Innholdsfortegnelse for 16 August 2025 i Garden News

Funny old world isn’t it? No sooner have the heavens opened (and dramatically so in some parts of the country) and hosepipe bans (see page 4) come into force! But it’s a timely reminder that our water resources are under real pressure, and careful watering habits are important all year round. Despite the unpredictability of the weather, there’s still plenty to enjoy and plan for in the garden. This week we’ve got lots of ideas to help keep your plot productive and looking great well into late summer. On page 14, there’s great advice on how to prolong your harvest, as well as helping the veg patch get a headstart for next year. It’s never too early to think ahead! I also love our feature on growing flowers for cutting…

The latest from Carol's beautiful cottage garden... plus her diary for the week! One of the undisputed stars of the late-summer border is the salvia – or rather, salvias. In recent years, a wave of new varieties has arrived, mostly cultivars of species native to Central and South America, and Mexico." On the other hand, Salvia officinalis, culinary sage, has been grown in the British Isles for many centuries, probably introduced by the Romans, who valued it for its culinary and medicinal properties, as have many cultures. It’s an important herb for many, though it doesn’t feature much in French cuisine. As a herb, it’s grown for its leaves. Its flowers are noteworthy; wherever salvias come from, their flowers have the same structure – they’re hooded with an extensive lower…

The annuals in our garden are still working hard, but there’s still time for some late sowings to fill next year’s borders with perennials. Many perennials are easy to grow from seed and offer an inexpensive way to enjoy masses of colour next year – and for years to come. Some will even flower in their first year if sown in early spring, but that usually requires a heated propagator in February or March. If you sow now, you won’t need artificial heat as they’ll grow happily in ordinary outdoor temperatures, so you can sow them in a cold greenhouse or on a shady windowsill. Some perennials also need a cold period to trigger flowering. Aquilegias and some lychnis, for example, won’t bloom until the summer after sowing. Aquilegias sown…

Helping you get your best-ever fruit and veg As the season moves on and harvests clear more space in the beds, I’ve been planting wherever I can to keep things productive. One small raised bed, just over a metre square, recently became free and it happens to fit a crop cage cover perfectly, so I’ve planted four stem broccoli plants. However, this time I decided to try something a bit different by underplanting them with mushrooms. Wine cap mushrooms are particularly well suited to outdoor growing in the UK. They grow vigorously, tolerate cold conditions and thrive in a simple mix of straw and hardwood chips. As the broccoli matures, it will cast shade across the bed, creating ideal conditions beneath for the mushrooms to quietly break down the growing…

Professor Buczacki is a horticultural expert, writer and former chair of Gardeners' Question Time Got a problem? Our Problem Solver can help! See our contact details on page 3 #GNASKTHEEXPERTS Should I get rid of my fig tree? Daphne Moss, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire Stefan says: You’re fed up with your fig because you never get any fruit to ripen, no matter what you do, and you say it’s no longer earning its keep. I do sympathise, and so will many other owners of fig trees. The explanation lies largely with our climate, since the fig’s fruiting habit is different from that of any other type of British garden fruit tree. Large, edible figs begin life during the previous season and survive the winter as tiny fruitlets. The figs you say dropped…

I recently gave a talk to a gardening club on plants that add pizzazz late in the growing season and showed a photo on a projector screen of a perennial captioned Hylotelephium mottramianum ‘Herbstfreude’. At this point, several members questioned my expertise, suggesting the plant was actually Sedum spectabile ‘Herbstfreude’. We were both right, actually. The plant used to be known as sedum, but herbaceous perennial types were moved to the genus hylotelephium in the 2010s to differentiate them from other types of sedum such as succulents and alpines. To make life easier, many gardeners simply refer to them as herbaceous sedums. Members of the clan generally flower between August and October, although some start earlier and others go on a bit later; even after flowers fade, they continue to…

SPONSORED BY The online specialist gardening retailer, run by gardeners for gardeners Full beds and very full bins! Finella Davenport A suburban garden in Cheshire with flower and shrub-filled borders, raised beds, a rockery and fruit grown in containers and the ground. The area at the end of the garden was completely overrun with weeds, twigs and branches. My husband and I spent an afternoon clearing it, and now the compost bay is full. I also tackled the raspberry patch and the fruit area, including strawberries, currant bushes and blackberry ‘Loch Ness’. By the time I was done, the green bin was overflowing too! Another recent project was edging the island bed with wood to give it more definition. My husband dug a trench all the way around, and we…

Follow Naomi's progress as she gets to grips with her tiny urban garden on heavy Bristol clay Returning from holiday is a time of great anticipation for gardeners. Absence focuses the mind and as you roll along you wonder what’s grown or come into flower, hope you haven’t missed any key highlights or worry about what may or may not have survived – depending on the efficiency of those charged with doing the watering. For me personally, the assessment starts before I even get to the front door. I’m there doing a horticultural head count while rummaging for the keys, trailing behind the rest of the family as they drop their bags in the hall, then rushing straight out the back to check the state of play there, too. And…

I’m frantically trying to deal with the harvest as fruit and vegetables are ripening fast in the heatwave. Courgettes particularly love this weather. I’m growing ‘Defender’, an RHS Award of Garden Merit winner with resistance to cucumber mosaic virus, which often ruins crops in late summer. It’s a heavy cropper with a good flavour. I’m also growing ‘Black Beauty’ and various yellow types including ‘Jemmer’. This is a quick and easy recipe, making good use of the harvest, and the tasty frittatas can be cooked in an air fryer or a conventional oven. They’re delicious served hot with green beans, peas and steamed carrots. Or enjoy with crusty buttered bread and a green salad. This recipe is adapted from a recipe by Denise Smart, The Green Air Fryer Cookbook, published…

The richly fragrant blooms of wallflower ‘Artist Paintbox’ create a stunning tapestry of colour in warm shades of burnt orange and mauve. This evergreen erysimum hybrid has a neat, compact habit, making it ideal for beds, borders and containers. Versatile and undemanding, it’s a perennial often grown as a biennial, and is tough enough to thrive even in poor soils. H&S: 30cm. l Supplied as jumbo plug plants in August. You might also like... Heuchera ‘Trailing Trio’ A beautiful cross between heuchera and tiarella, these trailing hardy perennials are perfect for hanging baskets, windowboxes, and patio containers. Their broad-lobed, evergreen foliage provides year-round interest, spilling gracefully over the edges of pots and planters. This collection includes: • Heucherella ‘Sweet Tea’: burnt-orange foliage that deepens in colour through summer. • Heucherella…

THE MODERN JAPANESE GARDEN Stephen Mansfield £50 ● Covering a mix of landscape and smaller-scale gardens, many just recently completed, this has detailed garden profiles plus insights into some of the most renowned Japanese garden designers across history. It explores essential themes and developments in contemporary Japanese garden design. Thames & Hudson START WITH SOIL JULIET SARGEANT Juliet Sargeant £15.99 ● The award-winning garden designer and author explains the science of soil and how to get to know the capabilities of yours. Expert guidance on topics such as soil testing and changes over the year leads to growing methods such as no-dig gardening and Hugelkultur and growing media. Step-by-step projects, plant profiles and troubleshooting pages offer further information. Frances Lincoln/Kew Publishing THE NATIONAL TRUST BOOK OF NATURE FRIENDLY GARDENING Rebecca Bevan…

Once blackberries and related fruits like loganberries have been picked, prune out the old stems and tie in the new canes that grew from the base this year. The old, fruited canes will gradually die back, just as they do in raspberries. Once the plant is tidied, take cuttings if you want more plants. You’ll probably need to thin out the vigorous new canes anyway, so it’s a good opportunity to take cuttings at the same time. If you only want one or two new plants, you can simply peg down the tip of a shoot. It will root at the tip and eventually form a new stem, which can be lifted and potted up in spring. But taking separate cuttings is often more convenient. If taken now, they’ll root…

Shells with sentiment This is a little memorial I made for my late husband. I used some seashells – fitting, as I live on a small island. It’s a cheerful arrangement without being too sombre, and it brings me comfort to reflect on the many happy times we shared in our garden. Vivienne Ohmke, Essex From books to booms I started gardening aged 40, after my sister gifted me some bareroot plants. I found The A–Z of Garden Plants by Kenneth A. Beckett in a charity shop and 35 years later, I still refer to it. Gladys Mccarthy, by email A rain revival! The freshness that rain has brought to the garden in the last few days has really lifted and invigorated it, particularly the redness of the poppies, that…