WINTER COLOUR

WINTER COLOUR

Winter has arrived as Carolina sweeps over the land and many of us wake up to a covering of snow plus a few trees, fences and sheds blown about. No doubt this will be followed by more

Rowan Joseph Rock

winds, snow and frost.  Gardening is now enjoyed looking out of a window from the comfort of a warm room. Then a few days later the sun comes out and we can wander round the garden enjoying a bit of winter colour, and catching up on winter

Outdoor fuchsia

digging, raking leaves and repairing any wind damage. Having had many years to indulge in planting up those must have plants, I have also been careful with their placement in the garden design. I know there are many winter days when you just can’t get out so the design is geared to making those areas in front of windows attractive in winter.

The summer flowers have gone and the spring ones yet to appear but there is still a few shrubs flowering in winter as well as plenty berries and plants with brightly coloured stems

maple

and variegated foliage. It is during the winter months that these plants are appreciated as they have no competition.

Flowers

Holly

In some sheltered spots the spring bulbs are pushing up into the daylight with promise of flowers to come. Snowdrops are favourite to appear early in recent years with mild winters I have a small drift that are at their best in full flower at the end of December. They are assuming we are getting another mild winter as the flowers are four inches tall and just about ready to open up.

Snowberry

Back at ground level the heather Erica carnea is adding a bit of pink and white in the heather garden, and the yellow Jasminum nudiflorum grown against a fence is always very reliable as it will flower even when covered in snow.

Mahonia Charity

Mahonia Charity

will grow at least six foot tall and is at its best in December covered in bright yellow sprays. Another shrub, the Fuchsia Mrs Popple continues to flower even though we have had several frosts, but although very welcome at this time of year, its days will be numbered. Last winter it suffered a lot of die back, but it always recovers strongly in spring.

Foliage

Euonymus

Some evergreen shrubs are winners in winter with their variegated foliage such as the gold and silver Euonymus which is also brilliant for ground cover smothering any weeds under its branches.

Houttuynia is more vibrant with red variegation but not such a good ground cover, and it tends to meander well beyond its allocated spot. Ivies come in a wide range of colours and are great for sunless dark and damp corners, but they need an annual trim to control their spread.

Brightly coloured stems

Cornus

The winter garden would not be complete without a range of red, yellow and grey stemmed Cornus, as well as Salix britzensis, Kerria and the grey stemmed Rubus giraldianus. Grow all these as stooled shrubs cutting all growth back to just above ground level at the end of March.

Berries in abundance

Cotoneaster frigidus

Cotoneasters are the most prolific plants for berries in red, orange and yellow. The Firethorn, Pyracantha is also dazzling when covered in bright red or orange berries, and for white berries try the snowberry, Symphoricarpos. Holly is also great for berries but can grow quite large.

Wee jobs to do this week

Topping up the bird table

Cold weather combined with frost and snow can give our garden birds a problem finding food, though there is still plenty berries on cotoneasters and some rowans. This is a good time to put up the bird table and a few feeders with some quality seeds. Birds are fussy eaters (except pigeons which will eat everything) and if you have put out some cheap seed mixtures you will find some types getting left behind. Put out a dish for clean water and if weather is frosty make sure water is warm enough to last a few hours before freezing up. Keep all water dishes, bird tables and feeders cleaned regularly.

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WINTER PRUNING

WINTER PRUNING

Although summer may have been a washout for many of us the autumn has been remarkably dry so digging has been a treat as the soil was never wet for walking on and now as we start the

Well pruned apple tree

pruning no damage is being done to the soil surface. Pruning in winter is another task I try to complete before the end of the year. Bush roses put on a late flurry of blooms in mid November but by the end of the month they had lost most of their leaves and were ready for the secateurs. Autumn fruiting raspberries Polka and Autumn Bliss both decided to offer me some fresh and very attractive fruit before the loppers came out, but I am afraid their sweetness had gone so there was no reprieve.

Pruning autumn raspberry Polka

On the allotment site I do all the pruning of trees, fruit bushes and roses at the same time, and then I can bring out our shredder for the wood and add the shreddings to my compost heap.

Raspberry Glen Fyne and Glen Dee are both summer fruiting so it only the old fruiting canes that we prune out at ground level, then the remaining canes that grew this year are tied in to the straining wires using a running knot, spacing them out about four inches apart along the top wire. Autumn fruiting varieties are very easy as all the canes are cut back to just above ground level. New canes start to grow again in spring and these will fruit from late summer onwards.

Pruning fig bush

Brambles are similar to summer raspberries as they fruit on the long shoots produced the previous year, so it is a matter of cutting out all this years fruiting wood. The remaining shoots, still fairly green, will be quite long so normally they are looped between support wires to save space.

Gooseberries can be quite prolific croppers so pruning is done to remove branches too close to the ground to prevent soil splashing on the fruit, and pruning out some shoots growing in the centre to aid picking, especially on those varieties with wicked thorns.

Blackcurrants fruit best on young shoots of one and two years old so cut back any older branches to encourage more young shoots to grow.

Spur pruning grape vine

Redcurrants fruit on spurs so I retain a framework of about nine main shoots growing up from the crown and all smaller shoots growing on these are cut back to a couple of buds. However it is beneficial to replace two or three of these main shoots each year to keep the bush healthy. Replace them with young new shoots as they appear near to their position.

Figs grown outdoors up north are usually planted against a south facing wall or fence so prune shoots growing too far away from the wall. Also remove very low growing branches as these will produce figs that get eaten by slugs.

Pruning roses

Apples and pears have very different pruning needs based on the form of tree as well as rootstock, and plums are similar but should not be pruned in winter due to the risk of infection by silver leaf disease. Pruning will vary depending on whether you are growing a dwarf bush, large tree, cordon, espalier, stepover or fan shape so look up the pruning requirements as appropriate.

Grapes under glass are usually grown as upright rods spaced about 18 inches apart. These produce fruiting spurs about six inches apart up the rod. The fruiting laterals grown from these spurs are cut back to one or two buds near the rod from which the next year’s crop will come.

Birch tree with lower branches removed

Roses flower best on young shoots so always look to cutting out old shoots providing there is plenty of new growth to take their place. Shrub roses get minimal pruning and climbers are the same as bushes but on a larger scale.

Birch trees grown as specimens with white bark need removal of lower shoots to expose the brilliant white stems that are very attractive in winter once all the leaves fall off.

Blackberry cuttings

Wee jobs to do this week

Blackberries can be propagated from cuttings taken from the ends of young shoots about four inches long placed in free draining compost to be well rooted by early spring. They can also be grown from root cuttings about four inches long laid just below the surface of compost in pots.

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EARLY WINTER JOBS

EARLY WINTER JOBS

As we leave autumn behind, and winter has not yet set in there are always a few dry sunny frost free days when we can get into the garden to catch up on all those wee jobs put off for a few days.

Deciduous trees and shrubs are now

Fresh Vegetables in December

dormant and most have shed their leaves, so these need to be gathered up and added to the compost heap. Old leaves from cabbages, kale, sprouts, swedes and winter cauliflower are also better cleared up as leaving them in place encourages slugs.

Cauliflower Clapton

The herbaceous border plants are also dormant so they will also need tidying up by cutting back old stems and removing weeds and any supporting canes and strings. Once the border is cleaned up take the chance to check over clumps of plants such as iris, pyrethrum, doronicum, kniphofia, peony, delphinium, shasta daisies and oriental poppies and where ever they have spread too far, dig up and divide them. Replant the strongest plants usually growing around the perimeter, into freshly dug and composted border soil. Delphinium crowns are a favourite food for slugs so drop a few pellets around these, but most of the others are usually safe.

Doronicum Little Leo

Although the summer up north was very wet, the autumn has been a lot drier so winter digging has been proceeding without wet soil clogging up the boots and wellies. My main difficulty has been separating out freshly added composting material on my compost heap so I can get into well rotted compost buried deep underneath. Unfortunately I don’t have room for two compost heaps.

Oriental poppies

However we are still on target to complete winter digging before Christmas, although those areas with a good covering of clover and vetch green manures can be left for digging in later next year. Green manure crops will continue to grow and take in nutrients from the soil, so these are not washed away by the winter rains and snow, but after digging in these nutrients are released back into the soil as the green manure crops rot down for the benefit of the next crop. If the land allocated for late crops such as pumpkins, courgettes, sweet corn or French beans has a green manure crop on it, do not dig this in till a couple of months before planting as that is plenty of time for the cover crop to rot down. For these heavy feeders I also add plenty of compost while digging proceeds.

Winter lettuce Hilde

There is nothing to beat a trip to the allotment on a cold frosty day or when there is a covering of snow and harvesting a good selection of fresh vegetables full of nature’s goodness. Brussels sprouts are not just for Christmas and can be delicious chopped up in a stir fry, or even sliced and added to the bacon, egg, tomato, mushroom and sliced apple for a good fry up. Winter cabbage, kale, Swedes, leeks, parsnips and cauliflower are all quite hardy and can last throughout the winter.

So far my beetroot is quite happy outdoors, but I will keep an eye on the forecast and bring them indoors if the mild winter turns out to be wishful thinking.

Winter hardy lettuce, spring onions, radish and rocket can also be grown to supply fresh salads in winter if grown in a sheltered spot or in a cold greenhouse after the tomato crop has been cleared.

Early winter is also a good time to check for any repairs needed to fences, gates, uneven paths, leaky sheds or doing some shed renovations for extra shelves, tables, seats, racks to hang tools on and cupboards for seeds, chemicals, fertiliser and hand tools.

Potting up rooted geranium cuttings

Cuttings of geraniums, fuchsias and other plants taken at the end of summer will have rooted and now be ready to pot up. Use small pots as they will not grow much now but need plenty of light and just enough warmth to keep them frost free over winter.

Wee jobs to do this week

Check over stored apples, potatoes, carrots, beetroot, onions, dahlias, begonias, gladioli,

Checking pumpkins

pumpkins and any other crops, bulbs, tubers being kept over winter in frost free sheds, garages or other places. Apples can suffer brown rots that would spread if not removed. Potatoes, beetroot and carrots can sprout if temperatures are too high. Pumpkins are very erratic in storage as some can go off quickly and others last perfectly till spring.

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PLANT ROSES

PLANT ROSES

Roses were at their most popular about fifty years ago. No garden was complete without a few roses, and Dundee Parks department propagated them by the thousands every year for brightening up the parks, town centre and outdoor landscapes. They were also functional used to deter trespass with varieties like Rosa omeiensis pteracantha with

Anna relaxing beside rose Gertrude Jekyll

spectacular thorns totally covering the stems. As air pollution improved over the years rose diseases gained a foothold as the pollution had acted as a mild fungicide. Unfortunately so many varieties suffered severe loss of leaves from blackspot, rust and mildew that they were not worth growing. Rose breeders

Rose Dearest

were left with the task of finding new varieties with strong disease resistant foliage while still having attractive flowers and a scent where ever possible. I have grown hundreds of different varieties over the years, and discarded very many, but there is still a good roses well worth growing and every year new varieties appear in nurseries and garden centers to try out.

Roses come in many forms from miniature to bush (floribundas and hybrid teas) then shrubs, climbers and ramblers, so you can choose a plant to suit any occasion. Always buy from a reputable source and keep your receipt and the label. I have had several purchases where the plant did not reflect the label. One lovely red bush rose turned out to be a disease prone pink rose, and a dazzling yellow Julie Goodyear from a local garden centre does not seem to exist except in my garden.

Rose Julie Goodyear

Roses can be grown against walls, fences, up pergolas, or in borders as miniatures, bushes or if you have plenty of room free standing shrubs. Make sure you read about the ultimate size as some can be quite enormous. My climbing Mme Alfred Carrier wrecked my six foot fence then stretched well over twenty feet in every direction. However it is such a beauty that I cut it back to young shoots about six feet long so it can have another lease of life for a few more years.

I grow a deep red Dublin Bay on my south wall of the house and it flowers all summer from ground to twelve feet tall making a spectacular show, but unfortunately it has no scent. Another shrub rose I converted to a climber is the pink scented Gertrude Jekyll which never lets you down. It gets a wee bit of mildew, but nothing severe and greenfly can be a problem, but a couple of insecticide sprays sorts them out. It is a real show stopper on the house wall on

Sophie with scented roses

our patio.

Another of my favourite shrub roses, Ispahan has quite disease free foliage and is a mass of old English pink flowers in summer, but it can grow ten feet tall so either keep it pruned or if you have the space let it grow naturally.

Bush varieties are numerous in all colours and dependable varieties include the pinks Dearest and Myriam, the red scented E H Morse,

Climbing rose Dublin Bay

the bicolors Piccadilly and Rose Gaujard, the golden yellow Arthur Bell and Julie Goodyear (if it exists), and my best orange is Dawn Chorus.

Roses are propagated commercially by budding, but the home gardener can propagate roses with hardwood cuttings about 9 inches long, taken in the dormant season and lined out six inches apart with half the cutting buried in the soil. They should be ready for replanting the following winter.

Cultivation
Roses grow best on fertile clay soil provided it is well drained. Always dig deep and add plenty of compost as the bushes will last ten or more years. Plant about eighteen inches apart and add some fertilizer in spring to give growth a boost.

Amaryllis just potted up

Wee jobs to do this week

Amaryllis bulbs can be potted up now for flowering 7 to 10 weeks later. Pot them up in pots just slightly larger than the bulb using good potting compost. Leave one third of the bulb above the compost surface. Keep in a light warm spot and do not over water. The strong flower spike arrives before the leaves. After flowering keep the plant watered and fed to build up bulb strength so it can flower the next year, but it needs a good two months dormant period so slowly dry off in September. It can spend the summer months outdoors in a sheltered spot.

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NOVEMBER IN BLOOM

NOVEMBER IN BLOOM

Dahlia My Love

In the days before global warming, we gardeners could rely on the seasons to behave normally so we could organise our gardening activities on schedule. The summer season normally started with a dry warm June followed by just enough rain to keep plants growing, and then there was the July dry spell for the berry picking season and a cold but dry October for the tattie pickers. Summer flowers died down end of October so we could remove the bedding plants and replace them with spring flowering wallflowers and tulips. Winters usually arrived with a cold snap early November and I can remember skating in my early youth on several Dundee ponds in December.

Fuchsia in November

Today it has all changed. This year is said to be the hottest on record, but at my end of Dundee, the rains started in June and continued till November. In fact I think it is still raining. So where was that long hot summer? Onions got wiped out with white rot, and potatoes got blight, but green leafy plants were luxuriant. Flowering plants sulked for months, petunias and French marigolds died out and my roses got severely infected by black spot, but plants do not give up easily so the survivors are refusing to die down. It seems they want to make up for lost time!!!

This should be the beginning of winter, but walking around the garden you would think it is still summer. There are flowers everywhere.

Primroses

My tulip bulbs and spring flowering pansies and polyanthus (all covered in flowers) wait to get planted in tubs, but my tuberous begonias and geraniums in the tubs are in full flower and I just can’t pull them out. A batch of bright red geraniums planted in the shelter of a south facing wall still think it is summer, and as I have no plans to replace them I will just leave them to see how long they will last. On a previous occasion in this spot we got a very mild winter and they came through winter unscathed. Time will tell how they do this winter.

Fuchsia Mrs Popple has just loved this wet year and is still a mass of flowers, to be followed by a crop of fuchsia edible fruit with

Nerines

a sweet spicy flavour.

Rose varieties with more disease resistant foliage are having a late flush of flowers, especially the orange Dawn Chorus and yellow Arthur Bell. The white scented Margaret Merril has suffered blackspot, but is still flowering.

Spray chrysanthemums

Nerine bowdenii always puts on a great autumn show and the clump just seems to get bigger every year. It is very reliable and to see it at its best take a trip to Botanic Gardens as there is a huge drift by the glasshouses.

Dahlias would normally have been blackened by an early frost but mine are still giving a great display, so I’ll leave then a wee bit longer, but keep an eye on the weather forecasts.

Chrysanthemums are also continuing to flower so lifting them is also going to be a late task.

Pink orchid

Mahonia Charity is more associated with a late winter flower, but not this year as it is coming into flower now, and my snowdrops which should still be dormant are now pushing up into the light so they could yet again be in flower in December.

Back indoors I have a lovely pink Phalaenopsis orchid with a long raceme of flowers which is quite normal, except that I bought this one in full flower at the City Road Allotments Open Day in August and it just continues to flower. Four months of flowering is quite remarkable.

However my Christmas cactus, Zygocactus truncatus appears to be behaving normally as I have started to water it to bring on the flowering period just ahead of Christmas.

Wee jobs to do this week

Rhubarb

Lifting rhubarb

is now dormant, so after clearing off all dead foliage mature clumps, often six to ten years old can be lifted and divided. Discard sections from the middle but there should be plenty strong crowns around the edges. Select crowns with two or three strong buds and replant into well manured freshly dug soil, spacing them about three feet apart. Any spare crowns can be left on the surface to get some winter chill and then used for forcing to give an early crop of bright red sticks.

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HEAVENLY RASPBERRIES

HEAVENLY RASPBERRIES

My first experience of fresh raspberries goes back to the early fifties as this wee scruffy lad joined a band of other kids from the new housing estate St. Mary’s and headed into the countryside to pick some berries for which we would get paid a hefty price of a half penny for every pound picked. Pickers came from Dundee, surrounding villages and many travellers. Most of us got a few berries to take home for jam.

Polka raspberries

Summer berry picking stayed with me till I was old enough to get a full time job on leaving school, but the pleasures of the berry fields never left me so my garden always had a row of raspberries as well as some strawberries. At first it was the tall Norfolk Giant variety, but then along came Malling Jewel as an excellent main crop with a heavy yield. As time went on these were replaced with the very popular Glen Ample but then as climate changed and summers got wetter raspberries began to suffer the root rotting disease, phytophthora.

This event changed everything.

Raspberry tastings at James Hutton Institute

The east of Scotland had the perfect climate and soils for outdoor raspberry growing, but root rot was spreading rapidly so changes were needed. Initially it was the custom to plant canes on the top of ridges to help drainage, but now raspberries are grown in large pots under polythene tunnels with automatic drip irrigation. It was recognised that the older varieties were very prone to root rots so a breeding programme was started to find more resistant varieties for commercial growers.

Picking a few raspberries

Raspberries were so popular that it seemed sensible to extend the season by bringing in early varieties under tunnels as well as autumn fruiting varieties to have fruit well into October or even November in a good year. Autumn Bliss has had a great run for over ten years but now newer varieties such as Polka and Autumn Treasure give us far bigger fruits and picking made easier as the canes have no spines. These autumn fruiting varieties also seem to be less affected by root rots and yellow rust so assist breeding better varieties. However it is not just about disease and larger fruit as flavour is just as important before a new variety is released. Glen Fyne and Glen Dee have good berry size, good disease resistance and excellent flavour, so are perfect for home gardeners as well as commercial growers.

Planting raspberry cane

Raspberries are still grown in rows in the garden, but make sure the ground is well drained. As they will be left for ten years or so, it is worthwhile double digging a metre wide strip along the row, incorporating plenty compost to both subsoil and top soil. Plant the canes in the dormant season, about one to two feet apart and give a dressing of fertiliser to get them started. They will need strong posts with two wires to attach the canes to once they are two years old.

Summer fruiting raspberries fruit on canes produced the previous year, then in winter these are cut out and the new canes tied in with a running knot to prevent the canes moving in windy conditions.

Raspberry rust

Autumn fruiting varieties fruit on canes grown the same year, so after harvesting these canes are totally removed and fresh canes will grow the following spring.

Main pest is raspberry beetle maggots that mainly affect summer fruiting varieties, but sprays and hormone traps are available. The main disease of root rots affects older varieties so use disease resistant types. Raspberry yellow rust can also be devastating on some varieties, though newer varieties have some tolerance. If the rust is not too severe remove affected leaves in spring and burn them.

De Cayenne peppers

Wee jobs to do this week

Pick pepper De Cayenne as the season is now over. They can be stored for a few weeks in the fridge or washed, sliced removing the seeds and dried off for the freezer. This chilli is quite hot so be careful and use sparingly, though the health benefits of these hot chillies are very impressive having vitamins A, B, C and E and the minerals potassium and manganese. Hot peppers boost metabolism, circulation and blood flow and is said to increase energy levels with beneficial long term weight loss.

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HOME GROWN WINES

HOME GROWN WINES

In early youth, once you are old enough to sample a wee bit of alcohol you go over a threshold with a new experience that stays with you, but is forever changing as life evolves. As you are still very young there are a lot of lessons to learn, like,

Cutting a bunch of grapes

men drink beer, old men drink whisky and women drink wine. Way back in the sixties when the pubs shut at ten o clock (later on it changed to 10.30pm) as it was too early to go home we went for a meal and

Grape Brant

as we learned to be posh we got a bottle of wine. Following the fashion of the day, this would be Blue Nun, Mateus Rose, or even Liebfraumilch. However, on a trip to Melbourne visiting family my hosts were horrified to hear I drank wine as I got told all Aussie men only drink beer. As time marched on into the seventies, back in UK beer and wine consumption was not gender based and I got back to both beer in the pub, but wine with a meal. I enjoyed wine but these were poorer times so there was a surge in home brewing where you could make your own tipple with a few demijohns, some home brew equipment and a bit of foraging for fruit, such as elderberries, apples and brambles. Home brewing was very popular with shops stocking everything you need, then home brew magazines gave you the recipes and I even went to evening classes for wine making when I lived in Darlington. As my few demijohns bubbled away, then settled down to clear, it was very difficult to

Grape Rondo

contain your patience to leave the wine alone to mature so there was always a bit of early sampling. Eventually the good times arrived and we could have a bottle of wine with our meal on both Saturday and Sunday. Now that was living life to the full. However this was a learning curve, and not all fruit makes good wine so both the raspberry and strawberry went down the sink plus a few others. There was only one answer, and that was to get an allotment and grow my own wine crops. So I started with red currants, white currants, blackcurrants, gooseberries and apples, but had to have trips to the countryside to get my elderberries. They all make fantastic wine, especially if you can lay it down somewhere cool for three years.

Moving on to more recent times, I now grow saskatoons and the chokeberry, Aronia Viking which is extremely high in antioxidants so it makes a great health drink with a wee kick and a fantastic flavour. As climate changes and Scotland gets a wee bit more global warming

One year old wine clearing

(I haven’t really noticed any difference, other than the summers are wetter and there’s not much snow in winter) now could be the time to see if we can grow grapes up north. After trying many varieties my best bet has been Regent, Rondo and Brant which has small bunches, but are very sweet, juicy and black. All of these fruits can be frozen for future use to spread out the work load and demand on demijohns.

Aronia makes a healthy drink

All the normal fruit wines have great flavour, but need added sugar to boost the alcohol strength and once they come out of the fermentation bucket (4 to 5 days) I add some grape concentrate to add vinosity. Modern yeasts can give quite high alcohol strengths, but I try to keep mine at 11 to 12% alcohol and ferment right out for a dry wine as this keeps the calories down.

However wines made from home grown grapes have to stand on their own merits so no additional grape concentrate, but we need more sunshine to encourage the grapes to produce more natural sugars.

Checking the strength of the wine

This year my greenhouse Solaris and Siegerrebe picked in August gave a specific gravity reading of 1074 so needed some sugar to give a strength of 11% alcohol. Similarly my outdoor grape Brant left till the end of October gave a similar reading so the yeast also needed a sugar boost, but my vine yielded 36 pounds of grapes so I got 2.5 full demijohns after racking off the sediment.

Now I just need to wait three years before sampling begins!!!

Wee jobs to do this week

Dahlia drying off

Chrysanthemums will now be finished flowering and dahlias likely to get cut down by the first frosts so lift them both up for storing. Chrysanthemums are labelled and boxed up to grow on slowly in a cold greenhouse, so keep them watered , but not wet, and keep a lookout for greenfly.

Dahlias are dried off and stored in a frost free shed in boxes. They do not need any soil.

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