Amateur Gardening 25-Sep-2021

“The health benefits of gardening for us amateurs is well known, but what is less known is how a career in gardening can change the lives of people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who are looking to restart their lives after prison or addiction problems. ‘Future Gardeners’ is a project by The Worshipful Company of Gardeners in which people between 18 and 60 can be sponsored to attend a gardening course with the aim of it leading to a job in horticulture. It has been a great success, and it says much about how gardening can have a positive effect in so many ways. You can find out more on page 6.”…

AS summer slowly slides into the colder months it’s time to bring some new pops of colour to the garden. The early bird gets the worm, so get your autumn and spring bedding plants in now, while there is still a massive choice in garden centres and online. If planted pronto, when the soil is warm from summer and dampened by autumn showers, plants will have time to really get established and develop robust root systems before it gets cold. They will then enter dormancy and stop flowering and growing during the coldest months of the year, before surging back to life when the mercury rises and spring returns. Don’t be confused by terminology. Autumn and winter bedding is the same as spring bedding, an umbrella term used for plants that can go in…

PLANTING a basket or container is a brilliant way of adding late autumn and early spring colour to the garden, especially if space is tight. Use peat-free compost with added slow-release fertiliser such as Vitax Q4 or Growmore to power your plants from now through until the spring. Make sure they are kept well-watered but ensure any excess can escape to avoid the compost becoming waterlogged, which will force oxygen out and ‘drown’ the roots and plants. The best place for hanging baskets is on the sheltered side of the house in a spot that gets maximum sun during the shorter days of autumn and winter. Make sure their compost doesn’t dry out, especially if the basket is hanging under the eaves and in the rain shadow of the house. It is also worth…

AN initiative that was launched to give underprivileged youngsters in London an understanding of horticulture has now gained charitable status and is offering jobs and life skills to hundreds of people in the capital. Future Gardeners was established five years ago by the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, a City of London Livery Company, and the environmental and volunteering charity the Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) to encourage youngsters into horticultural careers. Schoolchildren were the initial target, but the scheme now attracts men and women aged between 18 and mid-60s, from all backgrounds and ethnicities. With support from the Greater London Authority, Chelsea Physic Garden, the Royal Parks Guild, Grosvenor Estates, Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, the RHS and many other organisations and companies, Future Gardeners runs three 12-14-week courses a year, starting in January,…

WE gardeners love and nurture our more exotic summer flowers, the canna lilies, dahlias and gladioli, though sadly our climate rarely treats them with the same consideration. In many areas, the UK’s chilly winters kill off tender tubers, corms and bulbs, or they rot when left in soil that stays sodden and cold for months on end. If you have a warm, sheltered southern garden you may be able to leave tender tubers in the soil through winter, as long as they have a thick overcoat of mulch, straw or bark chips to keep out the worst of the cold. But in most areas, gardeners are advised to lift and store them somewhere dry and frost-free. Most should be lifted before the first frosts, though dahlias are left until sub-zero temperatures blacken…

LIKE a marathon runner crossing the finishing line, your garden soil needs sustaining after a long summer of growing, and autumn is the perfect time to do so. There are several ways to revitalise soil after a busy summer. You can feed it with a general purpose fertiliser, though this is an expensive option, sow it with green manures, dig in lots of well-rotted manure or cover cleared ground with a generous layer of compost. I tend to favour using green manures and mulching using home made compost that is a combination of green kitchen peelings and well-mixed garden waste including grass cuttings, chopped prunings and other cuttings. Spread over the borders and around perennials now, itwillbreakdown through winter and be dragged under by worms, feeding soil and nurturing the plant roots as…