Everything Uk Gardening

The most popular winter flower is probably the Pansy. There is a good reason for this. In the dull, dreary, grey months of January and February, the winter pansy’s flower looks like a happy, smiling face – ready made to cheer you up.

Pansies are very easy to grow and their flowering season lasts a long time. What’s more they are hardy perennials, so they will disappear in the foliage during summer and make themselves known again in the winter when you most need them.

Plant sellers  are currently selling plug plants for several varieties of winter pansies.

The first I have chosen is  RHS Winning Formula Mixed.

It flowers during winter through to spring and is 6 to 9 inches high. It is being sold in two sizes of plug plants; Mini plug plants (which need growing on before planting them in your garden ) are 120 & 30 free (i.e.150 altogether) for £12.99 or 72 & 12 free larger plug plants for £14.99.

The next variety is Pansy Giant Colorburst.

This pansy is really large, as you cam se in the picture. The blooms are up to 12cm  (over 4inches) in diameter. They are available in 3 pack sizes, and look to be really good value.

My final choice is Pansy Spring Dawn.

This is a really beautiful, well named,  pansy in pastel shades of blue, pink and white, that will brighten up any winters day.

Buying pansies as plug plants is a good way to get a large number of plants for very little expense or fuss and will make a good start to your winter display.

Many other varieties are available.

Check out these links for more ideas…

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It may seem a bit strange, thinking and planning for your winter garden whilst still thinking about your summer holidays, but now is the time to plan how your garden will look during those grey dreary days when few plants are in flower. I suppose, considering that you plan your summer holiday just after Christmas it’s not so strange!

Winter is the time when your ‘architectural’ plants come into their own (that is those plants which are grown for their size and shape as well , or instead of, their flowers. One of the more unusual ones is Bamboo – Phyllostachys Nigra or Oriental Black Bamboo

Black Bamboo, unlike many other Bamboos, does not run. That is it stays in clumps and does not try to take over the whole of your garden. Many Bamboos will suddenly appear some way away from where you planted it having sent out running roots. It is a real pain to keep under control. Black Bamboo is very well behaved. It can grow quite large (10ft tall and 10ft spread) but it will stay where it’s planted. Whats more, if you so desire, you can grow it in a very large pot or a half barrel. That may ‘bonsai’ it, i.e. make it grow slightly smaller. It is evergreen but it is really the black stems that you are growing it for and these look stunning in the weak winter sunshine or even with the frost clinging to them.

The other plants I want to mention are becoming more popular but are none the less  useful plans, that is the Hellebores.

Thompson and Morgan are selling double hellebores from the Washfield Collection and make a good addition to your garden as they flower during winter (they are not called ‘Christmas Rose’ for no reason.) and they keep their leaves – which in themselves are quite pretty, all year.

It is useful to keep a small patch of  ground somewhere hidden away which you can use as a nursery bed – that is a bed where you grow plants on until they are the right size to plant out or until the place you want them is free. You often need to do this with ‘bi-annuals’ (plants which you sow one year but do not flower until the year after). You don’t want these taking up space in you flower borders for 18 months whilst they are growing. so you sow them in spring, grow them on in a nursery bed and plant them in their final place in autumn, ready to flower the next year.

Last year, I grew Bellis Perennis. It started flowering in March (it usually starts in February but it was late due to the really bad weather we had then) and is just now starting to look as though it is past its best.

Bellis Perennis is a really cheerful flower. Very easy to grow and really long lasting. Worth the price and the room it takes up. It is only 6 inches tall, so you need to plant it in the front of your border. Some varieties look like a daisy although the popular variety this year (Tasso) looks, I thing, like a very, very small Chrysanthemum.It is white with red edges to its flowers.

I grow my Bellis Perennis from seed. Just chuck the seed in  and it will grow. Actually, I grow it in seed trays now and plant out in autumn. However, there is no reason why you can’t sow them in a nursery bed and plant them out when you have room or even  sow  them in situ. If  you do sow them outside, they will need watering regularly, particularly this year when it is so dry.

If you are not confident enough, or have enough time, or simply can’t be bothered to mess around sowing seed. Then Gardening Direct are selling plug plants of two different types of Bellis Perrenis for just under £9 a set. This means 42 medium plug plants or 24 large plug plants. That means you have loads to spread around your garden (or, if you prefer share  with family and friends).

A plug plant is a small plant which has been grown so that it has a good root system. They are sent through the post in trays which hold individual plants. You just push the plants out from the bottom and plant them. Small plug plants are better if you put them in 3 inch pots and protect them for a few weeks so that you have larger plants when you put them in the garden.  However, the larger plug plants can by planted straight into your garden.

Large plug plants are 4 inches high when you get them whilst medium plugs are 3 inches tall. Gardening Direct also  sell  small plug plants which are only 2 inches high but not in Bellis Perennis plants.

As I said, I think Bellis Perennis is well worth the room in your garden, not least because it is such a bright splash ot colour so early in the year when there are very few flowers around.

If you are a keen gardener, then going away on holiday can be something of a problem. Your plants will still need watering. Indeed, if you are lucky enough to have good weather whilst away, then they will need watering even more then usual.

You could ask a neighbour or a friend to water your plants for you but this means that they cannot go away for a day or two and what happens if they are unable to do the watering, or forget it.

Thompson and Morgan, the seed merchants have come up with the perfect solution. An automatic irrigation system. This includes everything you need to make life so much easier, including an automatic timer. All you do is fit it, turn on the tap and forget it. What’s more they are offering £20 off the original price.

Even if you are not going away, this system is incredibly useful. Particularly if you work all day, then you do not have to rush home to water plants which are wilting in the hot sun.

An automatic irrigation system means that you no longer have to remember to water your garden once or twice a day – it will do it for you. Just tell it when you want the water applied. The system works equally well in a greenhouse, where you need to water regularly to prevent  problems  particularly with plants such as tomatoes.

At £39.98, this automatic itrrigation system (usual price £59.98) will pay for itself by giving you perfectly watered plants and peace of mind that that will happen.

Half Hardy Annuals are flowers which are not frost hardy and which grow, flower and die in one year. They are at their best at the moment and are sold as ‘bedding plants’ in all garden centres.

Many of the gardeners who own the garden centres will tell you that although they make a healthy contribution to their profits, they do not really love them. Their true love is the perennials (plants which flower year after year); herbacious plamnts (plants which flower , then die back to the ground for the winter, then grow the next spring) and shrubs. I beg to differ. I love them.

Whilst I admit, they are a lot of work to raise them when they are only going to last a couple of months, they are so bright and cheerful – gaudy even. Not only do they give bright colour and shape for the summer months, because you ddo not have to work around them, they make weeding and digging your flower bed much easier. The down side is that it leaves the beds empty for the winter months.

If you are going to raise half hardy plants yourself, you do need to give them shelter in the early months. You can do this in a cold greenhouse or even on your kitchen windowsill, if you are not growing to many.  Most packets of sed have far more seeds thabn you need, so why not get together with your friends and neighbours and each raise one sortr of plant, then share them out when they are ready to plant. That way you get a variety of pplants whilst not taking up to much rom, costing a fortune in seeds and throwing away loads of unwanted plants.

If you do not have the room, or time to grow half hardy annuals, then the alternative is to grow hardy annuals. These are flowers which you can sow outside because they will survive the frosts. The flower and then die in the same year. Both half hardy annuals (HHA) and hardy annuals (HA) are inexpensive to grow and will give you a good display all through summer.

Even if you do not want the formality of having your plants in lines, when sowing hardy annuals outside, you should sow them in lines. They do not have to be straight lins, but you need to be able to readily recognize where you have sown them when they are young so that you can pull out any weeds which grow amongst them.

The seed packet will tell you how deep you need to sow your seeds but the usual technique is to dig over your plot, rake the top to a fine ’tilth’ that is so that the top is smooth and crumbly. Then draw your lines to depth you want them, scatter the seed thinly in them and cover them up. Keep them watered. In three weeks you should have tiny plants emerging. When they are large enough to handle, thin them out by pulling up those you do not want. You should not grow flowers too close to each other. They will not develop to their full potential. However well you have dug and weeded your flower bed, you will still get the odd weed coming up. Pull them out early. That way they will not put on good root systems and compete with your flowers for space and nutrients.

If you only have a small garden, or you only want a few annuals because most of your garden is filled with permanent planting, then the answer may well be to go out and buy bedding plants. Remember, though that most bedding plants are half hardy annuals and they are not frost hardy, so although they are sold early in garden centres, you should not put them out in your garden until all the frosts and finished.

Pricking out and potting up are allied in that they are both methods of giving small plants more room – and nutrients – for growth.

When you sow seeds in a seed tray (or pot) you will have a great many plants growing very close together. They obviously need thinning out. This is done by transferring the small plants into seperate, larger pots. They will still be too small to plant in the garden and will need to be ‘grown on’. The way to seperate the plants is to first fill your new pots with compost.  Then using a small stick, carefully lift your young plant out of the seed tray. Hold the plant by its leaves, do not touch the root, you might damage it. Make to small hole in the new pot (a ‘dibber’ is useful for this, though a finger will do the trick, if you don’t mind soil under your nails). Place the plant in the hole and firm around it. Water it in – gently – it is very delicate at this point in its life . Then label it. You don’t want to forget what it is. This is called ‘Pricking out’.

Potting up is the next stage on from this. When your plants have filled up their pots with roots, then they need to be put into larger pots with more soil or compost.Doing this is called ‘potting up’. The way you do this is to get your larger pot, put compost in the bottom until your plant pot reaches to an inch or two below the top. (You leave this to make watering easier. ). Then take your plant from its pot, place it in the centre of the compost and fill the  side of the pot (to the level of the plant)with soil or compost being sure to press down on the sides so that there is no air pockets trapped in it.  Be sure to water the new pot well. If you are planting your plants into the garden, there is probably no reason to ‘pot on’. One other thing, some plants (like begonia) flower better if they are ‘root bound’. That means that the roots are filling the pot. The usual way to get round this is to have a plant pot which will keep the rots copntained but which will allow water and nutrients through.

When growing tomatoes or cucumbers in a greenhouse, then you will frin that you need to pot on your plants at least twice before they end up in the large pots or grow bags in which they will fruit. You pot on your plants into pots one size larger than the ones they are currently in. If you are growing your tomatoes or cucumbers in large pots, then they need to be grown either in garden compost or in grow bag compost. Multi purpose compost does not hav e enought nutrients in it to feed the planmts enough. Even if you do use the correct compost, they will still need feeding after six weeks or so.

Melons take a bit of looking after to maximise crops but the results are worth the effort. With the climate getting warmer and new varieties appearing, it is now possible to grow melons outside although you still need warmth to germinate the seeds.

Sow 2 seeds in a 3inch pot and keep in the warmth. If you are going to grow them outside, then you need to keep them protected until all the frosts are past. Be careful, young melon plants look exactly like cucumber plants, so make sure you label them. Both the leaves are the flowers look like cucumbers, so it takes a long time to recognize the difference and you need to treat them differently !

Once the seeds have germinated, prick them out into individual pots. Once they have grown two true leaves, pinch out the growing tip of the plant. This will force the plant to produce side shoots. These side shoots can be allowed to trail along the ground or, if you so wish, you can train then up wires. Once these shoots have between seven and ten leaves, then pinch out the tip again. They will then send out more side shots. When the embrio fruits appear, stop the plant two leaves above the fruit. Only allow about five fruits per plant.

Melons need lots of water and will require pollinating. If you are growing them outside, this will not be a problem. If you are allowing them to trail on the ground, ants will pollinate, otherwise flying insects will do the job for you. If you are growing your melons in a greenhouse, then you need to leave it open so that the insects can get to your plants to do the job. Alternately try pollinating by hand. Pick a male flower (one without a bulge behind it and rub it onto a female flower – or use a paint brush to spread the pollen.

If you are training you melon plants up wires, then the melons will need support. They will be to heavy for the plants to support themselves and will break the stems. You support them  by tying nets round them a tying to the wires.

How do you know when a melon in ready to harvest? If you are growing them inside, you will first notice that they are starting to smell like melons. Test them by gently pressing the ends. They should be slightly soft.

Melons need watering frequently. If you are growing them in a greenhouse, also wet the ground round them to keep the moisture up. When the melopns are starting to ripen you can stop damping down the surrounding area but keep watering them.

Melons suffer from much the same problems as cucuumbers but if you treat the, properly you should have no problms.

If you do not pinch out the tips and stop the plants, they will still grow melons but there will be less of them and many more leaves. If you are growing them trailing on the ground, then you may have difficulty finding the melons. Mice love melons and they may find them before you do!

As I said, they are a bit fiddly to grow, but the results as well worth while.

I have just harvested my first strawberries this year, Yum! Every year I am suprised by the smell and taste of home grown strawberries. Unlike every other fruit and vegetable I know, the aroma of strawberries has very little to do with their taste. They somehow smell earthy – in a nice way. The taste is sheer heaven. Shop bought strawberries are tasteless by comparison.

Growing strawberries should be a three year rotation event. The first year, you cut any runner off and will get a small to reasonable crop of strawberries. The second year you again cut the runners off and should get a very good harvest. The third year the harvest will be great and you use the runners to make new plants for the next year. After three years, strawberry plants will become less vigorous and you will get smaller harvests.

You get new strawberry plants very easily. The main plants will produce ‘runners’ which are long stems which, if left the their own devices will produce growths and roots along its length. What you do is dig these new growths into pots and bury the pots in the ground (just because they are easier to manage that way). When the roots have formed (or at the end of th4e season), cut the runner off from the main plant and you have new strawberry plants. It really is that easy.If you just leave the runners they will just produce loads of new plants but your patch of ground will become overcrowded and cease to produce as many fruits.

The reason for cutting runners off the main plants in -previous years is that you do not want the plant to put energy into producing offspring when they should be producing delicious fruit for you.

There are a number of ways to grow strawberries. You can grow them in your garden as normal crops. You can even grow them in flower beds. They are quite attractive plants and will not look out of place, the flowers are white and quite pretty. There is a small problem that slugs and snails love strawberries and you really want to protect the fruit from mud. The conventional way of doing this is to put a mat (or straw) around the plant.

Another way of growing strawberries is in a specially designed sytrawberry planter. This in effect is a large pot with holes in the sides for the plants. Planters are, in fact rather nicer looking than that and are designed to look good even when not covered with plants. The problem always used to be to get water down to the plants at the bottom of the planter whilst not drowning the top plants. However many modern plants now have watering systems built in to cure this problem. If yours does not, then put a piece of drain pipe down the centtre of the planter with small hols in it at intervals and water the planter through that.

You can also plant  strawberries in hanging baskets or pouches. In some ways this makes a lot of sense, The strawberries are then up at the level where you can easily see (and pick) them. No more back-ache!.

My strawberry plants were already in the garden when I moved into the house and although they readily produce runners (a bit too readily really – they’re a bit like weeds, grow everywhere) they do not produce a great deal of fruit. Those they do produce is really tasty but not enough of it. So I think it is time to replace them.

I have found a great offer from Van Meuren which offers 24 strawberry plants in two different varieties fruiting at different times plus a Patio planter plus a growing pouch and 100g of fertiliser. This is apparantly worth about £55 and they are offering it for £15. So I have ordered a pack and will await the results with interest. I will not dispose of my old plants until the new ones are well grown, just in case there are any problems but I have bought from this company before and do not see any problems arising.

If you have never grown strawberries before I would not hesitate to suggest you give it a try. You can grow just one plant and see how you get on. The resultant fruit really is so much better than any you can buy, it is worth the small amount of work involved.

I grow my cucumbers in the greenhouse  in much the same way as I grow tomatoes.

First, I sow them 2 seeds in a 3″ pot. Then I pot these up singley into 5″ pots. Many gardeners will tell you to dispose of the weakest plant but, with the price of seeds as high as it is, that seems wasteful to me and I have never had any trouble pricking the plants out.

After the plants have grown to a reasonable size and the roots are showing at the bottom of the pot, I then pot them on into their final large pots. I stake these plants and tie the stakes to the roof of the greenhouse. I use my own garden compost to grow the plants in. However, growbags will do equally well. The plants are going to be in these pots for a few months and are going to be supporting a number of cucumbers, so the compost needs to be rich.
You could, if you wish grow cucumbers directly in growbags and use the very nice new supports with them. However, I feel that a deeper root run works better and bamboo canes work well for supports.

Most cucumber seed is supposedly all female these days, but it is worth keeping an eye on the flowers. You do not want male flowers. They make the cucumbers taste bitter. The way you tell the difference between male and female flowers is that the female flowers(the ones which will develop into cucumbers) have a thin stem between the flower and the main stem. You can leave the flowers a day or so to be sure that it is not male, just don’t let it open if it is. The male flowers are directly on the stem.

If you do not support cucumbers or train them in any way, they will grow slightly curved (a bit like a banana only not so curved.)The Victorian gardeners used glass trainers to ensure that they grew straight and an updated version of these is now available to buy. You can grow cucumbers quite well without them, but if you want straight cucumbers, then you need to train them. They will taste the same, whatever you decide.

When the cucumber plant starts to flower, you should feed them with a liquid fertiliser.Trim any side shots to two leaves and when the plant reaches the top  of the canes, pinch out the growing tip.

You can grow cucumbers outside in just the same way. Just plant them in the soil instead of potting them up. You can sow them outside. They should be  2 ft apart. If you sow them outside, then sow 2 seeds together and cover with a cut of platic bottle (a litre lemonade bottle with thee bottom cut of is great). This will protect the young plants from slugs and cold winds.

You do not need to grow cucumbers up canes. They will grow well scrambling on the ground, but they take up much more room and are susceptible to slug damage. Sow themGrowing Cucumbers 3ft apart if you are not supporting them.

Cucumbers are very easy to grow and taste much better straight from your plant than bought cucumbers do. They are attractiive enough to grow on wigwams in your flower beds, so have a go.

I always enjoy visiting Hampton Court Flower Show. The enjoyment starts even before I get there as part of the journey is a Park and Ride scheme followed by a short trip on a boat across (and up) the River Thames.

This year will be the 21st Flower Show and promises to be as spectacular and interesting as ever. The organisers have made some changes this year (they do everyyear but this year’s changes are much larger). The Floral Marquee which is 225m long will be on the North side of the Showground. Usually it is on the South side.

This will make room for a new Gardens Illustrated Marquee which promises plant and garden accessories set among beautiful displays. The theme this year is Shakesperian, which means the show gardens should be quintisensially British in flavour. Always usaeful if you are looking for ideas to take home to your garden.

There is also a major Home grown feature, which, if like me you enjoy growing your own vegetables should inspire. Along those lines, one of the featured show gardens is one about bees.At the moment, bees are very much in the news with their numbers deminishing in such a large way. The garden includes an interactive sculpture based on a natural bee hive. Good fun for children and handy for future bee keepers.

One of the other features is the Festival of Roses at which the Rose of the Year will be presented. Everybody loves Roses so this should be worth a view.

Apart from the show gardens and marquees, there are 600 shopping opportunities at the Hamnpton Court Flower show as well as it being set against the backdrop of the Palace and around the Long Water Canal, there is something for everybody there.

Click Here to Book Your Tickets Now