Garden – New Plants and Sundries for 2012
My favourite garden press event was held this month and try as I might I didn’t get to visit all the stands I wanted but the ones I did visit were very rewarding.
My intention was to source plants for the front garden and give it a completely new look this year and I found some great new plants. Beautiful Monet coloured petunias for the hanging basket and scented begonias for the front of the bed from Gardening Direct, excitingly coloured sweet peas from Kings and from Thompson & Morgan for the Garden Maypoles I have been promised by Haxnicks. Jo Swift suggested white shamrock from Homebase and a wonderful chocolate cosmos that he has chosen for the Chelsea Flower Show garden he has designed for Homebase. I’ll definitely get that cosmos it’s the one plant I can’t resist – they will be available in store from March.
Although the front garden is only 26 ft x 12 ft I still felt the pressure of choosing plants in terms of height, spread and of course colour. So I was really pleased to find Plantify – an inspiring, free online garden design tool available to everyone that I will be using it to redesign the front garden.
Fairy Magnolia Blush
This year Crocus has some absolutely gorgeous new plants on offer – one in particular Fairy Magnolia Blush looks absolutely wonderful, as does the white with blue back anemone Wild Swan – if only I had a bigger garden! And the Forest Series of hepaticas look absolutely beautiful, hope I can fit some in.
Spencer sweet peas from Crocus
And just look at these sweet peas from Crocus – irresistible!
At the event I was given far more packets of seeds from Thompson & Morgan, Homebase and Kings than I could ever use so if you would like a packet or two just send a stamped addressed envelope to me. There is a range of flower and vegetable seed, if you would like one or the other, or both, just write veg and/or flower on the back of the envelope.
My grafted tomato plants grew so well last year only to be cut down in their prime by blight that I had moreorless given up on the idea of home grown tomatoes because once blight, a disease of the foliage and fruit causing rotting, is in the soil it is difficult to avoid further contamination.
Quadgrow Slim
Then I came across the Quadgrow Planter. It has four pots that sit in a reservoir of water, taking away the possibility of erratic watering. It’s possible to link it direct to a water source either mains water or a water butt. I plan on siting it on a path in a south facing part of the garden. I’m hoping that particular cunning plan will mean blight won’t get a look in with the plants getting a steady supply of water and nutrients.
I have been promised some grafted tomato plants that have two varieties on each plant! Sounds really exciting.
My Heath Robinson style protection for the brassicas worked really well last year, deterring the pigeons and cabbage white butterflies, even though the netting was not wide enough and I had to use additional netting. This year I’ll be trying out a crop cage from Greentree Products that should work much better. Easy to fix clips and netting ties sound very attractive. Greentree are also supplying a Grow Cloche to try with one of our metre square raised beds. We’re convinced this will be much better than the hoops and fleece we used last year that has gradually broken down since last autumn.
The Insect Hotel
Absolutely fascinated by insects, I was taken with the insect house from Neudorf, available on the web. One is on its way and I’m looking forward to observing what uses its 5 star bedrooms! The mason bees love a pipe filled with nesting tubes I’ve had for year and are fascinating to watch – see short video. I’m hoping for a wider range of insects this year that will give more photographic opportunities.
My gardening shoes have given me really good service for the last 17 years and I decided to replace them with a pair of Backdoor shoes. I chose ones with the bluebell print but as you will see on their website there are many other flower designs to choose from.
A range of gardening gloves were on offer and I thought it was time to replace a pair of Skoma gloves I’ve used continuously for the past three years and have seen better days. I liked them because they were flexible, wicked away perspiration, and gave me sensitivity, lacking in some gloves where you can’t feel anything. They survived frequent washing in the washing machine, but recently they have hardened a little and so I’ll be test driving three different levels of protection from Joe’s gloves – all rather brightly coloured – at least they won’t get lost in the compost bin. And a pair from Ethel Gloves, made from goatskin and bamboo, referred to as the little black dress of gardening! I have to admit they are rather stylish, I’m tempted to just use them for driving!
A rolling composter, one that be kept at ground level and pushed backwards and forwards to aerate your compost is by far the fastest way of creating compost – ready in six weeks! I’ll be trying out the Rollmix Composter and will write about how it works for us.
As you can imagine I had rather a lot to get home and was glad to reach my comfy chair by the fire, have a quick snooze and dream about the garden this year.
Val Reynolds, Editor
Gorgeous Scent in the Garden in deepest winter
Visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh about this time last year I was captivated by the headiest scent wafting across a path. Some yards away I found the source, it turned out be the flowers of hamamelis. The bed of bushes was vast which accounts for the strength of the scent, they usually grow up to about four metres high. If only I had the space!
Hamamelis - Witch Hazel
The common name for Hamamelis is witch hazel, not related at all to hazel nut plants. Over the centuries it has been used medicinally for treating insect bites and bruises, it helps to shrink and contract blood vessels back to normal size, useful for treating haemorrhoids. It is also used in treating acne.
There are several varieties to choose from. Here the Thompson & Morgan description of : Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Westerstede’, Witch Hazel Hardy Shrub
During the bleak winter months, this deciduous shrub bears an explosion of golden blooms. The sweetly scented, shaggy flowers of Hamamelis intermedia ‘Westerstede’ cling resiliently to its leafless twigs. The summer foliage of Witch Hazel forms a simple backdrop for summer flowering perennials, before turning to vibrant shades of brilliant orange and red in autumn. This majestic specimen shrub is ideal for adding colour and interest to mixed borders and woodland gardens throughout the year.
Height and spread: 4m (13’). Flowering Period: January, February Position: sun or semi shade
1 plant in 9cm pot Despatch: By end of Mar 2012 £12.99
It was in the same gardens that the Queen Mother memorial garden is sited – I was really taken with the shell designs, the best I’ve seen – pictures below.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
We love our woodburning stove
Woodburning stove
Having a wood burning stove has made the difference between a warmish room to a toasty one. We have been using oak offcuts from a local wood yard which are excellent, but as we get older we have begun to wonder whether we should install a gas fire – not less expensive but cleaner and immediate.
However, we heard of wood briquettes that are light to handle, come packaged ready to burn, sourced from virgin timber and have no additives of any kind included within the manufacturing process. All positive so far.
We tried them and they do light easily, are suitable for our multi fuel stove, open fireplaces and even log burners. They produce little ash, are low in moisture and give a very intense heat. Each briquette weighs about 1.6/7 kg. We were very impressed. We intend to stock up for next year just as soon as our woodstore becomes empty.
Have a look at their website for more interesting information and what other users have to say
We found this interesting rhyme that gives the burning characteristics of different firewoods:
Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year;
Chestnut only good, they say
If for long it’s laid away
Make a fire of Elder tree
Death within your house shall be
But Ash new or Ash old
Is fit for Queen with crown of gold
Birch and Fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last
It is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
Elmwood burns like churchyard mould –
E’en the very flames are cold
But Ash green or Ash brown
Is fit for Queen with golden crown
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke
Apple wood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume
Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winter’s cold
But Ash wet or Ash dry
A King shall warm his slippers by
Published in The Times, March 1929
Val Reynolds, Editor
Great Gifts – Garden Tools
Christmas is a good time to make reference to those gifts you would really like to receive! Here are some Fiskar gardening tools we have tried this year and recommend highly.
Fiskars X17 Splitting/Felling Axe £59.99
600 mm long this is a beautifully made axe, well balanced, a nice weight and with a hand stop at the end – important for a good, accurate swing. The shaft itself has an anti-shock soft grip. The shaft is fibreglass with a good feel and easily cleaned. The blade is mortised into a tenon joint in the fibre glass shaft. The blade itself is double hardened and has an excellent safety cover with a carrying handle, or can be hung from a loop passed through to the eyelet at the end of the shaft. The fibreglass design eliminates the weakness of the older style hickory-shafted axes, where the blades becoming loose have the obvious danger of flying heads.
Fiskars X5 Trekking/Camping Axe £39.99
A light fibreglass shafted hand-axe, ideal for chopping firewood – wish I had the use of one of these when I was in the Scouts! It will do well for chopping brushwood in the garden too. Light, it is easily kept in the back pack. Comes with a neat safety cover and is easily hung up using the loophole at the end.
Fiskars Patio Broom £19.99
This broom head is absolutely excellent. The bristles are tough enough to get out weeds from between our paving slabs and does an excellent job when collecting leaves. With its QuikFit handle which you can use for other tools, it means less space is taken up in the shed and few handles to trip over! Be sure to choose the right length of handle/shaft £18.99 for you, there are several to choose from. It might be best to buy at a garden centre than on the web.
Fiskars Trowel £8.99
I was intrigued by the novel appearance of this trowel, and then sceptical. Familiar only with the metal variety, I felt sure that the lack of a metal cutting edge doomed it to failure, but I was pleasantly surprised. It performed very well in the extremely dry soil of my garden this summer, and has continued to be perfectly satisfactory so far this autumn, but due to the continuing lack of serious rainfall I haven’t been able to test it in genuinely wet, heavy soil.
Perversely, one of its good points is also a weakness. It weighs almost nothing, which has led me to forget its presence several times and throw it into the compost heap. I think it would benefit from being produced in a brighter colour as at the moment it’s only too easy to lose if it’s lying on the ground, or in a heap of weeds. (A red ribbon fed through the hanging hole would work (Ed)).
So, it’s Fiskars for us this year and for some of our friends in 2012!
Reviewed by John Reynolds, Katie Longland & Janet Hamer, contributing authors
Indoor Kitchen Waste Composter using Bokashi Bran
Bokashi bran
Who would have thought a handful of bran added to kitchen waste would provide a drain cleaning fluid/a high nutrient feed for plants – and a starter for some excellent compost.
Of course any old bran won’t have the same effect. It has to be Bokashi, a bran based material prepared with mixed culture of naturally occurring friendly micro-organisms. The waste then ferments, allowing it to be safely composted.
Wiggly Wigglers sells a bucket designed to work with the Bokashi bran. They will also regularly supply a 1 kg pack of bran that will last 3-4 months.
Bokashi bran multi order logo
We have tried this composting system and found it worked well, so much so we have bought another bucket to allow a couple of weeks for a full up bucket to mature while a second one starts to fill up.
The bucket is easy to lift and carry, we keep ours in a kitchen cupboard and once filled we take it in the garage for a couple of weeks to mature and then into the compost bins where it will decompose rapidly. Once the compost bins are full we will dig the Bokashi fermented waste into the garden where it would also decompose rapidly, releasing large quantities of soil boosting probiotic micro-organisms which nourish the soil naturally.
Bokashi bucket in our kitchen cupboard
Is it all good? Well, we did find assembling the tap device rather tricky but after a bit of a fiddle we managed it.
The tap could be longer so it could hang over a work surface to collect the fluid that builds up over time into a bigger container that the little cup provided. This fluid is the super stuff that can be used as a drain cleaner or more often used as a high nutrient plant food. In the summer we put oursinto one of the water butts where a leaky hose fed the front garden … It made an amazing difference.
Our front garden plants loved the Bokashi fluid
We like the ease of use, the small space it takes up, having it in the kitchen where we can top it up without any bother and the absence of any smell and amazingly it takes everything bio-degradable including bones, meat, and fish skins!
Available direct from Wiggly Wigglers
Have you seen the Wiggly Wigglers Christmas catalogue? We love the apple corer and peeler – 15 seconds an apple! More …
Christmas Catalogue for Good Life Gifts
The Wiggly Team!
Wiggly Wigglers is a feel good story. Heather and Phillip Gorringe live and work at Lower Blakemere Farm in Herefordshire and while Phillip runs the farm Heather runs Wiggly Wigglers, the company that started off selling worms to compost food waste. They do live the good life, with cattle, pigs and hens, and they grow their own fruit and veg.
We bought one of the first Wiggly Wigglers composters years ago when Heather was at one of the RHS shows. We have three Wiggly Wiggler composters now, all different styles and they all work well.
Oak sapling infused with truffle spores
Our favourite Christmas catalogue is the Wiggly Wigglers Christmas catalogue. It’s full of stuff we really want! From truffle spores infused in sapling oak trees – harvest your truffles in 5-7 years’ time, to spore infused logs to harvest your own exotic mushrooms.
Then there is the apple peeler and corer – named on the recent Channel 4 programme Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets as one of the top gadgets of all time. We really must have one! Processing the apples is such a messy, sticky job, but this gadget promises to make it more fun next year. Click here to see it in action.
Apple corer and peeler
There’s loads of other stuff, bird food, bird feeders, shelters – the catalogue is available by post – phone 01981 500391. However if you are cutting it a bit fine go to their website where everything is available. Remember though that date for last orders is Wednesday 21 December.
Happy Christmas!
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Our Top Ten SIMPLY SUPER Christmas Gifts
In the space of a year we see a fair number of items we rather like. Here are our top ten we think would make fabulous, interesting and thoughtful gifts for Christmas 2011. They are of course equally appropriate at other times of the year.
Jean Christophe Novelli - Connoisseur Knives
1. Novelli Cooking Knives
These knives will last a lifetime, in fact they are designed to last for more than one generation. Beautifully balanced, made from the best of materials they are a joy to work with. We love using them. More …
Wolsztyn Steam Train Centre © Trevor Jones
2. A Footplate Holiday in Poland – The Steam Engine Enthusiast’s Dream More …
3. However this beautiful book Great Railway Maps of the World may be a less generous gift than a trip to Poland but just as acceptable we’re sure. More …
4. Forever Rumpole
The loveable legal rough diamond Horace Rumpole who refers to his wife as She who must be obeyed, conjures up an appropriate bon mot whatever the occasion. Forever Rumpole is a fine choice for bedtime reading. More …
5. A History of the World in 100 Objects
Oh yes, this is bedtime reading for at least a year! This is a great dip into book, with 100 historical objects to read about, from the earliest surviving object made by human hands to the 100th object – a solar powered lamp and charger. It would fascinate anyone interested in man’s history. Wonderful book. More …
6. Garden tools Investing in garden tools can be a hit and miss affair but here are three we have tried and liked for their utility. We loved the Fiskar trowel, patio broom and axes – our choice for 2012. More …
Fiskar Trowel
7. Growing plants from seeds is one of our passions. We usually go for Thompson & Morgan seeds but sometimes when we can’t find what we are looking for, we look at the Sow Seeds website. A small independent seed business based in Cheshire offering the home gardener, allotment holder and commercial growers the finest quality seeds at great prices it is worthy of support. They provide Gift Vouchers and Seed Boxes,
ideal gifts for beginner gardeners and old timers alike.
A
nd for those you know who suffered in the drought this year we highly recommend having some Supa Drippas to hand just in case it happens again next year. More …
8. Our kitchen waste is now being collected in the kitchen itself, saves us going down the garden in all weathers. This is achieved because we are now using a Bokashi composter – the micro organic process with no smell. Believe us when we say it is so good we keep telling everyone about it! And it is our favourite gift to our gardening friends. More …
9. For every harassed Mum or Dad – the answer to replacing damaged playthings! Saves a fortune – a lifeline especially to anyone not handy with broken stuff. A great stocking filler/tree gift. More …
Getting ready to taste eight different wines to match with Festive food
10. Our final suggestion is a course at the Wine Academy in Queen Anne St, Marylebone, for anyone you know interested in knowing much more about wine. We recently attended a wine and food matching course, absolutely excellent, led by Suzy Atkins, wine writer for The Times. We can’t rate this highly enough. Fantastic gift. We will be writing about our experience in the near future.
Val Reynolds Brown, Editor
Grow Your Own Potatoes for Free!
OFFER OF THE WEEK*Free Potato Collection – Worth £15.00
What you get in the kit: 5 x tubers of Potato ‘Vales Emerald’ – A Maris Peer/Charlotte cross with an RHS Award of Garden Merit that is proving to be very popular. Potato ‘Vales Emerald’ produces generous yields of oval, cream-skinned and pale fleshed tubers. Perfect for your first potatoes of the year, and a simply delicious as a salad potato. Height and spread: 60cm (24″). 1 x potato planter – Holds approximately 40 litres of multipurpose compost (sufficient to plant 3 or 4 tubers). 5 x packets of vegetable seed – Receive 5 packets of quality vegetable seeds. The vegetable seeds will be chosen by Thompson & Morgan and may vary from those illustrated. *Just pay £4.95 postage HOW TO GET YOUR FREE POTATO KIT: GO to www.thompson-morgan.com and enter Offer Code: AF11109 in the box labelled “Enter catalogue or newspaper code:” This will ensure the £15 is crossed out and only the postage is applicable. Terms &Conditions: Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer code and is only valid with orders placed online START DATE: NOW END DATE: Midnight Sunday 27th November 2011 This is a really generous offer – 5 tubers of top quality potatoes, packets of seeds, and a planter bag which you can reuse for subsequent crops, or other vegetables. For instance, we have just planted two lots of asparagus in planters. Such a neat and easy way to grow vegetables, especially plants that need to be kept under control. So if you are interested, don’t delay, apply today! Happy gardening! Val Reynolds, Editor |
Thompson & Morgan are offering a fabulous Potato KIT FREE* for every visitor – worth £15.00!What is Urban Greening?
Front garden paving
I was inspired by a talk at a Royal Horticultural Show earlier this year about urban greening. We heard about the effect of concreting or bricking over drives and how it affects the movement of rain and how flooding can occur. In fact there are local authority regulations related to the maximum area of any front garden can be covered, you should look at your local county council’s website.
We were shown photographs of gardens before and after and were impressed at how much more interesting drives could look with just a little design and planting.
Being aware and taking action to reduce the risk of flooding to property may even bring insurance premiums down. To find out more about how you can prepare and protect your property from flooding, visit the Environment Agency ‘How can I be prepared?’ web page.
Could urban greening be an advantage to your property? The RHS have a website page with that information, it is in print form as well.
Our drive is paved with gravel between the paving and we have grown thyme from seed and planted it this autumn. Nothing much to see at the moment but we’ll add images next summer to show the difference. Other plants we could use are bugle, thyme serpyllum, creeping jenny.
Common Name: Creeping jenny
Genus: Lysimachia
Species: nummularia
Skill Level: Beginner
Exposure: Full sun, Partial shade
Hardiness: Hardy
Soil type: Well-drained/light, Moist, Boggy
Height: 8cm
Spread: 90cm
Time to plant seeds: March to May
Time to divide plants: September to May
Flowering period: May to August
Creeping jenny is a useful plant all around the garden. The prostrate, creeping stems make excellent ground cover around pond margins and, being evergreen, are useful for concealing the edges of pond liners. They also infiltrate pondside plants or those growing in a damp border, filling gaps and providing winter interest after other perennials have died down
www.ourfrontgarden.com is an ongoing record of the renovation and care of a front garden in a garden city in the UK.
Val Reynolds, Editor
Save our Vegetables!
A Most Suitable Gardener’s Gift
This opportunity of supporting a charity and helping to save a rare vegetable variety under threat of extinction will appeal to many gardeners with a sense of history and future preservation of vegetable varieties, especially if they grow plants from seed.
Britain’s leading organic growing charity, Garden Organic, offers the perfect green gift by encouraging people to Adopt a Veg.
The organisation looks after over 800 varieties of rare and heirloom vegetables in its Heritage Seed Library (HSL), and is offering people the chance to adopt one of these vulnerable varieties through it’s Adopt a Veg scheme, preventing them from becoming extinct.
For over thirty years the charity has been campaigning to save Britain’s traditional vegetable varieties, which are threatened by commercial pressures and EU red tape, and argues that some of these varieties may save us from a world food shortage.
Garden Organic’s head of the Heritage Seed Library, Sandra Slack, explains: “Without maintaining a range of vegetable varieties there is a very real threat to our food supply. Diversity of varieties means crops are less likely to fall foul of pests and diseases on a massive scale, and with a changing climate this can only become more and more important.
“Believe it or not the Victorians once grew 120 different tall garden pea varieties, but today, due to a range of pressures, only one tall pea variety remains. Many rare vegetable species have unique characteristics that make them suitable for growing in a wide range of conditions. We need to ensure we are not relying on one or two main varieties for our food source.”
By Adopting a Veg you can contribute to protecting these varieties, you will also be helping to protect the biodiversity of our planet. It costs just £20 and will help to pay for seed handling, storage and propagation facilities, as well as the staff needed to look after the ever-expanding collection.
You will receive a certificate of adoption for one year, background information on your adopted variety and a gift card designed by artist-in-residence, Lesley Davis. Most importantly you will have the personal satisfaction that you are helping to keep alive part of the UK’s precious vegetable heritage.
To Adopt a Veg visit http://www.adoptaveg.org/or call 02476 308210 to choose from their extensive list.
In Balance 