Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Garden Answers

HOUSEPLANT WEEKEND January 31-February 2, 11am-3pm, RHS Garden Bridgewater, Salford, Gtr Manchester M28 2LJ Talks, demonstrations, plant advisory sessions and shopping. Garden entry from £13.35. • rhs.org.uk/shows-events SEEDY SATURDAY February 1, 10am-3pm, Lewes Town Hall, Lewes, Sussex BN34 4AH Swap seeds and buy seed potatoes, organic/heritage veg seeds, bird boxes and plant supports. Entry £2. • commoncause.org.uk/seedy-saturday ORCHID FESTIVAL February 1-March 2, RBG Kew, Richmond TW9 3AE Stunning horticultural displays of Peruvian plants and animals in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. Garden entry (from £20 online). Book a time slot. • kew.org COLOUR & SCENT IN THE WINTER GARDEN TALK February 8, 1.45–5pm, Shurdington Community Centre, Cheltenham, Gloucs GL51 4TB Sir Harold Hillier botanist Harry Clarke talks about winter gardening, £3. • plantheritage.org.uk/events AGS SOUTH WALES SHOW February 15, 11am-3.30pm,…

February fair-maids, Candlemas bells, snow-piercer or snowdrop, as this much-loved little flower is best known, is one of the earliest to appear. It pops up reliably regardless of whether winter’s embrace is mild or cold and frosty, or even snowy, because this tough yet beautiful little bulb is designed to cope with harsh weather, armed with specially hardened leaf tips for breaking through frozen ground and stems that contain cold-resisting proteins. Snowdrops come back year after year to beautify many garden locations: borders, in grass, under trees and shrubs, naturalised in woodland or wild areas, or neatly tamed in pots. Although individual blooms are tiny, get up close and personal to discover their varied and exquisite green and even yellow markings and often a delightful honey scent. The well-known and…

You may be itching to start gardening again, but even if your greenhouse is heated, light levels at this time of year are low, which can be a problem for seedlings. It will be another four months before the risk of frost has passed, which is a long time to look after frost-tender plants indoors. However, a handful of slow-growing annuals can be sown and there are some perennials that, if sown early enough, can put on enough growth in their first year to allow them to flower in late summer. How to do it • Perennial achilleas can flower in their first year. Sow them in February on the surface of a seed or multipurpose compost in seed trays or modules. They need light to germinate, so don’t cover…

It makes sense that hotel grounds should look as inviting as possible for guests and visitors to enjoy, but at Goldstone Hall Hotel, owner John Cushing and head gardener Ross Underwood are taking this rule to the next level. Five acres set in undulating countryside overlooking the Shropshire/Staffordshire hills meld together the ingredients of a quintessentially English garden without ever appearing too stuffy or formal. There is a beautifully tended rose terrace, a walled garden with a 60m-long, double-tiered border and sweeping lawn, two walkways with edible plants and a one-acre kitchen garden where a huge variety of fruit and vegetables are grown for the hotel kitchen. More recently, a 10-acre swathe of unspoilt meadowland has been added to the mix. “We’ll be managing this for biodiversity and sustainability,” explains…

ONLY £1 AN ISSUE! Garden Answers At Garden Answers magazine our aim is to help you make the most of your outdoor space by creating your perfect garden, whatever the season. Now’s the perfect time to take out a subscription with Christmas just around the corner. 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 Print+ Subscription, which allows you to enjoy Members 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. PLUS FREE SEEDS! Subscribe 3 issues for just £3* Print+ Subscription benefits: ✓ Get instant…

There’s no doubt that wooden garden furniture has a timeless charm that could last you a lifetime. Its rugged good looks aren’t just for relaxed gardens; it works well and looks beautiful in more formal and modern ones too. Being wood, of course, means that it needs to be cared for and needs some regular – maybe annual – maintenance to keep its aesthetic. Damp and wet conditions will accelerate the speed at which the wood rots and bright sunlight can fade its colour – although this may be a good thing, since some aged and faded wood can take on glorious silvery colourings. Wood is a natural product and produces its own natural oils. However, you’ll still need to look after it to make sure it remains in the…

Precious pollinator I love seeing readers’ photos of pretty pollinators in Garden Answers. Last summer I managed to capture this beautiful dragonfly on an anemone in my garden. Sharon Smith, by email WIN SECATEURS WORTH £24.99! Send us a high-res photo of your favourite plants or wildlife with a short description and you could win this Wilkinson Sword Razorcut Pro Straight Pruner. It has a traditional design with two opening positions, medium or large, to suit the user’s hand size. • Made with extra high-quality Japanese steel blades. • Strong anodised aluminium handles for added strength and durability. • Tackles cutting tasks with precision and care.…

"Planting pot-grown hardy Cyclamen coum along with bulbs ‘in the green’.” Sue Fisher evokes the joy of tiny bulbs, p14 “Admiring my snowdrops and hellebores!” Marvel at Val Bourne’s fabulous tips for effervescent winter containers, p22 “Pruning and hedge cutting, then topping up my dead hedges with the trimmings.” Adrian Thomas is making stigloos, p44 “Preparing my allotment beds and working on my soil” Join Olga Grieves in praise of worms at her allotment, p68 “I'll be warming the soil in my raised beds to make an early start on veg seed sowing.” Geoff Hodge focuses on furniture care, p88 “Keeping bird feeders topped up when natural food sources are at their scarcest”. Dan Masoliver gets creative, p106…

Grant-making charity Project Giving Back (PGB) will fund a further cohort of gardens for UK charities at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2025, all of which will be permanently relocated after the show to continue to benefit the good causes that have inspired them. PGB has funded 42 gardens to date and intends to fund up to 60 gardens for good causes at RHS Chelsea over five years, with 2025 being its penultimate year. The gardens are: The King’s Trust Garden: Seeding Success, designed by Joe Perkins; The Glasshouse Garden, designed by Jo Thompson; The Hospice UK Garden of Compassion, designed by Thomas Hoblyn; The Down’s Syndrome Scotland Garden, designed by Duncan Hall and Nick Burton; The Pathway Garden, designed by Allon Hoskin and Robert Beaudin.…

Winter gems coming into bloom, bravely battling harsh weather to remind us that the cycle of the year is underway and spring is not far behind, are one of life’s most precious moments. Though small in stature, these dainty darlings provide cheer out of all proportion to their size and are perfect for chasing away the winter blues. As well as that classic winter bulb, the snowdrop, there are wonderful jewels like winter aconite, hardy cyclamen, crocus, the earliest narcissi and scilla, including the delightfully named glory of the snow. While these bounteous little beauties suit numerous sites all around the garden, they do have a variety of growing preferences. Happy bulbs are most likely to propagate themselves and create bigger and more beautiful colonies with the passing of the…

PRUNE CLEMATIS The ‘rules’ about pruning clematis can be confusing, but as long as you know when your plant flowers, you can work out when and how to prune it. For instance, February is the ideal time to prune group 2 clematis. These flower in early summer on sideshoots from a framework of branches. Simply trim growth back to fat buds lower down the plant. Late-summer-flowering clematis (group 3) types can be hard pruned now to within 15-30cm of the ground. Flowers will develop in late summer and early autumn on the long new shoots. Don’t prune spring-flowering group 1 clematis just yet – wait until after they’ve flowered. After pruning, apply a mulch of garden compost or well-rotted manure around the base of the plant to keep roots cool…

Luckily for addicts of year-round-colour, there are plants out there that have skipped the whole ‘winter is grey’ memo. These nonconformists stand like beacons in the winter landscape, and few are more dazzling than the bright young shoots of willows and dogwoods. Healthy plants can be coppiced annually to give youthful stems with maximum pizzazz; they will put on 1.8m of growth in a year. Add a carpet of early-flowering spring bulbs (as shown left at the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens) and you’ll get a further tide of colour from late February onwards. Include a mix of low-growing evergreens such as ivy and euonymus in order to give you a multi-layered planting scheme with not one iota of bare soil in sight. GET STARTED WITH A PLANTING PLAN …or try…

Things are beginning to ramp up this month, and I can’t wait to get stuck in. Have you noticed that the days are just that little bit longer? For me, it’s a clear signal to start preparing for the arrival of spring. The first crocuses are beginning to emerge, swiftly followed by some early daffodils, and before long, bumblebee queens are out and about, making everything feel just right again. One of my main tasks this month will be preparing my beds for sowing. Over the past few months, I have been enriching each bed with various materials, such as shredded cardboard, kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps, grass clippings, leaf mulch, and manure. Now, it’s time to apply the final top layer of compost and cover everything with cardboard until…

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These two vibrant dahlias have been selected for their striking colours, large fully double blooms and garden performance. Cut flower gardeners will appreciate the tall sturdy stems and repeat flowering ability of these easy to grow dahlia plants. Lasting for many years this is the perfect duo for filling borders with seasonal summer colour. The duo features one large tuber each of the following: • Dahlia ‘Yellow Star’ A vibrant cactus dahlia that ensures a touch of sunshine in the garden even on a cloudy day. The large, spiked flowers sit proudly on top of lush green foliage, for an unmissable display in sunny borders and large patio containers. • Dahlia ‘Orange Turmoil’ This popular cactus dahlia produces a kaleidoscope of orange shades for a truly eye-catching display in the…

CLUES ACROSS 1 Roman goddess of agriculture and an alstroemeria cultivar (5) 3 - - - - - bells, name commonly given to plants of the heuchera genus (5) 6 Blue stars, perennial named after the US physician Charles Amson (7) 7 Tree of the Sambucus genus bearing berries for wine, jam and pies (5) 9 Native UK tree of the Tilia genus (4) 12 Imperial measure of land equal to 0.405 hectares (4) 13 Paeoniaceae family herbaceous perennial with goblet-shaped blooms (5) 16 Botanical name of the tender prickly pear cactus (7) 17 Root vegetable also called a neep or rutabaga (5) 18 Scarlet-flowered gloxinia variety named after Argentina’s Eva Perón (5) CLUES DOWN 1 Heliconia rostrata or lobster - - - -, tender, colourful S. American climber (4)…

Patio project COLOUR INFUSION This densely-packed container of skimmia, brassica and viola simply sings joy. The varying shades of purple within the display contrast dramatically with the lush, deep green leaves and blood-red berries of Skimmia japonica. Then the eye naturally falls on the vibrant brassica. Planted in groups, ornamental cabbages and kale really have the wow factor. But, as seen here, even just a couple of cabbages in a container pack a big punch. Not to be overlooked, the delicate sweet violets add elegance to the mix. Their tiny stature belies the powerful fragrance they emit all the way through to spring.…

1 You will need a container, compost, secateurs and foraged materials. 2 Fill the container almost to the top with compost. 3 Prune your cuttings to size and place the tallest at the back and the smallest in front. 4 Place the moss in the gaps in between the plants and the odd leaf to give it an even more natural feel.…

One of the best things you can do to cheer yourself up in winter is to make your own container display and place it by a front door, or on a balcony, or by a well-used path or gate. I’m not talking winter pansies and polyanthas though, because they only last a few months at best. It’s far better to use a collection of hardy perennials and shrubs. These can stay in your winter container for two or three years before being added to your garden borders, so they’ll offer value for money. Find your star plant and its supporting cast Take yourself off to a good local garden centre and go with an open mind, because you’re looking for a star plant in the peak of perfection. Get a…

Brighten up cold winter weekends by planning summer container displays now. Plant catalogues and online nurseries offer a wide range of plug plants to order now for delivery over the coming months. They tend to have a greater choice of annuals than you’ll find at your local garden centre, and if you want something unusual, it’s wise to get your orders in as soon as possible to avoid being disappointed. Planning now also gives you plenty of time to grow your own plants from seed. When thinking about summer pots and baskets, choose plants with a long flowering season. Add in some simple, open flowers that attract pollinating insects, for wildlife appeal. Don’t forget to add foliage plants to provide a foil for the blooms and try to include fragrant…

It’s midwinter, the season that loppers, handsaws and secateurs have been waiting for! They are itching for you to get pruning, crown-lifting, trimming and even felling to keep the woody growth of deciduous trees, shrubs and hedges under control. Even in a small garden, this can generate quite a volume of material. So, what do you do with all the clippings, branches and even logs that you’ve created? It can be tempting to turn it all into a bonfire, chop it up into the green bin or take it to the tip. But if you treat it as a glorious gift from the garden, there are so many creative things you can do with this ‘waste’. It can be turned into all manner of three-dimensional creations for the garden, from…

How did you get to Littlebredy? I took over Littlebredy Walled Gardens in 2008 with my partner Chris Burr. It was previously called The Scented Garden and was looked after by Chris and Judy Yates who lovingly restored the Victorian walls and planted up borders with scented plants. We set up a not-for-profit Community Interest Company called The Walled Garden Workshop, whose aim was to get people involved in horticulture by providing a garden where practical skills could be learned and the gardens could also be kept open for the public to enjoy. I had a career change, moving from working in London as a PA for 20 years and retrained in horticulture at Kingston Maurward in Dorchester. Tell us about the garden… Littlebredy Walled Gardens lie on a south-facing…

1 To grow delicious tomatoes that are easy to look after, firm, juicy and resistant to splitting, try ‘Orkado’ F1. A grow bag is perfect for this and you will be harvesting them until October. 2 You’ll need three ‘Orkado’ F1 seedlings (sown in February) per grow bag. They need to be 8-10cm high. You will also need a watering can, trowel, bamboo canes, string and secateurs. 3 Move the grow bags to a sheltered, sunny spot. Using sharp secateurs, cut slots out of the grow bags and loosen any compacted compost. Make holes in the compost ready to transplant. 4 Carefully ease the seedlings from their pots, ensuring you do not hold them by the stem – which could easily snap – and taking them by their seed leaves.…

Q How do I start to fill out this new herbaceous border? The gardener here has made a good start with this new border and the soil appears nice and loamy, too. It looks as though she’s initally planted a narrow border with bulbs, a rose and hebe, then had second thoughts and made the area deeper. This was a good decision in my view, creating more planting space around the tree, although the curved lawn edge could be given a neater finish using a half-moon edger rather than a spade. First I’d remove all the bulbs to carefully relocate them, and the hebe and rose, elsewhere. The existing tree looks like a crab apple whose canopy will create light-dappled shade in summer so it could be underplanted with a…

WRITE TO US AT Garden Answers, Bauer Media, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA EMAIL gardenanswers@bauermedia.co.uk TEL 01733 395076 WEBSITE gardenanswersmagazine.co.uk All white now While in my hospital bed recovering from major surgery I’ve been planning to create a White Garden, so I was delighted to get the January issue of Garden Answers and find a beautiful feature of exactly what I’m hoping to create. Your advice and suggestions are always useful and inspiring. I’ve already started building a seed collection and I’ll be so happy when I can start to put in place my ideas. Sharon Luke, by email Bee kind When pollen-rich flowers are in short supply, I often find tired bees in my garden. I damp a piece of kitchen towel, sprinkle sugar on it and…

Check out this incredible saving on gorgeous roses – you’ll pay less than half the normal nursery prices. This patio standard rose collection will give you beautifully fragrant, premium quality, elegant blooms to enjoy all summer. Also known as tree roses, they’re the perfect way to add height and elegance to your patio. By ‘top grafting’ the flowering variety onto the straight stem of the rootstock, thereby giving the height, it takes expert growers a full three years to produce these fabulous gems. Supplied as a set of 4 x bareroot, standard trees with well-formed heads, approximately 60-70cm tall. • Item 530199: buy 4 x bareroots for £34.96 – you save £45! TWIN PACK OF PEAT-FREE MULTIPURPOSE COMPOST A peat-free option for multipurpose use, from seedlings and cuttings to potting…

Transform your spring garden with gorgeous cherry blossom Trees that give us beautiful catkins are in the spotlight Delve into a stunning garden in Devizes Wander through The Cascades, a fabulous garden in Matlock Take a closer look at ladybirds Plus ✿ Inspirational reader gardens ✿ Veg patch diary ✿ Expert Q&A ✿ Puzzles & prizes ✿ Jobs for the month…