25-Jul-2020

Amateur Gardening

For everyone who loves gardening

Amateur Gardening1 min read
Editor
“I loved Val Bourne’s description of a traditional cottage garden as being ‘a glorious jumble’ (see page 22 of this week’s AG). It’s that chaos of colour and shape, of herbs and fragrance — a garden made to be functional and beautiful, but without th
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Pots Of Autumn Brilliance
CONTAINERS are an easy and manageable way of extending colour beyond summer and right up to the first frosts, if you’re lucky. However, in the past week I have been to three local garden centres in my quest to have the best and brightest pots on the
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Keeping Pest Numbers Down
WE are in peak pest season, so the race is on to keep our plants and crops safe in the face of the relentless bombardment of insects and molluscs determined to steal and ruin all our hard work. Gardeners have an arsenal of tools at their disposal, fr
Amateur Gardening3 min read
Your Allotment Feedback
THE AG article (June 27) about the decline in allotment land across the UK provoked a strong response from irate and concerned allotmenteers. The news story, written by allotment expert Lesley Upton, told how there has been 65% decrease in the land b
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Make The Most Of Containers
WHILE containers are easy to create, their aftercare can seem a bit of a faff, but believe me – it’s worth it! It only takes a couple of minutes of care while you are walking past every day to keep your pots looking glorious right through the season.
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Feeding In Midsummer
1 Feed lime-hating plants (azaleas, rhododendrons and blueberries) with ericaceous fertiliser, then fork and water it in. Sequestered seaweed feed also helps if the plants look peaky. 2 Whether they are inside or out, houseplants need a fortnightly f
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Take Time To View A Flower
THE lack of flower shows, both trade and consumer, will pretty well exclude all new plant launches this year. Novelty introductions are coming so fast and furious, it could well lead to a passing over for some good new garden plants. We are also bein
Amateur Gardening1 min readArchitecture
An Early Summer Delight
THIS week’s seeds are for one of my favorite early summer plants, the foxglove. Traditionally residents of woodland glades and dappled hedgerows, foxgloves are welcome residents in our gardens for many reasons. They produce tall, elegant spires of fl
Amateur Gardening2 min readNature
Bird Watch: The nightingale
OF strictly limited distribution, the nightingale has probably inspired more poets and songwriters than any other British bird. Soberly clad in shades of russet-brown above, shading to brownish-grey beneath, and shaped like a robin, the nightingale’s
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Save Those Seeds
IN the middle of harvesting our crops, it makes sense to plan ahead and to put some aside to be our seed crops. The commercial seed companies’ packets of seeds are remarkably good value, reliable and consistent – but costs do mount up when you have s
Amateur Gardening3 min readNature
Unexpected Arrivals
THIS year got off to a brilliant start, although it might not seem so to some. Do you remember that incessant rain? It began in September and carried on through January, February and the first half of March. That wet deluge kept away the cold weather
Amateur Gardening5 min read
Focus on… Currants
IT’S the ultimate no-brainer: pay £3 per punnet for currants, or buy a bush for less than a tenner to give you 20 punnets per year for 15 years? Let’s think about that for a millisecond… Why anyone buys currants by the punnet is beyond me. Establishe
Amateur Gardening6 min read
Updating The Cottage Garden
THE cottage garden is alive and well because it’s rather like a comfort blanket – it spins us back in time to a simpler, rose-tinted age. We love roses round the door and bees hovering above a haze of English lavender. And we still adore the spicy cl
Amateur Gardening4 min readGardening
Ultimate Guide To The Dry Garden
FEBRUARY 2020 might have proved the wettest on record here in the UK, but it was followed by the sunniest spring and the driest May. Soils were parched, plants wilted and gardeners reached for their hose pipes and watering cans. In future, it seems l
Amateur Gardening4 min read
Reasons To Grow Lavender
NO one needs to argue the case for lavender – it’s one of the easiest plants to love, with beautiful flowers that appear for months and a fragrance that sings of summer. It is the plant of long, hot days, perfect for lining paths and edging borders,
Amateur Gardening9 min read
ASk John Negus John Will Reply Personally To All Your Gardening Questions Every Week
Q I’ve really looked after my roses, but they haven’t done well and have produced lots of suckers. Why is this? Michael Coombes, Nantwich, Cheshire A Roses generally are quite hungry plants and appreciate feeding annually with a top-dressing of balan
Amateur Gardening4 min read
The World’s Great Roses
IN Germany, Mathias Tantau jnr took over the Holstein nursery from his father, also Mathias, shortly after the Second World War. Tantau creations include ‘Fragrant Cloud’ and ‘Super Star’. The other famous German breeder, Wilhelm Kordes, managed to g
Amateur Gardening5 min read
This Week It’s: A Taste Of Honeysuckle
FOR most of us, the thought of a sweetly fragrant honeysuckle filling our garden on a warm summer’s evening with the most evocative of scents is, well, heavenly! These rambling vines, with curious-looking but highly fragrant flowers, are the epitome
Amateur Gardening2 min read
Crossword …just For Fun!
1 Take hold of something – such as the rubber ‘sleeve’ on the handle of some tools! (4) 3 The ivy genus (6) 6 Precipitation, as in the alstroemeria variety ‘Purple ____’ (4) 7 A fungal disease attacking potatoes and apples, forming dark-coloured crus
Amateur Gardening4 min read
Drying Home-grown Herbs
HERBS taste best when homegrown and freshly picked, but the flavours are strongest early in the year, and many are not evergreen so won’t last through winter. However, the plants can produce spectacular crops in spring and summer and there are severa
Amateur Gardening3 min read
What Next For Tender Perennials?
Q I have a number of tender perennials I’d like to keep from year to year. How do I take cuttings and overwinter the plants? I have an unheated greenhouse. Julia Westthorpe, Shepton Mallet, Somerset A The term ‘tender perennial’ applies to a wide ran
Amateur Gardening3 min read
Letters to Wendy
GARDENING and your weekly magazine have been my lifeline since lockdown. My family do not want me to go out, so my garden has become my refuge and plants my companions. It is a small London garden with flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruit trees. In t
Amateur Gardening1 min read
Amateur Gardening
Future PLC Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 7BF Editor: Garry Coward-Williams Email: garry.coward-williams@futurenet.com Gardening Editor: Ruth Hayes Assistant Editor: Janey Goulding Art Editor: Al Rigger Picture Editor and L
Amateur Gardening2 min read
The Beautiful Game
SPARROW numbers have been in decline for decades due to a double whammy of food and habitat loss on farmland, and pollution, cats and over-pruning in gardens. Once regarded as a pest, their catastrophic collapse from 12 million pairs in the 1970s to

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