Amateur Gardening 21-May-2022

“Who would have thought that the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown would (amongst other things) result in a stratospheric rise in plant crime and scamming? Ruth’s news story (see page 10) proves the point that there are always criminal characters who will exploit any opportunity to con gullible people. I seriously doubt that any AG reader would have paid thousands of pounds for a houseplant cutting or be fooled by plants that have been painted to look like rare examples, but I think we should be aware of what has been going on. Let’s hope that now we are no longer in lockdown, this sort of exploitation will cease.”…

OUR bath plug was blocked the other weekend and after several hours trying (mercifully successfully) to unblock it I thought I’d better check the drain under the bathroom downpipe to make sure all was working as it should. To put a positive spin on things, everything was flowing properly but when I lifted the drain cover I found a huge clutch of snails, happily nestled together and protected from the elements and predators. I fear that this year may be a bad one for pests and diseases. The generally mild winter won’t have killed them off and now our gardens are filling up with new plants and tender, young growth, it is a field day for the bad guys. In the column on the right I look at some of the most common…

THE gardener’s first line of defence against potential problems is maintaining good garden hygiene and making sure soil and plants are well cared for. Your soil is the bedrock of healthy gardening, so make sure you improve yours with well-rotted compost and manure to keep it rich in nutrients. The best time to do this is spring and autumn, ideally after rain and never when the ground is frozen. Avoid a build-up of plant-specific pests and disease by using crop rotation and by changing sites for plants that are prone to certain fungal problems, such as pansies and violas with leaf spot and hollyhocks with rust. Failure to do so can create a build-up of microbes and spores in the soil that automatically infects new plants. Successful gardening starts at the purchase of plants.…

IT’S the time of year when certain flowering herbaceous perennials can be cut back once they start growing robustly in order to keep them looking neat and encourage a second flush of blooms. This procedure is called the ‘Chelsea chop’ because it coincides with the world-famous RHS show in London. Our large clump of Nepeta (catmint) grows beautifully in late spring but then starts to collapse outwards, leaving the central bare stems nakedly on show. Not only does it look less attractive, it threatens to smother the other plants growing around it. By reducing the stems by a third or even up to a half of their length, you remove the weight that is holding them down and covering large areas of border, and encourage new growth that will give you an extended flowering…

IT feels possible to spend all day, every day in the garden at this time of year – and still not get everything done! I had a non-gardening week thanks to covid last month and it feels like the weeds took advantage of my absence to run riot through the beds. Garlic mustard and shepherd’s purse are a particular nuisance. I hoe off the smaller plants and leave them to rot down on the soil and leave some of the garlic mustard standing as it is a food of orange tip butterfly caterpillars. Shepherd’s purse has small white flowers on tall stems and goes on to produce thousands of seeds a year. Tackle it before seed heads develop and don’t add ripened plants to the compost as you will only spread the problem. Other…

OF all the side effects of the Coronavirus lockdown, one of the most unexpected has been a massive rise in the price of houseplants and a resulting increase in houseplants ‘scams’ and thefts. Plant sellers have been robbed at gunpoint, ordinary plants have been painted to make them look like rare varieties and people are selling ‘cuttings’ at vastly inflated prices. Not even the prestigious Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London has escaped, and has suffered thefts and illicit cuttings-taking. Plants that have become must-have accessories thanks to lifestyle posts on social media now sell for thousands of pounds – last year a Rhaphidophora tetrasperma or ‘mini Monstera’ sold for a record-breaking £14,000. The more unusual the plant the higher the demand. Cuttings of cheese plants called Monstera Albo, which have unusual white…