Amateur Gardening 30-Apr-2022

“When I fired up my computer this morning, the first email I opened was extolling the virtues of artificial lawns. Believe me, it did nothing to improve my pre-coffee mood. To my mind, fake grass is an insidious trend that goes against everything that is good about gardening: bad for wildlife; bad for the environment; it doesn’t even look attractive; and is the very devil to get dog poo out of! There are even tales of people vacuuming their plastic lawns to keep them clean, but surely, if you can do that you can mow a real one? Am I a dinosaur or do you feel the same? Please do let us know.” Contact us: ◼ Subscriptions: 0330 333 1113 ◼ Editorial: 0330 3903732 ◼ Email: amateurgardening@futurenet.com ◼ Advertising: 0330 3906566…

I AM itching to start planting up summer baskets and containers, but – and it is a big but – we are not out of the frosty woods yet. Night temperatures can still dip below zero anywhere in the country, so I’m erring on the side of caution and delaying planting out tender annual bedding for a few more weeks. However, a container of spring bedding that I put together in the autumn is starting to look a bit threadbare and is ripe for refurbishment. Giving the existing plants a new lease of life with a little fresh compost and fertiliser, then adding a couple of new hardy plants where gaps have developed, is a good compromise. It’s also worth buying perennials that can be planted in the garden later in the year…

PLANTING in containers is a quick way of bringing colour to the garden, but there are a couple of things to remember. First, avoid containers that bulge out below a narrower neck, as these are surprisingly difficult to empty when the plants have faded and you wish to use the pot for something else. Proprietary container compost is ideal for pots and has been formulated to feed for longer and maximise water content, so plants don’t starve or dehydrate as quickly. However, intensive planting in a confined space will quickly deplete compost nutrients, so feed fortnightly with liquid tomato feed during the growing season. The roots also dehydrate the compost, so water whenever it feels dry to the touch (insert a finger to the first knuckle to check moisture levels). If I am…

◼ Late frosts mean it is still too risky to plant out tender plugs, but make sure you keep them healthy undercover. ◼ Pinch out any developing buds so the plants’ energy goes into developing strong leaves and roots instead of early flowers. ◼ Also pinch out over-long stems to encourage strong, bushy growth. ◼ Keep the compost damp and feed plants fortnightly with liquid tomato feed. ◼ Check the leaves for pests, removing badly affected plant material and squishing greenfly, aphids and scale insects. ◼ Start to harden them off in a mini greenhouse or coldframe, closing the lid/door at night.…

AWARD-winning landscape gardener and Gardeners’ Question Time panellist Bunny Guinness has spoken to AG about her fears for the horticultural industry, should the Government forge ahead with plans to ban the sale of peat-based composts by 2024. She says the move would wreck the horticultural industry and cause further damage to the planet. The proposed ban comes at a time when other European countries, with the exception of Germany and Switzerland, are planning to double their peat production by 2050, which could put UK growers at a serious disadvantage. Bunny believes that the main problem is that the industry has yet to come up with a consistently viable substitute to peat. Because of this, she says peat extraction for horticulture (just 0.053% of all substrate harvested from raised peat bogs is used for horticulture)…

FOLLOWING correspondence from several AG readers who were having disappointing results with peat-free composts, we decided to put their claims to the test by growing, from seed, three sets of 10 identical cosmos ‘Candy Stripe’. One set was sown in seed compost containing peat, another in a quality brand of peat-free seed compost and the third in my homemade seed compost made from equal measures of sieved compost and leafmould. Differences were immediately obvious as soon as the seedlings developed, with the ones popping up in peat compost growing fastest and with most robust stems. After the seeds had germinated and grown large enough, the peat-free ones were transplanted into peat-free multipurpose, the peat seed compost ones into John Innes No2 and the ones in homemade compost went into homemade potting compost made…