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'August' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
 At last it’s here! August, this is the one month of the year when I advocate sitting back and looking at what you have achieved in your garden. That is easy to say, because as you sit, or wander along and look, you see all the things that need cutting back or the weeds that are still growing strongly. However I do take the view that if you don’t take time to sit and enjoy what you have achieved there is not much point in doing it at all.
But so many of our gardens in Cornwall are spring gardens and if we are not careful there isn’t much left to look at with flowers on in August and so I am devoting this month’s diatribe to some of the unsung August heroes to whom I think we should be giving more space in our gardens.
I have a lavender hedge, late flowering, lavender angustifolia, cultivated variety unfortunately unknown, but with quite a pale blue flower, nowhere near as rich as the Hidcote purple, but a delightful baby blue. The hedge has reached a height of about a metre and easily a metre deep and for the last two years I have been planning to replace it as it is becoming slightly woody. But of course I have never got round to it and every year it still blesses us with very long stemmed blooms, up to 35cm, that are at their height in August. I watch visitors running their hands through it and it fills the garden with scent in this area and is always full of bees. As soon as it has finished flowering we run the hedge trimmers over it and that’s it until next year, no spring pruning, just a huge chop to the top of the new wood in September. It is a real delight in front of the border which has shrubs that have gone over in spring and are putting on new green growth but they too are interspersed with Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ with its metre long stems and huge bright red blooms and next to those in huge five year old clumps the agapanthus ‘blue giant’ with heads the size of saucepans and thick strong stems which defy any summer wind. And against them, a couple of clumps of white agapanthus ‘alba’ which zings out in the dim evening light.
Yes you have guessed it; I am not one to build the Jekyll border with shades of white drifting into blue with the hot colours furthest from view. In fact Gertrude Jekyll would have a fit if she could see my riot of disorganised colour, herbaceous with shrubs, the odd rose in pink and an exotic furcrea with its first blowsy white bloom for five years. But this is August at Trewartha and I want to see every colour I can this summer. The winter can be long and dark, give  me a riot of unruly hue just for a couple of months. If the fashionista amongst you are trembling at the thought then I haven’t finished yet because along came those old favourites so disliked by so many of the gardening society today, the dahlias! Oh I love them and I refuse to apologise for what a friend of mine calls my lack of taste.
My Dad had a Bishop of Llandaff, bright red with almost black leaves which appeared in some compost in his veg garden, he never moved it and it got bigger and bigger and attracted the insects for pollination and brought some vibrant colour into the cabbage patch. I think that’s where my adoration of dahlias started. I look around the garden and cannot decide which my favourite is. The red bolero looking so neat and trim with its pompom heads or the white dinner plate cacti variety, Fleur, with heads over 12cm wide, or perhaps it’s the cactus variety in a duller red but with such huge blooms she is aptly named called Big Wow.
Now last year, in June and therefore a bit late, I planted a new herbaceous border. Miss Jekyll almost certainly cringed at the thought of my attempts but it was carefully planned, an area of lawn removed carefully by him indoors and a border cut out in a fairly regular sort of rectangular shape against the lawn. A blank canvas for strictly herbaceous plants, (you remember those, they are the ones that you plant as roots in winter or as flowers in spring/summer, they come up, do their thing, you cut them down and the whole bed goes to nothing for the winter). When the bed was first cut out a friend of mine said I would regret this decision. Herbaceous borders are hard work, dead heading and cutting down. But I continued and planted with Jekyll type blocks of colour in mind; a blue area with campanula, agapanthus (not strictly herbaceous!), perennial geranium Johnsons Blue, two different types of salvia and perovskia - this to merge into a white area of veronica, lupin, white dahlia ‘fleur’ and achillea ‘snowflake’. And finally a hot area of reds and oranges, the favourite dahlia bolero, gaillardia , dark pink Echinacea ‘The King’, swathes of red and orange escholtzia, my old friend crocosmia Lucifer,  the basic and best oriental orange poppy and bordered by red geum ‘Mrs Bradshaw’. For its first year I have to say we were all amazed and delighted. A part of our garden was finally been carefully planned and although I used a heck of a lot of plants and however you look at it, this type of planting is not cheap, we were looking forward to this year when it all doubles up and looks more mature. I was deservedly proud – until, that is, him indoors looked out one morning, laughed out loud as the single geum, red Mrs Bradshaw had flowered and was ennobled instantly because here was geum Lady Stratheden, a double bright yellow!
Some of you will have heard this story before but its been worth the re-telling as this border, now in its second year is flourishing. Mrs Bradshaw is in place and fairing well under Lady Stratheden’s glare. I lost the gaillardia in the winter and some of the perennial geraniums had to be removed because they had grown far too big but I have packed it out with the ‘spire’ series of verbenas in white pink and purple together with campanulas and I have lost some of the colour coordination, but so what Miss Jekyll, winter is so long and I just marvel at the colours for a few short months.
Can’t win them all, but heaven help the chap who put the labels in the pots….
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'July' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
Three cheers for the man who strimmed my local roadside hedge!!
Of course he did a wonderful job, widening the road and making the visibility round the corners so much easier, but did you notice what else he did...? He strimmed carefully around every emerging and floriferous foxglove. With our visitor numbers increasing and the hedges abundant with flowers it is always a shame that we have to decimate the roadsides but that is purely for safety. To do this tedious job with such care was a delight. Actually we can see these marvellous foxgloves so much better now as they elegantly wave in the wind and sunshine and I think they are better than ever this year. As with so many of the spring and summer flowers I am torn between attributing the abundant flowers to a cold winter or, as I suspect, last year’s heavy summer rains. The rain helped everything that was developing for the following year.
The foxglove is a biennial. In the first year it sets its seed and forms a rosette of leaves with no stem. In the second year a flower spike emerges which can be 3-4 ft high. I have one in the garden which measures in at 5ft 6”, a real show girl right in the middle of a border.
Obviously the flower sets seed and we see foxgloves coming up the next year to do the whole two year thing again. Sometimes however the root is so long and fibrous that it shoots up again a few inches from the original plant. Equally, as the main stem dies away you may see smaller lateral shoots thrown out from lower down and they may flower again. These shoots also develop if the main stem is damaged in any way, its all down to the survival game.
The common name, foxglove, has little to do with foxes but is thought to have come form ‘folks glove’ as it is possible to put a finger into the flower and the botanical name ‘digitalis’ again from digit or finger or digitabalum, a thimble. The original folksglove was the glove of the good folk whose favourite haunts were supposed to be in woody dells where the foxglove likes to grow. All good gardening books will tell you the foxglove likes full or partial shade. Somebody needs to tell the foxgloves in our Cornish hedges which basked in the June sunshine and considerable heat. Other synonyms from around the country and from history include Witches gloves, Dead Men’s bells, Fairy’s glove and Fairy thimbles. The reference to witches and dead men relating to the medicinal or poisonous elements about which more later.
The common foxglove, digitalis purpurea an indigenous plant, is widely distributed throughout Europe and from Cornwall to Kent and Orkney but not occurring in some eastern counties of England and also not in Shetland. It dislikes chalk soils and although found all over Europe it is not in the Swiss Alps but is found in Madeira and the Azores.
There are about 20 different species of digitalis and countless cultivars many of which have been bred to be perennial. In a county rich with native foxgloves the cultivars can be a struggle to perpetuate as cross pollination from those bees with pollen encrusted backs often changes the colours. They come in colours from pink and purple through to apricot, cream and white and the spots on their runways can be breathtaking. If you want a recommendation look at ‘Elsie Kelsey’ named after Irishman Harold McBride’s sister. Elsie is stunningly white with all her markings purple, therefore an inverse colouring from purpurea.
Not surprisingly the foxglove is a favourite flower of the honey bee, hence although often flowering in early summer in Cornwall it tends to flower generally in July when the bees are very busy.
The projecting lower lip of the flower forms a platform for the bee to land on and the little spots going into the flower are the runway lights to show him the way. As he pushes his way up the bell to get at the nectar, which is right at the end of the flower, the anthers on the stamens rub against his back. Going from flower to flower up the spike he rubs pollen onto the stigma of another flower thus pollination takes place and seeds are produced. The life of each flower is about six days and a single foxglove plant could produce between one and two million seeds. That keeps our purple friend off the list of endangered species. And do you know the foxglove has an even better way of ensuring its survival? Whilst some other insects will take shelter from the rain in its bells no animal predates on the plant. Animals know instinctively that it has poisonous properties. It is a constant mystery to me how they know these things. Folklore reports that the spotting within the flower is not so much a bee runway but a warning of its baneful juices.
Surprisingly the foxglove is not mentioned by Shakespeare or by early English poets. The earliest English descriptions of it are mid sixteenth century and only then by herbalists and one thirteenth century description by a Welsh herbalist who ‘made with it external preparations’.
Now for the obligatory science bit and health warning: the foxglove has greatly contributed to modern heart medicines but its most common usage today is as the basis for the formation of a steroid which is used as a molecular probe to detect DNA.
Do not be tempted to take an unhealthy interest in the healing properties of the foxglove as outlined by countless herbalists from the sixteenth century onwards. As far as you and I are concerned all parts of the plant are poisonous. In small quantity it can cause blurred vision, seeing everything in shades of blue, nausea, anorexia, vomiting. Deaths have occurred from children drinking the water in vases of foxgloves and parents have confused its leaves with comfrey when making herbal tea. Strange but true so beware! We will not eat or drink the foxglove. We will enjoy the beauty of this plant and its prolific spread along the Cornish hedges and say thank you to the man with the strimmer who so clearly appreciated it as much as we do.
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'June' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
 It’s the time of year when I really have to force myself to prioritise. It seems that everything needs doing from weeding to planting, sowing, and filling the remaining hanging baskets that have been unearthed from the back of someone’s shed at the last minute. It’s very interesting listening to people’s likes and dislikes on hanging baskets and tubs (many detesting them altogether). Some like all one colour but loads of different plants and some like multi-coloured and loud because that’s what you can do only in this season. Many people specify no yellow and I can only presume that yellow is seen as a spring colour not a summer colour. Although the weather has been mixed there have been exceptionally high temperatures in the tunnels during the day time and really quite low temperatures during May at night. This leads to apparent confusion for young plants and some of the growth is quite severely checked by cold nights with the plants seemingly standing still, not sure whether to grow or not.
I mentioned in February that I put begonia tubers into seed trays barely covered with compost keeping them warm and moist. Begonias seem to take forever to get going hence my early start. This year their growth has been particularly erratic, they are all growing but not at the same pace. As I have said, not being a begonia expert but merely an enthusiast, I mentioned my dilemma to a local Nurseryman who grows hundreds of begonias for the National Trust. In the middle of May he took me into his glasshouse and showed me two rows of begonias. All were the same variety and all grown in the same way. One row was distinctly smaller than the other but such deep green large leaves. The other row was twice the size but a slightly paler green but very healthy. He has a theory now about growing begonias which I think has hit on the issues affecting my erratic specimens. The begonias grown for the National Trust were of course in peat free compost as they specify for all their plants, the others were in a peat mixture and he posed the question to me as to which were which. ‘Obvious’ I said, ‘the ones that are smaller are in peat free and the bigger ones in peat.’ ‘Wrong’ he replied. ‘It’s the other way round.’
 What he has deduced is that begonias do not like food when they are first planted. Peat composts have nutrient added and the nutrients were delaying the growth, the peat free with no nutrient additive had got away quicker and stronger and were responding to food only when the first leaves had fully emerged. He therefore suggested that if you plant, as I do, just getting a couple of handfuls of peat based compost in a seed tray, the nutrient will not be properly mixed from the top, middle or bottom of the bag, therefore my strongest begonias are probably those that had little or no nutrient at their earliest stages. Interesting? Well I think so but perhaps I should get out more!
At the risk of you assuming that I spend my life chatting rather than working, I am going to recount another conversation I had, this time wit h a very eminently qualified horticulturalist that I see most weeks when I am tending to glasshouses whilst he is gardening in the same place. He says you should not plant tomatoes into their final place before the first flowers are blooming on the plant. My father never mentioned this one so I have gone on regardless, planting when I thought they were big enough and frankly when it was convenient to me. However my knowledgeable friend assures me that I will achieve an even greater fruit yield and less leaves if I follow his advice. I have done half in half this year and will see what difference it makes.
Not being an expert on wildflowers I asked my eminent friend what the excessively long stemmed rather bluebell like flower was in the hedgerows that has appeared in a stunning clump in my garden. That’s the triangular leek he replied, and its leaves certainly taste like leeks. Not wanting to waste a minute of this opportunity to gather knowledge I took him to a clump of bluebells and asked him why the English and Spanish are so difficult to differentiate. The books and TV experts tell you to avoid the Hispanic variety like the plague, it is decimating our woodlands, but are you sure you can identify it? We looked closely at the clump. The short flat basal leaves and bending head with flowers on one side of the stem is the native blue bell. The bigger leaved upright flower with flowers on all sides is the Hispanic invader. But what we had here were native bluebells and bendy headed ones with flowers on both sides of the stem. The latter is the result of the hybridisation between the two and frankly not unattractive. Apparently the only way to stop the Spanish and the hybrids from taking over is to crush them underfoot every year until they give up.
Britain contains nearly 50% of the world’s bluebells and although they exist in mainland Europe a recent German visitor told me she had never seen them until she came to Cornwall. My learned friend has a theory on this. We eradicated the wild boar in Britain but it was and still is free to roam Europe and he reckons it has rooted up all the bluebells. So if we have effectively re-introduced the boar and they escape all over the place will we lose our bluebell woods and how quickly?
I suppose the moral of this month’s diatribe can only be that listening to people with more knowledge than oneself is stimulating, there is always something to learn and never be afraid to ask.
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'May' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
 It goes without saying that we are all busy sowing and growing as the days lengthen and the soil warms up. A good indicator of both these facts is the weed growth. If the weeds will grow then so will many other things. However a warm April followed by copious heavy showers, indeed days of rain can lull us into believing it is later in the year than it is. Last May was cold with particularly icy winds so I am still aware that all veg plants must be well hardened off before planting and I am never tempted to put veg plants out before I am sure that the easterlies have gone off somewhere else for the summer and the plants will get a good warm start.
I always sow a few herbs, but with a lecture coming up for a local society I needed plenty of herbs to take with me so I was sowing early. All the herbs I would normally sow such as chives, parsley, coriander and various types of basil got going well on the propagating bench with a little heat and were ready for the talk and for display just a few days ago.
However, I took the view that we all know quite a lot about the more common herbs so I spent time researching the subject a little more deeply and was very surprised at how much information there is out there and even more surprised that some of the old books about herbs that I have are so out of date. The modern clamour for herbal remedies and companion planting has really spurred the scientific community into trying to establish which of the herbalists claims can be supported and which are old wives’ tales. I also realised how many herbs I might be selling but was not planting and using myself as companion plants or indeed culinary herbs. So a whole new world, that I thought I knew about, has opened up and I want to mention a few here that we can be sowing this month, without heat, that will be useful to us throughout the summer.
 Chives – a few cheap seeds in a pot, will emerge in days and become a perennial clump in the garden for use in the kitchen and throwing up a few attractive flowers as they seed. However, they are one of the best plants to prevent fungal disease in other plants and with the wet weather we have experienced those diseases have proliferated. Planted under roses they prevent blackspot, planted under apple trees they prevent scab. However some patience is required as it seems to take about three years before a significant difference is noticed, but then it can be truly remarkable.
Chives discourage aphids on chrysanthemums and sunflowers and the strength of one claim for the power of the chive is proved by the commercial production of a spray made from its oil which is successfully used against downy and powdery mildew on cucumbers and gooseberries.
Dill – Great with fish, an essential ingredient in gravadlax; all the old books will tell us it attracts bees. In fact modern tests seem to indicate the opposite is true. Grown from seed now and not over fed or it becomes lank and weedy it will last the season without setting seed. Grown near cabbages, lettuces and sweet corn it will increase their yield. It should not be grown anywhere near fennel as it will hybridise and create a plant which bears little resemblance to either of its parents. And this is where I should mention fennel, as it may be the big enemy in the garden as it is the greatest inhibitor of other plants setting seed, so whilst we can have it next to root crops that we do not want to set seed, it should not be near flowers. Conversely and just to confuse you, coriander will inhibit fennel from setting seed, so this all sets you thinking really quite hard about where herbs can be useful or really quite detrimental.
 Parsley – the trend for flat leaf parsley has increased as it does have a stronger flavour than the curly or moss type. It contains more concentration of the essential oil apiol and is very high in vitamins C and K. Flat leaf was apparently not popular because it could easily be confused with hemlock which is extremely poisonous. As one lady said to me at the lecture, in the days when hemlock was easily sourced it would have been very easy to murder your husband and claim a mistake in the garnish! Parsley attracts many insects which are beneficial bug eaters but in so doing it also attracts wasps so don’t put it in a tub where you are likely to sit regularly. Despite the tales to the contrary parsley is easy to germinate as long as the compost is warm. If not then use warm water to water it for the first couple of days and it will respond. The seed coat of parsley contains a chemical which is thought to inhibit its own germination and will inhibit the germination of seeds nearby so keep it on its own until it emerges and plant in pots first rather than straight in the ground.
There are so many herbs that I would love to mention and I will get round to few more and also with a mention for the perennials but finally, one which I am growing this year, borage. A member, indeed founder member of its family which includes the Echium, it has hairy leaves, the obvious blue to pink flowers and the bees love it. I am planting close to the beans and strawberries so we attract the pollinators. I am reliably informed it could double the yield of the beans and when dead is fantastic accelerant in the compost. It does set seed prolifically but I suspect it will be worth the trouble to have so many more beans and better compost. I will let you know.
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'April' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
 There is something rather lovely about the emergence of spring. Perhaps I am enjoying it more this year because it seems to have been so slow arriving. The odd promising day and then we are plunged into cold winds and rain again. But there are good signs wherever you look. Fat buds on the shrubs, little green rolled up leaves ready to burst and weeds already poking their heads above the soil. I have been particularly late putting seeds in but everything will catch up and whilst it remains colder the daffodils and primroses last longer.
I remember when my late father was in hospital and particularly unwell I asked him if there was anything I could do. I had in mind bringing in paper work that needed attending to or some new books and home comforts. His reply has lived with me forever. ‘Its mid January’ he said ‘please put the broad beans in seed boxes in the greenhouse.’
Therefore every year I have planted the seed in pots in the greenhouse in mid January If I put them straight in the ground the mice get them. So imagine my horror last year when two days after sowing in the tunnel they had all been eaten. They were up on a warm propagating bench and under a raised fleece but the little beggar had had the lot, thirty six beans – gone!
As a teenager I had contemplated joining the police force to become a detective (I was totally absorbed by Agatha Christie books) until my dad reminded me I would have to work night shifts. Appalled at the thought of missing a night’s sleep that idea went out of the window but the detective has remained in me and I was determined to detect and arrest the bean thief.
Not one for capital punishment, I resisted the temptation to find the mouse traps and found the paraffin instead. Mike Harrison had told me some two years ago, successfully, that mice are deterred by the smell, so I sprayed it all round the tunnel edges on the ground, inside and out, up the legs of the benches and put in more seed. I also left a couple of seeds at the other end of the tunnel on the floor so I could try and determine which of the two entrances he was using. You’ve guessed it, what an idiot putting in so much more seed, just a few would have tested the system, but that night mousey ate the lot. I could smell the paraffin but it was a little aged so I bought some new and tried again, this time just leaving a few seeds on the bench. Yes, he ate all of them on the bench, but he left the two on the floor. So now I knew through which entrance he was entering. One more go with another spray of paraffin round the entrance way and a few bait broad bean seeds.
By the next morning I was facing defeat, should I put all the seeds in the conservatory? Not satisfied with the beans, he had eaten every seed on the bench, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers all the herbs (of which there were sixteen different varieties) and the fourteen different euphorbia (idiot, I should have moved them too). But he left the aquilegia seed. Not to your taste mousey or were you just full?
 Now this must have been becoming one fat mouse, or perhaps there was a huge family of them. The prospect of detecting what was, in my mind, becoming a huge gang of shoplifters with a rapacious appetite was becoming daunting. The Harrison method had failed we could only resort to capital punishment, without trial. So we put out four traps on the bench, loaded two with broad beans, clearly his favourite food and two with chocolate buttons; they came recommended from another amateur advisor.
Yes, he came again, he ate the beans and the buttons and so deft was he that the traps didn’t spring. The mouse was now named Raffles.
This crime had been perpetuating now for at least six nights and I was losing time on seed sowing let alone growing on. I was beginning to wonder if I had to do that night shift after all and stand on guard ready to catch the burglar. I suggested to my husband that we put the blue fly trap light on, thinking that this attempt at floodlighting the crime scene might deter him. When Stuart had finished laughing and muttering about obsession and paranoia and cynically suggesting CCTV, I agreed this was probably not a solution. Stuart took control, loaded the traps with cheese and, as previously agreed, he inspected the next morning.
Raffles was caught, I am told he died with an expression of surprise on his face and I could have cried. I had a sneaking admiration for the little chap, who, acting without accomplices, had found a source of food and gone for it. I suspect he was living in the tunnel and I had deterred his exit with the paraffin but there would be no interview or interrogation. He was dead. There was no malice aforethought, just an instinct for survival and I hope he had a good laugh on his last few nights when he saw the food shelves replenished.
So at least eight days later I started again and there were days of work to sow all the seed.
 Raffles had probably delayed me by three weeks in total. But it doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things. All the seeds are came up; I needed a little less heat because the weather was warmer. During the hunt and in desperation I put broad beans straight in the soil as I had seen Gilbert doing this in his patch earlier in the week.’ Don’t the mice take them I asked’? No, just the rabbits, from which he defends himself (and the beans) with netting in the ground and a small electric fence. ‘Try Marjorie’s remedy for rabbits’ I said,’ she assures me it works’. ‘Get two coal shovels back to back and when the rabbits appear go out and bang the shovels together, they don’t come back.’
So there are the solutions to mice and rabbits. Grow aquilegia, get a mouse trap and just hope your rabbits aren’t deaf!
'March' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
 March! Probably my favourite month and when writing a column like this it is probably the one month when I will never be short of things to say or do.
Several years ago we made a propagating bench out of two old bunk beds. We put longer legs on, lined the bed bases with thick polythene sheet and covered with a 3’’ mix of sand and fine gravel. Then we laid on a soil warming cable and a further 2’’ of sand and gravel mix. The cable comes with full instructions and a thermostat so I can keep a temperature of 15-20deg C and raise seeds on an even and controllable temperature. It is also superb for bottom heat for cuttings and this month I shall take cuttings of pelargonium and marguerites. A propagator of any size is also useful for starting perennials from seed. Lupins, delphiniums, achillea, pinks and many others sown now may well flower this year.
Seed sowing indoors and out are the very obvious jobs for March and April and so I am going to look at a few jobs that may be overlooked this month in our enthusiasm for the new season.
Split up polyanthus just after they have flowered. Just stick two hand forks into  the clump and pull apart. Grow them on in a shady corner of the garden. They dislike hot summer sunshine.
Prune any long shoots on camellias now if you want to tidy the shrub. Leave it too late after they have flowered and you will cut off next years buds.
Split, plant or move snowdrops during their flowering or just after whilst there is still green foliage.
Clip lightly over winter flowering heathers that are past their best. This keeps them compact and strong.
Similarly with hebes, you can cut them back quite hard but I take about a third out each year to keep the size but to encourage new growth. If you want new hebes then take cuttings in August. The traditional varieties have become very difficult to obtain as so many growers up country have had mildew problems and they are now turning to New Zealand ‘wiri’ varieties. It is a shame as in coastal areas we do not have the same problems.
If you have a large shrub to move then autumn is the time to do it. But if you dig a circular trench round it now and cut off the big roots it will form a dense tight root ball over this season making it easier to move in the autumn.
I haven’t stopped mowing the lawn on and off all winter except when it was covered in snow or frost. Don’t be tempted to cut it too hard. Keep the cutters up high slowly lowering them each week or two. It may mean cutting more often but the grass will be happier for it.
Be sure to harden off any veg plants before planting. If they are raised in a greenhouse they are still quite tender and need to be put outside during the day and even at night to acclimatise before exposing them to cold winds and cool soil.
March is your very last chance to buy and plant bear rooted hedging or trees which are much cheaper than pot grown. The may need staking and will certainly need water whilst they establish.
If you are unsure about seed sowing in the next few months, what to sow or plant and when, then just take time to go and look at the seeds on sale. The majority of veg and annuals that you want will have to be sown from now to June, even if they are winter veg. Read the packet front and see the sowing, planting out and harvest time and all will become clear!!
 With seed potatoes chitting and ready to go a recent customer started a great debate with me about blight in potatoes and tomatoes. The weather conditions have been perfect over the last three summers for this airborne nasty to proliferate. It really does appear overnight and it is devastating. I suggested planting new potatoes earlier in March so that one can harvest a bit earlier and even if blight does strike you still have a mature crop. (For tomatoes, shut your greenhouse at night and grow your potatoes as far away from the greenhouse as possible). The main question that arose from that was what about main crop? Well the answer is not so simple. The only choice is to buy ‘blight resistant’ varieties which are not always reliably so, or to spray against it which I would rather not do. The fact is that I do not grow main crop potatoes. They take up too much room and we have a great grower in Veryan at Churchtown farm and I go and buy a bag from him!!
Another question this month came from a lady who has discovered that the leaves on her citrus plants in the conservatory have rolled up and others have stuck together and the same has happened to plants in the greenhouse. This is the work of  the tortrix moth. If you unfurl the leaves or pull them apart you may either find great holes or a bright green caterpillar about half an inch long and a fine silk that has bound the leaves together. Squish it! They do form brown pupae that may be apparent on the soil or in the leaf. They often choose the new leaves on a plant and so can seriously harm the growth. The moth hides in corners and is quite small so difficult to find. I have been known to venture out to my tunnels with a torch at night to find it flying and now have a blue light positioned to catch it during the winter when the beneficial insects are less prolific. The tortrix moth seems to survive all weather conditions and can be seen outside doing its damage as the weather gets warmer.
What is the yellow mottling on my camellias?
This always looks a bit like a chlorotic problem which makes leaves, sometimes whole branches turn yellow or almost white. If a camellia is chlorotic and needing an acidic feed i.e. there is too much lime reaching it, then the whole bush will be affected. If it is odd leaves then it is more likely to be camellia yellow mottle and the plant loses vigour. The mottle is virus like and systemic within the plant. Do not use the plant for propagation and cut out all affected stems. It will recover.
Talking of recovery, the garden is emerging from this horrific winter and although many things are later than normal that should herald a colourful Easter.
'February' by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
Bearing in mind the continuously cold weather and at the risk of boring the knowledgeable people amongst you, I am going to start covering some very basic concepts of gardening which are fundamental to understanding and practice and may stimulate the horticulturally challenged.
This month we will look at compost. No, not the stuff you make in your bin that is ‘composting’. What you produce there is a soil improver, because you cannot control its make up or nutrient value it is not suitable for raising seeds or plants. Composted garden material is almost 100% organic matter and is high in nitrates. As a soil improver it breaks open the soil, relieves compaction, increases drainage, assists nutrient retention and improves rooting. Its value is priceless but it is not a growing medium in its own right.
Compost is the stuff in brightly coloured plastic bags that greet you at the garden centre. Different sizes, different functions and a selection that bamboozles you when you just wanted to fill a few pots with plants. So which compost to buy and why? It depends on two things primarily. Firstly, for which plants you are choosing it and secondly what purpose do you wish it to fulfil? The packaging should give you that information.
Seed compost is very fine with the correct amounts of added nutrient for raising seeds but it is insufficient for a plant once it becomes a size for potting on. (Many of the multi purpose are now fine enough and strong enough not to bother with seed compost). At that stage multi- purposecompost can be used but as these are generally peat based they need to be monitored carefully or the plants can quickly become waterlogged or if too dry the medium is often difficult to re-wet. There is great debate about the continued extraction of peat and the decimation of the peat bogs and all sorts of alternatives are available and undergoing scientific and on the job testing. Many multi-purpose composts now incorporate well composted garden waste (from blue bag collections). Other medium available include coir compost from coconut husks but these of course have to travel many miles. Bark based composts are becoming my favourite as they are actually a combination of our garden wastes and forest floor detritus available in abundance in this country. These are carefully formulated by manufacturers with the absent nutrients added for general garden purpose.
As to the future of peat; well there is a lobby which says gardeners use so little of it in comparison with the power stations that it isn’t worth worrying about. But peat bogs only renew at a rate of 5mm per year so any saving has to be considered valuable, particularly as much of the peat now comes from Russia, so more air or sea miles to consider.
So whichever you choose, a compost labelled ‘multi purpose’ is good for potting on or for bedding out in pots for a season. If plants are left outside in it too long it will quickly become waterlogged and any nutrients will leach away quickly. Always buy it from a supplier that has kept it undercover as bags left outside in the open will be quickly leached of nutrient and be pretty much worthless to your plants. If the bag feels wet it will also be too heavy to carry safely.
Any of these multi purpose varieties will contain lime, so if you are looking to plant acid loving plants an ericaceous compost should be used. There is no lime in this compost and nutrients have been added for acid loving plants such as azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons etc. But beware, a multi purpose ericaceous will leach nutrients also and is for short lived usage as explained above.
 Now to the mysterious world of ‘John Innes’ compost. Mr Innes was a nineteenth century property and land dealer in the City of London. On his death in 1904 he bequeathed his fortune and estate to the improvement of horticulture by experiment and research. Directly he had nothing to do with compost, it was his money that enabled the research. Before the introduction of JI composts gardeners generally used a different compost for each species of plant. Usually the soil was not sterilised or heat pasteurised and so very often plants suffered from soil born insect and disease attack. The plant foods being added to the soil were unbalanced and so growth was variable in the extreme. In the 1930s two scientists at the John Innes Horticultural Institute, William Lawrence and John Newell, set out to formulate composts that would give consistently reliable results. After six years of experiment they determined the physical properties and nutrition necessary in composts to achieve optimum rates of plant growth and they developed methods of heat sterilising whilst not affecting the plant. These plant composts revolutionised the ways composts were produced and also the ways in which plants are grown in pots. Naturally the plant nutrients have been updated to gain the benefits of improving technology but the formulae were passed on to manufacturers (now the JI Manufacturers Association) and the Institute never sold or made money from actually producing the composts.
John Innes composts are soil based (not peat based) and the soil is carefully selected loam which is made up of sand, silt and clay (40-40-20) to which is added moss peat, coarse sand, grit and fertilisers. It is screened and sterilised and mixed in the appropriate proportions of the ingredients to achieve optimum air and water holding capacity and nutrient holding for different types of plants. Thus today one should think of John Innes as a formula, not a person.
The formula are mixed and numbered:
John Innes Seed Compost – for sowing almost any seed with nutrient for early development.
John Innes No 1 - for pricking out and potting on young plants.
John Innes No 2 – for general potting of house plants and plants in medium sized pots.
John Innes No 3 – a richer mixture for final planting in pots and generally used for larger specimens.
John Innes ericaceous - for lime haters and acid lovers.
The level of nutrient increases as the number goes up.
The fertilisers within we will examine at another time but these composts are a natural growing media for plants.
Humus and clay are a buffer to over or under feeding.
The combination of loam, peat and sand (rather than just peat in multi) provide a good balance between the amount of water held and the air capacity when the plant has drained.
The compost is easier to re-wet if it dries out.
Loam will retain higher levels of nutrient which would be dangerous in peat based composts
It lasts a lot longer than soil-less/peat based compost.
Finally, if January 2009 was the coldest for twenty years and January 2010 is vying for the record and February is still traditionally the coldest month, how low can it go? Got any echium still alive?
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'January', by Nicola Bush of the Roseland Nursery
 We will all have appreciated that many large private gardens developed in the mid to late 1800s by the grand Victorian gardeners were the product of the plant hunters who brought us so many species of plant indigenous to the Mediterranean, China and many parts of South America. The recent publicity about Trebah is a testament to the work of the Fox family who appreciated that they could grow so many so called exotic species within the fabulous garden valley.
What we have also come to discover of course is that those gardens were very labour intensive; no petrol powered lawn mowers, garden blowers or hedge trimmers. Just hard manual work by many men.
The first world war wreaked havoc for those gardens (never forgetting the men or their families). The labour force for the gardens disappeared off to war, so many of them never to return, and the priority was the war effort not the gardens, consequently many became overgrown and were lost. Hence the discovery of Heligan and Trebah and others in the next century.
Prior to the Great War many plants became very fashionable in Victorian days, not least the fern families. An enormous number were found and named and many were lost during the war but a handful of dedicated growers kept collections and their value for decoration in a damp area is unsurpassed.
 And not all ferns need a damp area. We see many of the asplenium growing in our dry stone walls, seeding and multiplying quickly and cultivated types selling for vast sums ‘up country’ whereas some of us may consider them as rather invasive. Similarly we can keep the dicksonias and washingtonias without fleecing in many parts and keeping their superb fronds through the winter.
Three years ago we had a very long hot summer and sales of exotics such as agave, cacti and succulents went thought the roof. Everybody shouted ‘global warming!’ and rushed to buy drought tolerant plants. In fact global warming almost certainly means windier weather and wetter weather with extremes of both and we have seen this to a certain extent over the past two years (let alone the past two months!!) So the succulents may not get too cold but they dislike wet feet all winter, but the ferns, herbaceous and evergreen prefer the wet and damp and many love our Cornish walls.
Now, the festive season is over, (yes it is), you have ordered your seeds and you are determined to turn the New Year with a fresh start in the garden.
Come on; get out of your chair and away from the fire. The days are short so make the most of the dry ones and start work now, and even though it’s frosty there is plenty of cold or slightly warmed greenhouse work to do. Its only 8-9 months until the local shows and you have to start thinking about it NOW!! If it remains so desperately cold though just put all the following jobs of for a week or so – this desperate cold will not last long – will it?
It is time to sow sweet peas in pots, in the greenhouse, if you didn’t do them in  November. Do not leave it any later; they will not flower as well. Give them a nice tall pot for that extra root length that they love. It is not too early either to sow those bedding plants that like a longer growing season. I start begonias into growth now so they are ready for bedding displays in May and will sow petunias, salvias and busy lizzies now too.
Just think of the money you will save rather than buying the plugs, and the satisfaction element is great. Sow in modules or seed trays. Modules are easier and cause less root disturbance on transplantation. Give them a cover of glass or cling film and newspaper if they need darkness and a little heat. Yes that all rolled off my pen easily didn’t it. Actually all you have to do is read the seed packet and do exactly as it says. Some seeds need light to germinate, some need dark and some need more heat than others. It isn’t rocket science, honestly, but most failures with seeds will be because of temperature or burying them too deeply.
More jobs for this month- but bear in mind the desperate cold and try and stay off frozen ground and lawns.
Sow broad beans now, they don’t need heat, but take precautions against mice. Broad bean seed comes high on their list of winter delicacies.
Take root cuttings from ceanothus, dicentra, echinacea, eryngium, oriental poppies and verbascum. Root cuttings from variegated plants will not show their variegation but will be green.
Check stakes and bindings on trees, high wind effect may cause movement or rubbing which fatally damages the bark.
Stay off lawns when frozen, but if we thaw out and if areas of the lawn are squelching underfoot take a tyned fork (hollow tynes actually remove a piece of lawn and leave better holes) and push in and wiggle to aerate. Hard work but pays dividends.
Back indoors in the greenhouse or on the window sill, sow small quantities of early lettuce ready to go out in February under cloches, also early cabbage and cauliflowers.
There are so many reasons to be so grateful we live in Cornwall, not least of which is that I may be stuck for something to write this month if I lived further north, those poor folks have to wait another month in their fireside chairs before they can do half of what we can in the garden and greenhouse! We may think its cold but it is nothing compared with some areas of the country.
Happy New Year to everybody! Get to it; I know Spring is round the corner, the daffodils told me…
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Click here to read Nicola's 2009 Gardening Matters articles
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