The mixture of texture, colour and height comes straight from the blueprint set by the great Christopher Lloyd who was famed for his colourful, theatrical displays. Pennisetum, aeonium, pseudopanax, salvias and fuchsias combine to give the Great Dixter wow factor. And it’s something that readers can replicate at home, but perhaps on a smaller scale. But why not go big?…

Autumn is the season of glory for ornamental grasses, and panicum or switch grass is a magnificent scene-stealer. A combination of striking autumn leaf colour and clouds of dramatic airy flowers holds sway through the season, making a gorgeous light show in the sun’s low rays. Then come winter, panicums just keep on giving, holding their structure for months. Handsome strong vertical form combined with drama and daintiness, toughness, adaptability and resilience, makes this simply one of the best grasses for the garden and for landscaping. Two species are widely available to gardeners, both of which hail from North America. Panicum virgatum is a key component of the tall grass prairie with a huge range east of the Rocky Mountains, from Canada down to Mexico, in habitats as diverse as…

Ponds need careful management to keep them balanced as a habitat for plants, fish and wildlife. They need just the right ratio of oxygen to plant material to prevent them becoming sludgy and overgrown. Wildlife visits less frequently in autumn, so it’s a good time for the annual clear up. 1 Let in sunshine: Cut back overhanging trees, shrubs or taller perennials overshadowing the pond to give aquatic plants plenty of sunlight. 2. Thin pond plants: Reduce overgrown pond plants by thinning them by hand or with a rake. Too much vegetation will choke the pond. 3. Deal with fallen leaves. As they rot, decomposing leaves give off noxious chemicals as they decay. Fish them out with a dipping net or install a net right across the pond surface if…

Garden answers Visit greatmagazines.co.uk/gardenanswers PHONE 01858 438884 QUOTE BKAA Garden answers At Garden Answers magazine our aim is to help you make the most of your outdoor space by creating your perfect garden – not just for summer, but all year round. Now’s the perfect time to take out a subscription. This rich source of gardening ideas and inspiration can be delivered direct to your door, 13 times a year, with a free packet of seeds with every issue if you choose the Print+ Subscription. Or try our Digital Subscription, which allows you to enjoy Subscribers-only rewards and discounts. Simply scan the QR code (below on the left hand page) with your smartphone or tablet camera to find out more. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE ON SHOP PRICES! Print+ Get 6 months…

We all have piles of stuff that, while being essential for the great outdoors, really need hiding away when they’re not in use or it’ll ruin the aesthetics of the garden. Or there are these and other items, such as furniture accessories, that need protection from the elements. If we’re lucky enough to have a garage or room for a garden shed, then most if not all of these will end up there. But in smaller plots, there really isn’t the room. That’s where more compact, smaller garden stores come into their own. As gardens seem to be getting smaller, the range of stores available has been increasing and there are now numerous styles and designs. “Some box-style stores can double up as a seat, and you can even buy…

SAVE £23 WHEN YOU BUY THE COLLECTION These specially selected shrubs will fill your winter garden with both bright colour and fabulous fragrance. Sarcococca ‘Winter Gem’ has small, sweetly-perfumed white flowers that appear among a backdrop of glossy green foliage from December through to March. H&S: 1m. Coronilla glauca is a small bushy evergreen shrub with blue-grey, pinnate leaves and heads of fragrant, rich yellow flowers in the spring and summer. H&S: 1m. Lonicera ‘Winter Beauty’ is a rounded, deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub about 2m tall, with paired, ovate dark green leaves, and abundant small, tubular, sweetly-scented, cream-white flowers on bare branches in winter and early spring, occasionally followed by red berries. H&S: 2.5m. Supplied as 9cm pots, deliver in 7 days. • Buy 1 x sarcococca ‘Winter Gem’ for £14.…