BBC Gardeners' World October 2021

Celebrate… how to transform your home for the festive season with our new Creative Christmas 132-page guide. On sale in selected stores for £7.99 or at magsdirect.co.uk/creativexmas Tune in… Find our new podcast series, Tea-break Tutorials, on Apple Podcasts – bite-sized, practical guides from Alan Titchmarsh. See more at gardeners world.com/podcast Learn… Love orchids but kill more than you like to admit? Join us on 7 October for Orchid Essentials, an online 30-minute course for just £8: bit.ly/GW-Essentials-Orchid Discover… your year-round gardening companion! Take out a subscription this month and we’ll give you a copy of our new hardback Gardeners’ World Almanac, worth £16.99, which includes a foreword by Monty. Keep up to date with us at FACEBOOK @GWmagazine INSTAGRAM @gardenersworldmag TWITTER @GWmag PINTEREST @GWmag Looking to get in touch? Turn to page 150 EDITOR’S PORTRAIT BY SARAH CUTTLE; GARDEN IMAGES: RAY COX, NEIL…

Editor of the Year: Gardens & Country The everyday miracles of nature are part of what, to me, make gardening so enriching. The dry husk of a seed that unfurls into a towering plant within months; fruit that springs from pruned bare wood; veg scraps and clippings transformed into nourishing compost… all miracles that you as the gardener are a part of, encouraging the alchemy with good timing and skill. There’s always something new to learn as a gardener, whether you’re just starting out or you have years under your belt. That’s why we’ve devoted much of this issue to highlighting 20 core skills to help make you a better gardener – just look for this stamp throughout the magazine. As we venture into autumn (such an exciting gardening season), it’s the perfect…

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers”L.M.Montgomery STARS OF THE MONTH Pumpkin ‘Jack o’ Lantern’ These fine specimens from the veg plot are ready for carving now but, in all the Halloween excitement, please don’t forget to eat the flesh you have spent so much time scooping out to make lanterns. Harvest pumpkins when they are fully coloured – the skins harden well in sun. It is a magnificent vegetable (I am including its close cousin the squash in this) which stores for ages (you can eat pumpkin well into the new Year). Pumpkins are for dinner, not just for Halloween. Pumpkins need lots of space to grow. Sow seeds under glass and plant out into rich soil once frosts have passed. Height x Spread 45cm x 3m MAPLE MAGIC Whether…

‘Café au Lait’ Very large flowers in blushed apricot tones – beautiful with just one in a vase. Giant decorative. H x S 1.2m x 60cm ‘David Howard’ Bronze foliage is the perfect backdrop to its prolific orange flowers. Miniature decorative. H x S 100cm x 75cm ‘Labyrinth’ A superb dahlia with a wild swirl of peachy and rose-pink petals. Giant decorative. H x S 90cm x 70cm ‘Crème de Cassis’ Stunning two-tone blooms with pale-pink topsides and blackcurrant backs. Small decorative. H x S 110cm x 45cm Decorative dahlias ‘Karma Choc’ Flowers open as a dark chocolate and mature to a bright red. Small decorative. Height x Spread 90cm x 45cm I know, the word ‘decorative’ describes just about every dahlia there is – if they weren’t decorative, we wouldn’t grow them. But it’s also the name reserved for one…

WORTH £12 For winter-flowering shrubs and order details, see opposite page hayloft rare | unusual | exciting Fragrant winter-flowering shrubs Voted one of the most fragrant shrubs in the UK, bleak winter days will be brightened by the delicious perfume that this winter-flowering daphne produces. Clusters of dark-cerise buds smother evergreen foliage, opening to reveal pale-pink flowers in winter. H x S 1.5m x 1.5m F Jan-Mar 1 plant in 9cm pot £15 More commonly known as sweet box, dainty, white flowers accompany glossy foliage in late winter and early spring, releasing a delicious jasmine-like fragrance. The blooms are then followed by ornamental, glossy, red berries that mature to black. H x S 60cm x 45cm F Feb-Mar 1 plant in 9cm pot £14 During winter, bare, woody stems host buds that burst open, releasing…

Does anyone get called a ‘Jeremiah’ nowadays? It was never a compliment. Doommonger, naysayer, pessimist, gloomy bugger – poor Jeremiah’s tone does not chime with the modern sensibility of upbeat optimism. Not a man for jokes or folderol. But I like a bit of gloom myself, a bit of downbeatery, to leaven things a bit. I remember reading the biblical quote from the Book of Jeremiah, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved”, on a wild October day some 50 years ago and thinking, ‘yup, that’s the way of things’. The moment has passed and left you well and truly behind. Failed again – only this time, failed worse. This is not so much a question of depression and mental health, as a thoroughly British…