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A monthly report of gardening matters by Nicola Bush of Roseland Nursery
December 2011
 The BBC will not do long range weather forecasts now and its odd really that as the technology for forecasting weather has improved we seem to be provided with less information but I honestly believe it is becoming more accurate. I watch the weather in the evening or early morning and the forecasters are often correct to the hour as to when the rain will stop or the clouds will start to gather. However, during October when we were enjoying sunshine for days on end one of the forecasters was quizzed on her prognosis for the winter. They discussed the fact that there are so many early berries on the hollies. Was this an indication of Mother Nature providing early food for the birds to get through another cold winter? Well no, it isn’t.
We had early berries and prolific flowering because it was a damp summer and warm autumn. Equally some of my camellias that flower in January are in flower a month early because of the weather conditions. If you have a favourite camellia and the label says ’flowers January’ then watch it every year and see just when it flowers and make a note of it. You will find that some years there are significant differences in the flowering time. Just as with the holly berries, the weather conditions can change flowering times by weeks.
The reservoirs were actually below average in September and October but have been filling up and the ground in many places is quite wet though if you dig down, it’s not too far before the ground is still very dry, a lot of the water being superficial. But for gardeners its back to my usual advice for December in that by trampling over lawns and flower beds you may be doing more harm than good. Soil becomes compacted and damaged and puddles can form leaving vast areas for frost to form when it comes. So unless your drainage is perfect, December is the month to do other jobs that you don’t have time for when conditions are more conducive.
I take the opportunity to tidy up the pots that always seem to end up in piles of differing sizes, to clean out the sheds and even to clean the outside of the glasshouse and poly tunnels, thus letting in as much of the little light that we have available to us at this time of year. It’s not a bad time to think of buying in composts. Many of the garden centres have it on offer at this time of year as they don’t sell much and you know you are going to need loads in the not too distant future. But, as I always say, make sure that the compost bags have been kept under cover. Those that have been left out in the rain this autumn will have had all the goodness leached out of them.
 It’s also time to sit down with the seed catalogues or to make seed buying part of your Christmas shopping. When you have had enough of family over the festive period it’s a great excuse to run from the dining table claiming that you must sow your sweet peas or broad beans!
Another job worth contemplating is any hard landscaping in the garden, as long as it’s not too frosty. A good pal of mine who is one of the best landscapers I have come across always has order books full to brimming from March to October but he has no work planned until February and he cannot understand why you don’t get your patio and retaining walls done now, whilst he is less busy and you can give him the space to work because you are not out side so much and landscaping materials, like the composts, are cheaper.
No doubt you are also using the mower less. Take the opportunity to give it a good overhaul and a thorough clean or better still take it for a professional service. It will pay dividends, lengthen its life and make those frantic spring mowings efficient. Nothing worse than getting the mower out to find its clogged with last year’s grass and the spark plug is furred up and the petrol too old to move freely. And whilst you are getting the mower out of the shed take out all the tools and give them a good clean up, sharpen the hoe, clean the tines of the fork, shine up and edge the spade and check your secateurs. If you don’t know what you are doing sharpening the secateurs can be tricky. Their special shape needs to be retained and the cutting blades may need doing professionally. Secateur sharpening is cheap and replacing the spring can save all sorts of bother next spring. We always have a trip to the garden machinery outlet, loading up the boot with all the equipment for servicing so that hedge trimmers, mowers, cultivators, edging shears and the like are all ready for after Christmas.
One other little job that I do is to make the Christmas wreath for the front door. By all means buy a commercial one, but look at the prices they charge and nine times out of ten they are artificial and not strong enough for our weather. You can make the circular shape with willow or hazel twigs and if you don’t have any they are easily  obtainable as bear wreaths. Attach some lengths of conifer, pine or fir (or even some ivy) carefully with wires whilst retaining the shape and gather some pine cones and dry some orange slices slowly in the oven and hey presto, with or without baubles and ribbon you have your own wreath for the front door and it cost very little and is much more satisfying. Because you have used material that has been hardened off out doors it will last well in the cold and windy weather and what’s more it won’t look as if you have hung a bit of ’High Street’ on your front door and will be truly original for little effort.
I wish everybody a very Happy Christmas and if you’re stuck for a present for friends or family consider a plant. I have so many specimens in the garden that remind me of the giver every time I look at them, yet I cannot remember who bought my socks, and wine and chocolates just don’t have the same longevity in our house!!
And if you run out of runner beans to sow and still need that relief from the family festivities remember it is traditional to prune your grapevine on Christmas Day!
November 2011
 It’s November and one is tempted to believe that much of the garden is going to sleep. On closer inspection however it is clear to see that there are still a few leaves on trees, much of the wild bracken is still green and I conclude that after that exceptionally beautiful bit of October, autumn came a bit later than usual. And what a strange year it has been. A bitterly cold winter, late Spring and then April with higher temperatures than normal and cloudless skies. July and August were very mixed (I am convinced now that August is not the correct month for School holidays, or anybody’s holidays for that matter) and then up comes October with some of the best weather we have seen since June!
I kept putting off the autumn clear up as there was so much that still looked good and if the cutting down of herbaceous plants is done too soon they start to grow again only to have that sappy growth knocked off when the weather turns.
Many of my friends are away for the whole of August and miss the garden for the school holiday season. Some are visiting family and others take to the high seas on boats and they are therefore more interested in the autumn garden for their return. One of the plants that I recommend for them is helenium which so impressed me in the one plant that I had last year that I planted seven of them against a sunny fence and they have rewarded me with a hundreds of lemon flowers for six weeks. The plant is a member of the sunflower family and whilst its flowers are much smaller there are masses of them on stems about 4’ tall. It is robust against wind and makes one of the best autumn shows imaginable. In my opinion it beats the michaelmas daisies by a long way being taller showier and lasting much longer. Interestingly it brings back yellow into the border too.
I think I have mentioned many times that yellow is the most talked about colour amongst gardeners. Generally we love it in winter for aconites, we welcome it in Spring for the daffodils, primroses and acacias and then we dismiss it for summer. I wish I had a quid for every person who has said they don’t want yellow in a hanging basket. And yet, along comes autumn and we have the helenium, rudbeckia, dahlias and cannas, many shining out in yellows and lemons. You needed sunglasses to walk past one of the driveways in Veryan a sea of yellow chrysanths, glowing in the morning sunshine.
 I mentioned last month that it is time now to order bare root plants for hedging or trees as they will be lifted now by growers until mid March. I gave some examples of the difference in prices comparing pot grown plants with bare root. This month I can give you an example to make your eyes water! We were asked to supply 100 Italian alder trees. Container grown were anywhere between £7 and £24 each for plants of 3-4ft. The bare root total cost for the trees is well under £200, a huge saving and the trees will get away faster being planted now.
So what else to do this month? Well you can plant pansies I suppose. You’ll buy them in flower (unless you buy as plugs) arrange them neatly outside and then I doubt you will see many more flowers until spring and in high winds they will go brown at the leaf edges. I suppose I don’t have to mention that I am not a fan of winter pansies, much rather see the violas in Spring. In our climate you can still plant daffodils, I have just put loads in one of the Cornish hedges and November is still the best month to plant tulips. Just remember, with most of our bulbs and certainly these common ones they need to be planted at least twice the depth of the bulb or you risk them coming up with loads of leaves and no flowers.
Bare rooted roses can be bought now. I  am always loathed to openly advertise in this column but we do have a superb Rose company on our doorstep at Mitchell, the Cornish Rose Company, where they sell retail as well as wholesale. The company is a division of Pococks roses from Hampshire and they specialise in roses that will grow well in our climate as not all will. This year was a supreme example of why that is so. Most roses this year were better than ever. This is primarily because they had at least 5 weeks of very cold weather. That is when they stop growing and seem to muster energy. In a normal Cornish winter they continue to put on root growth and expend too much energy to flower particularly well. Hence if you buy a rose that will cope with our climate your success will be the greater.
 If you are replacing old roses in the same site then you must remove and replace all the soil or risk rose replant disease.
Many of the winter veg are able to be picked now. Leeks and sprouts always seem to taste better after a frost when the starches therein turn to sugars (the science bit, but you don’t need to understand it, just taste it!)
If I was going to do anything this month I would plant a tree and I would choose firstly Acacia pravissima, one of the hardiest of the acacias with arching stems that move in the wind and with masses of yellow flowers very early in the year. Secondly a hoheria which blesses us with white flowering cherry like flowers in August. Both are evergreen, prefer a little shelter especially form the easterlies and would love to be planted now.
If we all planted a tree this autumn what a difference we could make.
October 2011
 Bollingey is a bit off my beaten track but I have a good friend, Sally, who lives there who I usually meet somewhere between the two of us but I went over last week for the first time in ages. Now Sally wouldn’t profess to be a great gardener but she knows what she likes and she works hard to keep her acre of garden and terrace looking good. Since her cat died she has been plagued with rabbits but her veg garden is productive but less attractive now that it is a sea of wire netting and every rabbit defence you can imagine. There is no better rabbit defence than a couple of cats, I have four and never see a rabbit in the garden unless it is very dead and decapitated (rabbit brain is apparently a cat delicacy).
Sally rushed into the garden to shoo off a neighbour’s cat and I suggested to her that it might be worth befriending next door’s invader, putting up with a bit of cat damage in return for a bit of rabbit chasing. The cat is now totally confused as the mad woman that he tried to avoid is now coo cooing at him. But really the point of mentioning Sally is her hostas. The first time I saw them I couldn’t believe it. She has fifteen huge pots of hostas, all different varieties, on her terrace and not a snail mark on them. Why? How? Well she keeps them in full sun! She didn’t know they prefer shade and they certainly do not suffer, they look even better than when I last saw them.
She keeps them on terracotta saucers full of water and the saucers are large enough that a snail has to swim to the pot and she confesses that she does do a regular snail hunt and keeps the pots away from walls but heck they look good. So I did the same this year with my favourite Samson. Huge pot, full sun, away from the wall and swimming in a saucer of water. It works. Ok there is a need to check them over but mine have never been so successful. We can all learn something from others and sometimes it pays to break the rules.
Another visit last month was to an older friend of mine who has been a keen gardener for seventy years and despite physical problems still does as much as she can in her garden in St Mawes. When she chose the house off plan in the 1960s the builder told her she would never grow anything as the house was on rock and indeed she watched tines breaking on the diggers as they carved out the plot for her  bungalow. You should see it now. She appears to have a completely isolated micro climate. Plumbago up the outside walls, abutilon of the most tender type blooming and everything so healthy. This summer I gave her a climbing geranium, a cutting of one of mine. It will survive outside for her whereas I have to keep mine in the conservatory. Now it is definitely down to her hard work and her only problem is the perennial weed that comes up everywhere, paths, tarmac, drive, borders, veg patch – no, you didn’t guess it; her weed is the Blue Giant agapanthus that she struggles to control, oh for her problems!!
The only thing she cannot grow is grass, so there is no lawn. When I asked her why not she looked at me with horror, ’oh not you as well’ she said, ‘why does everyone try to have a lawn in St Mawes? Surely they know that the ground temperatures from the rock are too high? Now I have discussed this comment with my horticultural mentor and he has never heard this said before but he thinks she may well be correct in that high underground temperatures may well affect growth and encourage some of the lawn fungi, red thread and the like.
Now Richard, the aforementioned mentor, was helping me repot a humongous yucca. I had been asked to go and do my annual prune and’ sort’ out in a conservatory and he was helping with the heavy stuff. After several goes at pulling and pushing the pot and hitting it with a rubber mallet it finally broke, frankly we could have predicted that and saved ourselves a lot of time. Hav ing pulled off the rest of the pot which was as good as welded to the root system he got a saw and we took off two thirds of the roots and repotted it back with John Innes compost.
If you have house plants that need repotting but you don’t want to keep going up a size then this is a handy way to keep the plant in check. I then set about the Christmas cacti which were desperate for repotting and found them swimming in water in their containers. It is a miracle they were still alive and the water around them and the root system smelt rank. Richard laughed, he writes a gardening column for a local paper and he says if ever you are short of something to write this is an old favourite. Write a whole piece on how more house plants are killed through too much water than too little. So remember, the house plants are now going into dormancy and need less water and your cacti can be left without water until end February unless they are in a very sunny window sill, in that case, if they start to look a bit pruny, (a bit like your fingers when you spend too long in the bath), give them just a little drink.
Congratulations to all you show entrants and winners, another grand display and such fun! St Just Show was up to its usual standard and bar a little bother with the size of the pom pom dahlias all went well. I was honoured to judge the flowers and it is a bit of a poison chalice when standards are so high. In fact the dahlias were so good this year despite the weather (there must be a lot of glass house dahlias in St Just!) there was a clear first prize winner in one section but the others in the class all had to have second prize.
 Having watched my pal judging the cookery I have decided I might change places. She spent ages and tasted everything – I think she does this judging to get a high quality lunch!
I must of course mention the prize winning cactus dahlias. They were as close to perfect and the most brilliant red. Clear winners which deservedly provoked much admiration. Imagine my horror only a week later to see these same dahlias (or at least from the same plants) being shown in Veryan and up against mine!! Needless to say the clever girl won again!
Veryan Show is a great leveller because it is a larger event and therefore is open to anyone. I was so impressed with it this year. The organisation takes enormous effort from the dedicated committee and is supported by the School, the WI and of course the community exhibitors. This year there were around 700 entries an enormous task and the hall was full to bursting with flowers and veg and the School full of needlework, limericks poems, sculptures, heck you name it they found a way to exhibit it.
At the end of another fantastic summer season congratulations to Show organisers and exhibitors, I for one have had a wonderful time.
September 2011
 It is exactly a year since my Rhode Island reds arrived and I look back on an interesting year with them. We prepared a large area of grass with wire chicken netting sunk to a metre depth and two 30 metre interchangeable runs, I found a chicken house on moveable skids and the finally my ‘rescue’ chickens arrived. I had ordered 12 hens; they were a year old and at that great age would have been cat food by now apparently. The fabulous lady and her husband that transported them came to inspect the pens and told me she would bring fifteen in case of calamities on the short journey, stress and the like. So when eighteen arrived I discovered she had had added an extra three to the fifteen so thank heavens the chicken house is designed for twenty five.
A very regular visitor to Veryan just happens to have spent his entire working life with commercial chickens so he was quick to visit and declare that my girls are healthy and would think they had died and gone to heaven in these new palatial surroundings. However I was not to expect great laying until they were settled in for a while and what I don’t know now about yolks, whites, shells, pecking orders and chicken reproductive processes from my knowledgeable mentor is not worth knowing! My feisty Rhode Islands were having none of his predictions and were laying at an average of 12 per day until April when the weather was so hot and they have laid a lot less since. I am reliably informed that that is down to weather, a rest period that they have to have and the fact that they are getting older. Because the girls are so close to the garden I spend a lot of time just watching them and a friend so generously donated a bench!!
I am very grateful to everybody who has proffered advice in an area where I was a complete novice and woefully ignorant. What a wealth of chicken expertise we have locally. There are also huge ranges of rules and regulations regarding the numbers kept, how they ‘qualify’ as farm eggs, free range, barn or cage (look at the price differences in the supermarket) and their distribution. I was fascinated to discover that if you sell eggs (and I will not venture into farm gate sales, market sales and distribution!!) you have to provide a new box, but a buyer can bring their own used box. All to do with cross contamination from the porous egg shell.
In the year we have had the chickens we have lost one or two and it appears that it was all natural causes but the remaining birds are healthy and happy.
In fact so many people in the area keep chickens that you probably wonder at my pleasure in these few fowl, but they are proving a joy and we now have twenty  seven mouths to feed with cats, dog and family. My mother generously asked if we would like another chicken house for Christmas to extend the numbers, but my husband said he would rather she had a sign made up, strategically placed, saying ‘No more livestock!’
So what has all this got to do with the garden? Quite a lot actually. I have written before about composting and we have built compost bins out of old pallets, lined them up together so that the front pallet of each is removable and all garden and kitchen waste goes therein with the exception of any cooked foods or citrus. The contents of the bins are turned every couple of months by putting the contents of one into the next empty bin. That way we keep a rotation, the contents cook down to a crumbly soil enhancer and then are transferred to all the garden borders and the veg beds. But now they will also be topped up with the manure from the chickens together with the newspaper from under the perches.
Chicken manure is alkaline and its pH value will depend very much on what the chickens are fed, with layers mash and corn probably 6.5-8.0. But it breaks down into one of the best forms of compost available particularly when mixed in layers with the grass cuttings and the other garden waste. The manure is high in nitrogen so particularly good for fruit trees and that is one area of commercial horticulture where it is used fresh. It is relatively low in nutrients compared with commercially produced chemical fertilisers and is slow to release those nutrients; however it is a good free source of goodness for the garden that is not chemically enhanced. It is easily available in pelleted form and can be found granulated but take care not to inhale the dust.
Now, further great excitement the schedule for Veryan and District Autumn Show has arrived. I was honoured to be judging again at St Ewe show last month and it gives one preview of what has been achieved this year. If you haven’t been to St Ewe Show I would highly recommend a visit next August. It is usually around the 21st, on a Sunday. Parking is very close to the Show field and it is a compact flat area with many stalls, a silver band and dog show. The horticultural entries were better than ever this year, although some of the dahlias had obviously suffered from the weather in August. Having said that, a cactus dahlia won best in Show. The children’s entries were fantastic and huge congratulations to all that entered.
So I am looking forward to Veryan Show because it has been a tricky year with early heat in April and cool spells in June and August together with heavy showers in late August too. That played havoc with getting the wheat in but I have learned over the years not to worry about weather, it’s the one thing I can do nothing about!
Also this month is St Just Show where I am honoured to be judging again. I love this Show. There is merit in it being ‘closed’ and therefore only open to residents of the parish. That keeps out some of the professional show growers and gives some of the real amateurs a chance and the Hall is always packed with flowers veg and produce, not to mention the baking and eggs. If you have a chance, go and have a look on September 10th. It is well worth a visit. I just wonder if any of the lady flower arrangers will have any energy left after the Flower festival at St Just Church. I have taken part in and visited a few flower festivals in my time and I have to say that this festival was one of the very best I have ever seen. I do not say that lightly, the execution of the themes around the Church, the pond and the grounds was exceptional; there is some serious talent in St Just!!
 Back to your garden and those September jobs. There will be borders to overhaul, new perennials to plant, old perennials to split, seeds to collect, rose cuttings to take and bulbs to plant, hyacinths for forcing, spring cabbages to plant and oh so much to harvest. I have just popped in from a heavy shower having dug up loads of rooted strawberry plant runners for next years indoor crop that will be fruiting in the tunnels in May hopefully. If you have time and room in your greenhouse take some young divisions of hostas, astilbe and hellebores and pot them up in the greenhouse for bringing indoors in February for a really early display and don’t forget to bring in all the more delicate pot plants that have enjoyed summer outside.
Good luck with your show entries for Veryan and St Just. Try to remember it is the taking part that is important so that we encourage the youngsters and keep these marvellous shows going and congratulations to all the organisers of the Shows and the Flower festival, huge jobs done for love and much appreciated by all who visit! Thank you!
August 2011
 Assuming you are at home and not entertaining hoards of relatives for this wonderful month of August then as I have said before now is the time to look around the garden and see what has worked, what has not and to look for gaps. Those gaps so often found now when the best spring show has disappeared, the early summer stuff going brown and if you are not careful your garden is looking autumnal way before its time.
Tedious I know, but one of the best remedies for tired plants, be they annual or perennial, is dead heading. I have had two good showings of lupin flowers this year because I took off the heads just before they ran to seed and perennial geraniums and oriental poppies will easily flower twice if all the first flowers are trimmed off. The second flush on perennials may be smaller flowers but well worth it. Many of the roses particularly the hybrid teas will continue to flower if dead headed regularly.
 Last year I covered an ugly little fence with a few small hydrangeas. They have rewarded me thoroughly this year with a brilliant purple and pink show and, although I have a few friends who consider them as weeds, I just think they are the best flower for August. They are available in so many colours, resistant to disease and stood up to the unseasonal wind and rain in mid July. I planted some oak leaf varieties in a customer’s garden in June and they have put on so much growth and flower in a month, they are a complete delight. I would swap them for every other weed in the garden!
If the weather is conducive, find time to just sit and admire your handy work, I am going to suggest this month that there are loads of jobs to do, but I do maintain that if you don’t stop then sometimes you never really appreciate what you have achieved. However if you do stop, like I did the other Friday, glass of cold white in hand at the end of a long day, you look down the herbaceous border, proud as punch and then you see it: the tallest clump of willow herb waving in the breeze. So glass down, you get closer to pull it out and then see the rest of the weeds that the tallest plants were hiding. An hour later there is a pile of weeds on the lawn and the wine has gone warm, but that’s just the way it is!
 And I mention the herbaceous border because you may recall it was dug out and planted two years ago. I am a little surprised that all the gallardia, of which there was too much, did not survive the winter, but other than that everything seems to be bigger and more handsome than ever and I have far fewer slugs and snails. On the whole I think the cold winter made everything stronger and more floriferous generally and we had few major losses. I am very reluctant to pick out any plants in the garden to rave about because I love them all, but the burnt orange day lilies next to the pale terracotta phygelius do really make a splash and both have been flowering profusely now for over a month. If you don’t know about phygelius then look them up, evergreen, tidy flower spikes to over 30cm that last for weeks and the snails do not like them. Some sort of butterfly or moth did like them earlier in the season but I picked off the caterpillars and they haven’t returned: a robust, value for money plant. It creeps along a bit to spread itself out but just hack it back and it’s not too much trouble. As for the agapanthus – no, we really must get on with some work….
Many of the shrubs that are more difficult to take cuttings from in spring on the soft new growth work better if taken now. Hebe, box, santolina etc seems to root much better at this time of year. You are looking for what we call semi ripe material. Look for cuttings that are about 8cm long and just going woody at the base. Don’t put them in a hot greenhouse or propagator they are better outdoors in the shade but keep them moist. A cold frame or a raised bed is perfect. I am going to take garrya elliptica cuttings this year, you remember, the one with the winter catkins as big as my hand. There is still time to sow a few late lettuces. Or plant corn salad that will go through the winter. Radishes will still grow and the hardier spring onions. And if you want strawberries next year now is the time to buy them either as bare root or more expensively potted ones or take the runner cuttings from this year’s plants.
 August is also the time for summer pruning, (heck, we left the deckchair empty a while back didn’t we?) Trained forms, cordons, espalier and fans should be pruned now. When your leader shoot is as long as you want it cut off the tip and turn it into the spur that will fruit next year. Prune back the new growth of all side shoots to about 8cm cutting just above a bud to form a spur. The wisteria can be tidied now too.
I often choose August to reflect on my nominee for ‘Plant of the Year’ in my garden. This year without a doubt it is the eucomis, commonly known as the pineapple lily. Exotic, snail free, come through the winter unscathed flowering profusely in the garden and in pots. It will be awarded the prize.
July 2011
 July, and all is well in the garden. A warm June with some welcome rains and little wind has sprung everything into life. The sappy spring growth has either fallen over in the winds or hardened up and we have seen some welcome rain for the crops. At the risk of repeating myself, rain does not get through to the soil where you have thick luscious bedding, so watering and dead heading are still essential.
I harvested the first cucumbers on June 12th and the tomatoes were picking well by the last week of June. My early strawberries grown in pots in the tunnels have been replaced now by the outdoor ones and they taste a lot better. They are twice as big with a much higher sugar content. My only problem with the outdoor strawberries wasn’t slugs but a very cheeky blackbird that didn’t fly away even when I was close up to him; he just kept pecking at the ripe fruit, looking very pleased with himself.
Needless to say my strawberry bed is now covered in very unattractive up turned old hanging baskets that seem to have foiled him. I also don’t remember a year when I have picked strawberries before broad beans. The beans were late g oing in because of the winter weather conditions and that doesn’t help the crop rotation as they will be much later being cleared. I religiously pinched out the growing tips to deter the black fly but the little blighters have appeared though only in their thousands, not millions, like previous years.
Last spring, two weeks before the Royal Cornwall Show, I had a call from a large exhibitor wanting tubs for their display. Bearing in mind that tubs and baskets are often ordered from February and planted well in advance to fill out, this was a fairly tall order as I like displays to go out well established and not looking as if they had been crammed into a pot at the last minute with gaping bits of compost showing.
As always, I went to see my friend who produces only bedding on the north coast. He was amused to see me, as every year I leave his premises in March with the bedding order, promising not to see him again until the autumn bedding collection in August. But every year there is some sort of last minute panic and up I roll with my latest problem when he has nothing left, as all the stock has gone at least a month previously, or has been reserved for large garden centres on a two week supply basis. But he has never failed to get me out of trouble and took me up to his largest glasshouse, an absolutely stunning construction, which was a sea of brilliant red, spoiled only by his wife’s washing drying in the hot glasshouse.
 Here were the largest red pelargoniums I have ever seen. They were in small 4” pots but the plants had a girth of well over 12 “and were at least 18” high. Of course I scooped up loads for the job but wanted to know how he could produce such magnificent plants in the tiniest amount of compost. It doesn’t take a professional to know it was in the feed but I nurture my plants regularly with the proprietary professional feeds bought in bulk quantities as he does, but do not produce specimens like these.
The secret to a massive pelargonium? Once they are producing buds he feeds at every other watering with a very high potash and magnesium fertiliser which you and I will recognise simply as tomato food. For domestic use he decries the use of expensively packaged ‘blue’ food with the added costs of TV advertising and acclaims the humble bottle of tomato food with the necessary trace elements (boring elements like boron and copper). Litre for litre the cost of this feed against a fancy package, heavily marketed is far less and actually much easier to administer.
 The zingy red pelargoniums were packed into wooden tubs, surrounded by my favourite little filler, Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ centred with a cordyline (also raised on tomato food!) and they looked as if they had been planted in March like all the others. This year the same exhibitor called me 9 weeks in advance of the Show so I haven’t had quite the same traumas this year.
My relief at having the display ready last year was all that was required. But in the aftermath of the rush I bought several of the proprietary foods and compared the ingredients on the back of the packaging. I have also tried to cost a litre. Actually it is not possible to compare properly as manufacturers only have to put on the major contents and tell you to go to hospital if you, or presumably your unattended child accidentally drink it. Not much help to the amateur scientist in me. But it has prompted me to go back to the boring bits and work out what a healthy bedding plant needs for the season. I have written about this before but I am going to repeat it because getting the feeding of any garden plant correct has amazing results.
‘NPK’ is what you see on the back of the packet:-
Nitrogen encourages vegetative growth and is therefore important in lawns and leaf crops.
Phosphorous is for root growth and the ripening of fruit. It builds up in regularly fertilised soil and it is recycled within the plant and so deficiencies are rare in the garden but it needs adding to summer pots.
Potassium is essential for good fruit and flower formation (hence the fabulous flowers on the pelargoniums).
Magnesium is required for the correct functioning of photosynthesis but also aids the movement of phosphorous within the plant
Calcium helps harden the cell walls within plants and finally sulphur is required for the production of chlorophyll.
 Any good make of food, designed for the job, will have the correct ratio of each of the above plus those little beggars (with names that your average spell check throws out), the trace elements. These are minor, though essential nutrients, which are in miniscule amounts and are measured in parts per million. That apart they are absolutely essential.
Iron and manganese for the production of chlorophyll, boron makes calcium available within the plant and moves around the sugars, copper make the plant enzymes function correctly and zinc is required for pollen production. Molybdenum helps the uptake of nitrogen and is heavily involved in the root nodule activity.
If you’re still with me you will be glad to know that the science bit is finished. If you glazed over 500 words back then you will have got the earlier point about that wonder, tomato food!
June 2011
 There’s so much to talk about in June that I am not sure where to start this month!! No doubt those with greenhouses are doing the usual dash to open them in the morning and similarly to close at night and keeping the tomatoes and cucumbers fed and watered. My Dad had two greenhouses, both of domestic size and he separated the tomatoes and cucumbers because they have quite different needs. The tomatoes like a dry heat and the cucumbers a more moisture laden atmosphere. But without the luxury of two greenhouses the job has to be done in one area and if you didn’t realise it this may be why you have difficulty with one or other of the crops.
A horticulturalist friend of mine insists that tomatoes should not be planted into their final position until the first truss has formed. I was not aware of that and I still insist that ,being careful not to over water, they are best planted whilst still small so that they get a good start at putting root down into that final planting place at an early stage. I have had an opportunity to compare his crop and mine and frankly I cannot see any difference in form or yield. There is more of an argument to me in the growing medium used. Frankly grow bags are useless. It’s only my opinion but look at the facts. You are asking a large flower and fruit producing plant with a humungus root system to grow in roughly 10 litres of compost for four to five months. Equally, compare the cost of a branded grow bag with proprietary compost and litr e for litre they are hugely expensive.
So if you are determined to grow in a bag get a 60 or 80 litre bag of multi purpose, cut it in half width ways and stand it up to form your pot. For about £3.00 you have two pots of 30/40 litres of compost and a much greater chance of success. And to me success equals health, longevity and yield of the plant.
I use 50 litre tubs for my tomatoes and cucumbers and the growing medium is 30% John Innes No3 which gives some oomph, (for want of a better description) and 70% good quality multi purpose. Now, having banged on last month about peat free composts I still have peat based compost available so I have done 50% peat inclusive and 50% peat free and we will see how we fair and which grow best in terms of health and yield. If I publish the result later in the season it will be because the peat free wins! If it doesn’t then I shall have to take some advice from those who know better and pass that on to you. One lesson I have learned is not to mix home grown compost into the mix, i.e. compost we have produced in our bins. This is not sterilised and can lead to weed and disease in plants in an enclosed area.
 Once the first truss has formed on both the toms and cues I start feeding with a branded fertiliser, organic this year in the peat free and the peat, though those with peat cannot be claimed to be grown organically as this compost has chemical fertiliser within. I do give them a liquid foliar feed with a seaweed extract to start them off though I have stopped this by now as I want flowers and fruit not leaves. I have talked about growing tomatoes and cucumbers before but it is worth mentioning again that ‘normal’ tomatoes should have the side shoots removed so that the upward growth is not diverted sideways and the plant doesn’t become too bushy, again producing leaves rather than flowers and fruit.
Remember that the plant needs leaves to photosynthesise but it doesn’t need so many that it is trying to support all the leaves and ripen fruit. Therefore I take off the lower leaves as they become a little manky and are not contributing to the plant and that also lets in light to ripen the fruit. Remove leaves below a truss that it is forming, not above and you will keep moving up the plant and letting in light and leaving less chance of disease in older leaves. Bush tomatoes and basket tomatoes do not need to have side shoots removed. As for those tomatoes being grown in a very expensive container upside down on a recent TV advert, I am afraid I cannot advise and being over fifty and therefore unwilling to challenge what I understand about plant growth and gravity I leave it to others to experiment!!
And then, the great debate, to ‘stop’ the plant or not? Many gardeners take out the growing shoot when the plant reaches what they consid er to be optimum height. Now your greenhouse size may determine this but why not keep them growing take them sideways across wires or canes at a height away from contact with the glass and keep taking the fruit until October. Taking out the growing shoot will also create more work as the plant creates more side shoots to compensate.
The principles for cucumbers are exactly the same, removing side shoots and lower leaves as fruit forms. If you are growing tomatoes and cucumbers together it is worth gently watering the whole cucumber plant to create moisture and humidity whilst keeping tomato leaves dry.
I have to smile wryly as I re read this article and edit it because here I am with a tunnel full of tomatoes and nobody in my family eats them! They like the sauce I make for the freezer which goes over the winter spag bol and they like tomato used in cooking but neither of them eat them fresh from the plant. I have to admit I never buy them, once they are picked and have travelled they are a different commodity but a Sungold tomato taken straight from the plant, warm and juicy, that’s my idea of heaven and they will be lunch for many weeks to come!
May 2011
 With a few heady days of April sunshine we have all had an opportunity to get out there and start some real gardening. It makes such a difference when the sun is out. Everything seemed to be later for the early spring stuff and then the early summer plants are blooming now, but I wonder if, actually, everything is really on time and we have just got used to things coming early because of the years of milder winters that we have had prior to the last two. Whatever, things always seem to catch up and although I am much later putting many of the veg out I doubt anything will suffer for the late start, perhaps though I may get caught out with blight in the potatoes as I will be lifting the new ones nearly four weeks later than usual. Hey ho, we will see what the summer weather brings for us.
I saw my first swallow on April 18th, last year it was the 14th, that’s earlier than ever before so perhaps they believe it will be a good summer and if they get in early will have time to produce two broods. Personally I just hope that the weather we have had in April isn’t our summer which is what happened last year. And I hate to be a kill joy but we really could do with some serious rain!
I always spend the months of April and May building hanging baskets and mangers for customers and it’s a very exciting time. Handling all those wee plants that you know are going to make a summer splash just fills my heart with hope for the summer season and hope that they won’t all get rain bashed and blown away like the last couple of summers.
Now, my monthly rant about the weather over, here is a different subject. In last month’s article I mentioned the peat free compost debate. Frankly I have been a sceptic because the science was not there to prove that gardeners were endangering the planet bearing in mind how much the Asian world uses peat for firing power stations. The government’s desire for gardeners’ and growers’ composts to be peat free by 2010 didn’t happen and I don’t think it was laziness on our part. I have trialed all sorts of alternative composts and they just didn’t match up to the peat alternative.
 However, I am, as of now, a relative convert to peat free media and all the trade associations and the government is finally agreed we are to be peat free by 2020. In fact I think it will happen a lot quicker than that. So why have they agreed with each other at long last and why do I think it will happen quickly?
Firstly the science is now there. The destruction of lowland peat bogs has an effect on the wildlife that depends on it such as dragonflies, butterflies and birds. 3% of the global land surface is peat bog and a 10 metre deep extraction takes 10,000 years to replace, growing at only 1mm per year – that’s slow! In understandable terms, it takes 1,000 years to replace every metre of peat extracted. Now I have always known this, but I have been unconvinced that the extraction for gardening use was really significant being so minutely small compared with other uses and there was, in my opinion, no suitable alternative and believe me I have tried them all! Equally, the best alternative was coir which has to travel miles (admittedly by sea, not air) to get to Europe.
However, now we know and have proven evidence that peat bogs not only need to be retained for wildlife but that they are great absorbers of carbon from the atmosphere. This 3% land mass of peat bogs absorb twice as much as the equivalent rain forest.
Secondly, the manufacturers of alternatives have now come up with composts that are not only as good as peat based but in most cases better! A recent Gardening Which? Trial put all the peat free multi purpose composts above the peat based. The trial grew Busy Lizzy Pink Sparkler and new potatoes and it rather damned some of the peat based in comparison, particularly those with moisture controls.
The fact is that the peat free versions , manufactured from recycled organic, garden waste and timber have been very carefully formulated and have the added benefit that this waste is going back into the land not to landfill.
Now as I said I was a sceptic but I have trialed several types myself and I am now pretty much a convert. I doubt it will take to 2020 for peat to be a memory in composts. Too many professional growers are now convinced and manufacturers are rolling this peat free out and reducing the peat composts available. Several of the large manufacturers will not be selling peat based next season. In any event, composts that incorporate peat now use a lot less than before and that content is being reduced all thetime. So do not feel too guilty if your compost has peat in it, the quantity is relatively small and getting less every year.
The compost I prefer is produced from sustainable sources and is formulated from forest bark, processed wood fibre and clay. The wood content is waste from the timber industry. It has remarkable water holding property whilst being well drained. It is beautiful to handle and looks as if you should be pouring milk on it for breakfast not using it for plants! It incorporatesfertilisers for slow release and in the one I use those fertilisers are organic so I am rid of chemicals too.
The best part is that now you can buy it for the same price as a peat based version, you should not be paying any more, so don’t!
 Enjoy May, the best month of the year for gardeners as everything we plant emerges, and try the peat free alternative – I think it makes sense!
Jobs for May:
- Plant up summer bedding tubs and baskets. Keep them frost free until mid/end May and harden off before putting outside permanently. All this involves is leaving them outside during the day, bringing in at night until the sappy growth is tough enough to withstand the weather that might be thrown at them.
- Side shoot greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers. Start feeding once the first truss has formed.
- Plant out hardened off veg plants and try to remember to successionally sow lettuce and other salad crops to avoid the usual feast and famine. Every two weeks should do the trick.
- Plant out new dahlias and take cuttings of their young shoots.
- Put supports in for the tall herbaceous plants before they get too big to handle.
- Remember to feed the dying daffodils so that they make good bulbs for next year.
- Soft cuttings of garden shrubs can be taken now.
- Finally if you’re flowering ornamental cherry needs pruning for form and shape, do it now. Leaving it later will encourage disease.
- Plenty to do – keep at it!!
April 2011
 It is very difficult not to bang on about the weather and I am not going to resist temptation. Whilst the March sunshine was encouraging the cool nights meant that temperatures in the tunnels fluctuated form 25 deg C to 5 degs. Poor little plants must wonder what an earth is happening! Or do they? Germination has been good with night time protection and although a lot of plants in the garden are late, they will still arrive in due course.
My plant of the month has to be Garrya ellyptica’James Roof’. Once again it has catkins on it up to 10” long. I remarked that they look like Victorian earrings but Stuart thought they were reminiscent of curtain tassels. However you would describe them they are really quite stunning and have lasted for weeks because of the weather.
 I was in St Mawes at the beginning of March and the gardener, Richard, that I was disturbing with my idle chatter, was cutting the hardy fuchsias hard back. It concerned me because I got caught out last year trimming them too early and exposing them to frost, but as he said, you get to a point where they just have to be done. Richard has worked in Cornish gardens all his life and is professionally trained and highly experienced. Although not a moon gardener, he watches the cycles of the moon and accurately forecast the late frosts last May. I shall watch his predictions with interest and trepidation particularly as the Met office is no longer giving us the longer range forecasts, which have proved inaccurate.
Now the garden that he was in is one close to my heart. For four years I was the gardener there. The owners are very knowledgeable themselves and, therefore, are passionate about the planting and development of the garden.
A couple of years ago the owner (although she prefers to be known as the ‘guardian’ of the garden) decided she would have a look at the practice of moon gardening and I of course was dragged along with its theories. I spent a considerable length of time researching principles and found that dependent upon which piece of research you read the principles of the dynamics were different. To an extent it was whether you believed the Babylonian, the Egyptian or the Anglo Saxon version. Whichever of those you leant towards you ended up getting mixed up with zodiacal signs, religious festivals and pagan rituals. It was enough to make you want to revert to DDT!
 That is when I rather belatedly, compared with many of you I am sure, discovered RJ Harris, the Head Gardener at Tresillian Walled Garden near Newquay who had returned to Moon Gardening after the decades of the 50s and early 60s when he had become disillusioned with all the chemical practices and returned to the age old organic gardening of his family line.
Within his books are really down to earth practices, simply written although firmly based on the moon and its phases. He says, ‘Father would never do anything unless the moon was right’. Now either his father was correct or like me he hung on his every word and his practices worked and so wherever or however they were based was immaterial.
In Tresillian’s garden he would not consider any plant or practice that was less than 100 years old. He had sweet peas dating back to 1690. I am tempted to say that actually his principles had less to do with the moon than good organic principles but he says that by working with the moon he had the planting times and cultivation so sorted out that by 2003 they had needed no artificial watering or chemicals in the previous 16 years. ‘That’s the real act of conservation’
It seems to him (and he has the healthy living proof) that we know t he moon has a gravitational pull affecting water levels, hence the tides that rise and fall according to the moon’s phases. So he pruned in the last quarter of the month when sap levels are low so there is no sap bleeding and he didn’t apply his organic fertiliser at new moon when it would stay close to the surface and possibly burn the plant. I strongly recommend at least reading ‘R. J. Harris’s Moon Gardening’ and it is up to you to decide if its moonshine. I suggest his results say not, although it may just be truly excellent organic practices. If you cannot be bothered to read it but there is still a little bit of you that is drawn to the principles of organic gardening, bearing in mind that we now know that the inclusion of peat in garden ‘composts’ is finally to be phased out by 2020 and that the government, Defra, the Horticultural Trades Association et al are now agreed on that ( a subject for a whole article soon I think), then consider carefully the simplicity of the basic rules of Mr Harris’s principles:-
Look in a good diary and you will see the moon’s quarters marked each month for you. New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, Last Quarter. Carry out your normal tasks for that month but using his recommendations on timing within that month. Mr Harris recommends:
- Start of the first quarter
Sow seeds of below ground crops such as carrots and potatoes.
- Start of the second quarter
Plant out seedlings and other plants.
Sow seeds of above ground crops such as cabbages.
Harvest below ground crops such as carrots and potatoes for immediate
consumption.
- Start of the fourth quarter
Add manure and fertilisers to the soil on the first day of the quarter
Harvest below ground crops for storage, for example potatoes and carrots.
Begin digging
- During the fourth quarter
Prune now, there is less risk of sap loss.
Following his principles as closely as possible and being as organic as possible should increase yields and quality quite substantially. As Mr Harris says, ’Gardening by the dark planet is the oldest thing under the sun...’Lunacy? I think not.
(My wife, Susanne Hatwood of The Blue Carrot, is also a fan! Ed.)
March 2011
 I got quite excited in February when the temperature went up to 10c. My winter holiday was taken simply because there wasn’t a lot I could do with snow and ice on the ground. I was even reluctant to clean tunnels or sheds in the sub zero temperatures. Therefore my broad beans (which you may recall I sow in January in pots under cover just as my Dad used to do) were not planted until mid Feb and once they were in and the temperatures looking better I started seed sowing in earnest. Now, if you are thinking you are way behind, worry not. As I write the temperature have plummeted again and I have never trusted February, it’s often the worst month of the year. But we have to hold our hopes out for March and even the most demanding seeds for length of germination will wait until things have really warmed up.
I am fortunate to have a heated bench in the tunnel and so I can give early sowings some bottom heat with a raised fleece to keep in the heat. And therein is probably the next most asked question, ’What should I be doing now?’ What can I sow now?
 The answer to those questions is relatively easy. Have a look at the seed displays in the Nursery or Garden Centre and most seed packets (though sadly not all) will display on the front of the packet ‘sow between Feb and April’ or ‘March and May’ etc. Reading this information carefully and following the instructions gives you a good guide as to what to do and when. Equally the instructions will guide you as to the temperature needed for germination so you may be looking at providing heat in a propagator or utilising the window sill indoors. Where confusion may arise is that some tomatoes, like my favourite Sungold actually take much longer to germinate and grow to useable size than say Alicante. This, to the extent that, there could be 5-8 weeks difference in sowing.
Whilst there is a huge variety of veg seed for you to have a go at growing your own I think that these days there are a couple of tips worth applying.
 Firstly, if you only have a small veg patch then grow things that you are certain of being successful with because you have done it before, or grow more expensive vegetables. Secondly grow something which is unavailable to buy. For example, Anya potatoes can be very expensive in the supermarket but are relatively cheap to grow as new potatoes in the garden or in tubs. Peas are cheap, but asparagus pea is rarely available in shops but it can be grown to be purely ornamental or picked very young, at less than one inch long they have a taste very similar to asparagus. They can be eaten raw or fried and are often roasted as a coffee substitute. It is a beautiful plant, grown just as peas but its pods are square, angled and winged and the flowers a deep purple red.
The big ‘new’ things now are heritage seeds. So you can have the original purple carrot. The best variety currently available is actually a modern variety called Cosmic purple and is best steamed to retain good colour and flavour. Similarly the much older varieties of tomato, potato etc. In fact the older types of vegetables are making a come back like the Old English roses.
Look at the supermarket plastic bag of lettuce. You can grow all the modern varieties in this colourful bag and see just how expensive it really is to buy like this. Putting just a small space aside or even long troughs, try several varieties with succession sowings. And then try the heirloom or heritage varieties. Your visitors will know by appearance and taste that these were not bagged by the supermarket, (or more exactly some chap in Spain.)
Lettuce ‘Cimarron’ is an heirloom variety thought to have been introduced in the 18th century. It is shaped like a cos lettuce a dark red in colour with a heart that is a creamy colour. It is full of flavour and crisp. Many of the modern varieties are bred not only for flavour but to prevent bolting. Cimmaron rarely bolts. Similarly  lettuce’cocarde’, a dark green leaf with a red tinge throughout is slow to bolt. Another cos type lettuce with a green leaf, splashed in red is Forellenschluss, an old Austrian variety whose name means speckled like a trout. These three lettuces in a summer salad bowl are tantalising in colour and each whole lettuce will have cost less than 1p if you sow the lot!!
A packet of Good King Henry will cost you about £1.75. This is a perennial plant so you have it forever. It has been grown for centuries and has an arrow shaped leaf which when picked young and blanched is an alternative to asparagus and the more mature leaves are in my opinion preferable to spinach.
Many of the well known tomatoes are heirloom varieties, li ke Ailsa Craig and Moneymaker. Less well known perhaps is ‘Harbinger’ which was introduced to our gardens in 1910. It is highly productive and thin skinned and grows well without a greenhouse and its double benefit is that it ripens well off the plant so you are not left with hundreds of green tomatoes at the end of September.
If you are really limited for space, try growing rampion. Its roots are white and carrot shaped and it makes a good winter vegetable or raw as a salad vegetable and its leaves can be used in salad too. No waste with this one!!
The heritage seeds are readily available but you are less likely to find them in the garden centres, best place is online. My Dad, mentioned above and very often in my thoughts because I caught my gardening bug from him. He was the best teacher one could have as a youngster. But when I mention ‘online’ I often wonder what he would have made of that innovation!
February 2011
 My brief for these articles is gardening matters so please do not be alarmed when I start by extolling the virtues of an article which appeared in Veryan parish mag last year. I have not gone back to look it up but it keeps coming back into my head because virtually everyday I am thankful for the tuition I was given at school in the basic elements of Latin. I wholeheartedly agree with the author who briefly explained how useful it is to understand the root of so many words now in common usage and I recall particularly sitting in a Latin exam being asked the meaning of the word ‘procrastination’, literally, pro or for and cras tomorrow. As a young person I had no idea what the word meant but applying the Latin I had learned I was able to work it out. I have used that knowledge readily and often.
No doubt you may have guessed where this is leading. So often I have customers or friends who say ‘I don’t know how you remember the botanical names of plants’. Well of course over a period of time one does tend to remember them and as a botanical language recognised across the world, I was able to wander around a Nursery in the Caribbean and my Spanish guide and I were talking the same language when it came to plants even though there was a slight confusion over the names of cakes in the café!!
I have touched on this subject before and it all becomes very real and useful when talking to somebody about a particular erigeron (type of d aisy) which I know as kavienskis but can be called colloquially in this country, Mexican Daisy, Spanish Daisy or more often now ‘that little daisy you see in the walls in Cornwall!’
So it is worth learning some of the basics like’longifolia’, long leaves, dentata, leaves like teeth, sanguineum,blood red, stellata,starlike. It is also worth understanding the genus or family name which is then followed by the species name so the Chrysanthemum used for cut flowers is usually Chrysanthemum, genus and morifolium, species. The genus isalways being written with an upper case beginning letter and the species in lower case. These two words may not encompass all variations because a species may give rise to several ‘varieties’ with different and distinctive characteristics. Also variations in species have arisen through breeding, selection and cultivation. These are referred to as cultivars.
Variety and cultivar mean the same thing but the botanical variety name is referred to in Latin beginning with a small letter while the cultivar is often given a name which refers to the plant breeder. A cultivar name will be written in inverted  commas and begin with a capital letter. Hence, apple, ‘Bramleys seedling’ or tomato ‘Sungold’
My 2010 holiday was taken at Christmas and into January simply because there wasn’t a lot I could do in the garden. I was even reluctant to clean tunnels or sheds in the sub zero temperatures. Therefore my broad beans (which you may recall I sow in January in pots under cover just as my Dad used to do) will not be planted until mid Feb and once they are in and the temperatures looking better I start seed sowing in earnest. Now, if you are thinking you are way behind, worry not. I am fortunate to have a heated bench in the tunnel and so I can give early sowings some bottom heat with a raised fleece to keep in the heat.
When I did my RHS training at Rosewar ne, I admired their heated benches but knew they were expensive to buy. So I described it in detail to my husband and he made a bench out of two old bunk beds cut down to form the length of the bench, covered them in builders’ polythene and then put a layer of heavy sand, a heated cable and then another layer of sand. The total sand being to a depth of about 4 inches. The only cost in this was the heated cable and the whole thing may not look as professional (heck, I hope he doesn’t read this!) but it works brilliantly. And so probably the next questions are, ’what should I be doing now?’ What can I sow now?
The answer to those questions is relatively easy. Have a look at the seed displays in the Nursery or Garden Centre and most seed packets (though sadly not all) will display on the front of the packet ‘sow between Feb and April’ or ‘March and May’ etc. Reading this information carefully and following the instructions gives you a good guide as to what to do and when.
Equally the instructions will guide you as to the temperature needed for germination so you may be looking at providing heat in a propagator or utilising the window sill indoors. Where confusion may arise is that some tomatoes, like my favourite Sungold actually take much longer to germinate and grow to useable size than Alicante. This  to the extent that there could be 5-8 weeks difference in sowing.
If you cannot be bothered to read the seed packets then one of my early Bibles is Geoff Hamilton’s book ‘A Year in your Garden’. This takes you through month by month showing you what to sow and when to plant out and really is a good idiot’s guide.
Whilst there is a huge variety of veg seed for you to have a go at growing your own I think that these days there are a couple of tips worth applying.
Firstly, if you only have a small veg patch then grow things that you are certain of being successful with because you have done it before, or grow more expensive vegetables. For example, Anya potatoes can be very expensive in the supermarket but are relatively cheap to grow as new potatoes in the garden. Peas are cheap to buy so don’t bother giving them the space unless you really do prefer the flavour. But fancy lettuces bagged and washed are much more expensive when you can have rows of lollo rosso in your garden for a couple of quid. Many of the seed companies also sell lettuce seed mixed in one packet so that you can have a row of assorted varieties rather than loads of one sort.
I am determined this year to have a go at Kelsey onions, these are the big boys that the real Roseland show competitors grow and this year I am going to try and take the competition to them…it remains to be seen!!
January 2011
I am waiting with baited breath for the outburst of the camellias! We almost take them for granted in Cornwall as they adorn the great gardens and are the forerunners and the backbone to our spring gardens extravaganza. For that is one of the best features of camellias. There are varieties that will provide flowers from October through to May. The range of flower colour is another major attribute from pure white through to yellow, every shade of pink to the reds. The constant breeding of camellias now gives us speckled and striped flowers and even variegated leaves. No doubt some bright spark is trying to breed a blue one!
All the professional advice will suggest camellias prefer an acidic soil and that is certainly true. But if your soil is neutral, as many of ours are, the camellia is just as happy. If your soil is alkali the option is to grow in pots of ericaceous compost and to feed from March to August. Camellias should not be fed outside these months.
If you are considering planting camellias then they are readily available now. The nurseries promote them when they are in flower and they can be planted as container grown or lifted plants even when in flower. Different varieties have preferences for differ ent growing locations but as a general rule if you remember that they are woodland plants and give some shade and protection from the harshest winds they will be happy. What that amounts to really is that an easterly direction, without protection, should be avoided. This is partly because of the winds, but also because if the flower buds do get frosted they prefer to thaw out slowly rather than quickly in the warmth of the early morning sun. Remembering the woodland scenario, they should be planted with generous amounts of organic material.
Most camellias will grow to between 8ft and 20ft if left unchecked. One or two will be shorter, for example ‘Contribution’ which spreads outwards rather than upwards. All can be pruned as soon as they have finished flowering and before the new growth starts. Leaving it any later will chop off next year’s flowers.
For camellias in tubs, rainwater is better than tap water but some water is better than none so if you do not have any rainwater and the plant is dry then use tap  water. Drying out will kill your plant so ensure that those in pots have water at the roots and that the rain hasn’t just bounced off.
One of the most frequent queries about camellias is when they produce little round balls that look like apples. There is usually a panic as most assume these are bugs or galls and that the plant is suffering. In fact they are seed capsules which contain up to six seeds in each. When they are ripe they burst and you may be lucky enough to see offspring. If you plant the ripe seed you will almost certainly produce seedling plants, but remember that they can take anything from three to ten years to produce flowers, you will have to be patient!
So, if you give your camellias the correct conditions and location they are fairly trouble free and will reward you for years being a very long lived plant. Needless to say there are always a few problems which occur and they are invariably easily solved;-
Brown marks on the leaves – This is usually caused b y weather damage and can range from exposure to cold winds, frost or very hot sunshine.
Brown edges and tips to the leaves – This is due to over feeding, a common occurrence with pot grown plants. The only solution is to water excessively and flush through the excess fertiliser. If the plant still looks ill and drops its leaves it may well recover and produce new shoots later so don’t give up hope. A white powdery substance on the leaves can also been seen when the plant has been over fed.
Black sooty mould – This is a fungus which grows on the honey dew secreted by scale insects or aphids. Generally it is not a problem although the leaves are unsightly. The fungus can be washed off if physically possible. Try a hosepipe to wash off the insect and the mould, particularly on the underside of the leaves. Otherwise, put up with it, resort to insecticide, move to the inner city where they rarely suffer this problem because of the sulphur in the atmosphere from petrol fumes, or back your car up to the plant and run the engine…
Curling of young leaves – Some varieties like ‘Lily Pons’ actually grow like this so there is nothing wrong. Otherwise it may be aphid attack as they prefer the young leaves.
Yellow leaves – The plant may just need feeding if it has used up all the goodness in the soil. Ericaceous compost needs  adding to in pots after a fairly short period of time. The plant may be too wet, in which case, attend to the drainage. They like well drained conditions and will not tolerate permanently wet feet. Otherwise it is likely that there is an iron deficiency and you can use a proprietary sequestered iron feed or mulch the plant with well rotted bracken or pine needles.
Flower buds dropping – This is a common complaint and there can be several reasons. The buds can be taken off by squirrels, birds or even mice. The camellia may have been over fed too late in the season or it may be too wet or too dry. Those things you can sort for yourself. Unfortunately bud drop can happen when the weather fluctuates from mild and wet to cold and frosty and that is unavoidable, so too natural bud drop when there are just too may flowers on the plant and it sheds a few.
A very happy 2011 to all; just think, if you had planted a camellia for the millennium it would be ten years old now and in the right spot ten feet tall. Where does the time go?
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