ANNUAL FLOWERS

ANNUAL FLOWERS

There is always a place in most people’s garden for a few summer flowering annuals. You could have a dedicated

Candytuft

annual border to flower every year, or you could use annuals to fill in any gaps that always appear as we remove plants past their best, or where some plant has died out. They are also invaluable in new built house gardens, to give colour and green plant cover to soil, while we take time to work out our garden landscape plan. Soil on new built gardens is usually poor, but as long as you can get a good surface tilth for seed germination the plants will flower happily as they do not like a rich fertile soil. However if the soil has a lot of clay in it add some old compost from growbags, tomato pots or some well rotted garden compost into the top few inches to aid germination. If you wish to

Geranium Paul Crampel

establish a permanent annual border choose a sunny site with well drained soil. This can get dug over in late autumn after the last flowers have faded, the old plants removed and the bed tidied up removing any weeds. Leave it rough over winter so the frosts can break down a large surface area of soil which will then be easy to rake over in spring.

Sowing and planting

Most plants can be sown direct into the soil, but there is nothing wrong with bringing on some early under glass to start the show sooner

Livingston daisies

than those direct sown outdoors. I often sow Livingston daisies, Cosmos, Osteospermums and Candytuft in the cold greenhouse in cellular trays to give plants an early start. Outdoors the border just needs raking level and producing a good tilth to aid seed sowing which can start at the end of March to mid April direct onto the ground where they are to grow. If your border is a fair size and you are growing a range of annuals it may be better to mark out drifts with sand then sow each type in rows in its own patch. When these grow to a few inches they can be thinned and transplanted to where ever they are needed. This method also makes weeding a lot easier. It gives a more natural appearance when sowing or planting up drifts if the

Nasturtium

different plant types overlap to some degree.

A good range of annuals

There are so many different ones to choose from, that it is worth trying a few different ones each year to see which suits your tastes and location best.

Many half hardy bedding plants such as Impatiens, Petunias, Marigolds, Lobelia and Geraniums are treated as annuals, but these are best for traditional beds, tubs and hanging baskets, so I am concentrating on the hardy annuals usually sown direct onto the ground or raised for a few weeks in plug trays. You can also bu

Opium poppy

y a wide selection cheaply from your garden centre as plug plants.

Shirley poppies are a must as they are very easy to grow and colourful as well as Californian poppies and poppy Ladybird. A gorgeous fully double pink poppy arrived as a stray weed in my garden, but put on such a fantastic show that I saved seed for future years. It was a variety of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum, so I just let it go to seed and then see what comes up the next year. Godetia, Livingston daisies, Osteospermums and Candytuft are very showy at the front of borders and Clarkia, Cosmos, Cornflower, Nigella, Larkspur and Amaranthus

Poppy ladybird

better at the back.

Calendula and Nasturtiums are easy and give a great show, but keep them dead headed as if left unattended they can become very invasive in the following years as the seed remains viable.

Wee jobs to do this week

Give fruit trees, (apples, pears, plums, cherries) and bushes such as raspberries,

Spreading fertiliser on fruit bushes

currants, gooseberries and saskatoons a spring feed with a general fertiliser to boost growth. This also strengthens flower clusters and aids fertilisation. You can follow this with a mulch of well rotted compost to keep weeds down, preserve moisture and once the mulch rots down it will add humus to the soil. Strawberries are best left unfertilised otherwise it might boost excess growth at expense of fruiting and do not mulch as they will get a layer of straw between the rows to prevent soil splashing onto the fruit.

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WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE

Dundee City hopes to become a great holiday destination for visitors and tourists. The waterfront development with the new V&A, new train station and hotels will boost visitor numbers together with existing visitor attractions including Discovery Quay, Camperdown Park,

Dundee in Bloom 1990 oil painting

  Broughty Ferry  beach, swimming pool, skating rink, golf courses, vibrant night life with music in pubs and clubs and numerous other interesting tourist attractions. My problem as an older Dundee citizen is that I remember the days when we were also a very colourful city with flowers everywhere in Parks, open spaces and people’s gardens. We were very proud

Geraniums with a date palm

of our ability to create great flower displays. I had the benefit of a five year gardening apprenticeship as the Dundee parks took on about fifteen new apprentices every year. They were needed to grow and propagate all those flowers, trees, shrubs and roses which brightened up the town. The Parks Manager Sandy Dow was a trained horticulturalist who just loved flowers, so we grew bedding plants at Camperdown glasshouses by the thousand, and also roses by the thousand at the nursery. We were taught great gardening skills and took pride in creating our colourful city. All parks had great displays of summer and spring bedding with wallflowers and tulips and even all the housing estates had rose beds in

Impatiens hanging basket

grass verges, and the town centre had vibrant flower beds everywhere.

Down at council house level, the new tenants, many from the demolished Overgate found themselves with a garden where they could grow free food. Then a competitive spirit emerged as front gardens got a flower border and the competition for the most colourful impact of flowers resulted in a profusion of geraniums, begonias, salvias, antirrhinums and other bedding and always edged with alyssum and lobelia. These were great times for Dundee. No decent garden would be

without the red Paul Crampel geranium, as well as the pink Christine and white Hermione, and we extended our planting schemes from flower beds to tubs, window boxes and hanging baskets.

Then

Pink Dahlia

Britain in Bloom competition for the whole of UK reared its head and flower power was everything. New flower beds were created in the town centre (now a taxi rank) and grass verges got planted with drifts of daffodils and crocus by the thousand to brighten up the roads into the town.

Time moves on and fashion changes and our Parks manager retired. Competition in the Britain in Bloom was fierce with Aberdeen way ahead with more roses and masses of daffodils. Slowly flower beds in Dundee disappeared. Interest in gardening waned as other social activities took prominence, then as the townsfolk got wealthier and car ownership exploded and people needed somewhere to park. Gardens were then changed into hard standing for the cars. Lawns, roses and flowers are slowly disappearing from the private gardens as slabs, sets and gravel take over.

Flower power in Dundee centre is now hard to

Wendy enjoys the Oriental poppies

find, but as we all look to ways to improve the appearance for our perceived increase in visitor numbers the use of flowering plants should not be underestimated. Spring and summer bedding plants will always give impact but need trained gardeners to grow and look after them so there is an added cost.

Mixed tulips

However the benefits of creating a town with an impressive show of flowers, is well worth the cost. Flowering shrubs like forsythia, philadelphus, rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas and many more, and numerous large shrub roses are all easy to grow and fairly vandal proof and labour free. Other plants for impact such as dahlias and oriental lilies could be found a space in parks borders where vandalism is less prone. The impact of flowers will always enhance the visitors experience and give them more reason to return with friends for another visit.

Wee jobs to do this week

Erect

Tunnels over early strawberries

low polythene tunnels over a row of established strawberries of an early variety like Honeoye, Mae or Christine. Make sure the ends are secure so they will withstand strong winds. The row will need extra watering during sunny spells as the polythene will prevent rain keeping the plants moist. The first fruits should be ready for picking at the end of May.

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EDIBLE LANDSCAPES

EDIBLE LANDSCAPES

Blueberries

Life appears to move forward at an ever increasing pace. My early childhood days are unrecognizable today. We never knew about information technology and only the better off had television, so everyone played outdoors. We had woods nearby and hills (Sidlaw Hills) to climb only a two hour walk away from our housing estate (St. Mary’s.) No-one knew of any dangers, and no-one came to any harm, but we did learn a lot about nature and got any amount of outdoor exercise. Older kids passed down their knowledge to us so we learned about blaeberry picking, collecting wild strawberries, picking sheep sorrel from the woodland floor (botanically called Rumex acetosella, but we called it surix) and on our bicycle trips to the raspberry fields in Longforgan we would stop under the cherry trees along the Perth road and eat whatever fruit was ripe. As we got older we never forgot our childhood adventures but looked into this natural edible landscape with greater

Sweet chestnut

interest. As kids from the town we took every opportunity to get into the countryside both for play as well as earning some money picking raspberries, strawberries then in autumn it was potato picking. Looking back with hindsight you could say it must have been hard work for kids, and we must have been poor, but it was really great fun while we were young and fit and the extra money boosted our income (pocket money.)

Japanese wineberry

Today life is very different with all our kids needs close at hand as long as they have the latest mobile phone. The countryside is no longer viewed as a place of discovery as ability to travel all over the world and this country is normal and all their food needs are available at the supermarket, so they never learn how food is produced. This lack of outdoor education is recognized, and local communities and schools are beginning to address this problem. Edible landscapes are being created within schools as well as other outdoor landscape areas. Although in its infancy it is becoming very popular with schools, and some communities are getting involved in planting up outdoor landscapes using a wide range of edible plants, both for use and for education of our children. Kids love to handle seeds, cuttings, plants and learn how they are used for dyes, basket making, fibres, brushes, fuel, soap, insecticide and the benefits of green manures on cultivated land.

Walnut

Forest gardens are another development on a larger scale within a woodland setting, but plants chosen are useful or edible and form a woodland flora from the taller canopy trees such as walnut, sweet chestnut and edible lime trees to the forest floor layers such as blueberries and wild garlic. There are also many edible plants that prefer a pond or bog garden from watercress to reeds, cranberries, white water lily, and other plants that have edible rhizomes, leaves, fruit and seeds.

We grow apples, pears, plums and cherries in our gardens, but we can also diverse with mulberries, hazelnuts, saskatoons, chokeberries, quince, medlar, fuchsia, figs and hardy outdoor grapes.

Brambles, Tayberries and loganberries make excellent climbers, and currants, raspberries and gooseberries will form good hedges.

Wild Garlic

Plants with edible leaves include lime trees, nettles, sorrel, bamboo (shoots), campanula, and wild garlic, and the list of herbs and medicinal plants is enormous. Many herbs have medicinal value but rosemary, thyme, sage and mint is used for flavouring many meat dishes and kale and Swiss chard are excellent in a stir fry.

We encourage our kids to try out a bit of gardening with growing pumpkins and sunflowers but there is another world just waiting to be discovered with plants and their uses.

Wee jobs to do this week

Pruning the Euonymus

Prune any evergreen shrubs that are getting too straggly or encroaching on other plants

space. Some plants such as the Euonymus and Elaeagnus are quite happy to be kept contained as they regrow from cut branches easily. However bear in mind their natural shape and avoid all attempts to cut them into square or round balls.

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SEED SOWING

SEED SOWING

The garden has had its winter rest, but now we must make plans for the spring and summer months. Choose a nice sunny day and check over the garden and allotment to see if all the winter work has been attended to. Digging the vegetable patch

Anna transplanting tomato seedlings

should be complete except for areas where green manures are still growing. All other areas should be weed free so we can go into the next season with clean ground. Fence and shed repairs should also be complete, path repairs completed, roses and fruit bushes pruned and raspberries and blackberries tied in. Any new

Tomato Sungold

plants we would like to grow should be ordered as well as seed potatoes, onion sets and vegetable seeds. Pruning of grape vines should all be completed and as we leave winter behind the snowdrops and aconites should still be flowering to let us know spring is arriving. So now we can turn our attention to growing flowers, vegetables and fruit for 2018.

Many plants on windowsills growing from cuttings, (geraniums, fuchsias, Impatiens, cistus, euonymus) taken last autumn are putting on growth and some need more room, so they will get transferred to my unheated greenhouse and get potted up into the next size pot. Fuchsias and Impatiens, however can be a bit soft, so if any frost is forecast they will come back inside at night.

Potatoes for this year have all been sorted so now they are all perched upright in seed trays beside a window to catch the light, but in a cool unheated room to allow young shoots to grow sturdy and slowly. I keep different varieties separate and all labeled up.

Yellow crocus

This year I will grow a few rows of my favourite early, Casablanca, then some Charlotte and Maris Piper with a new variety Setanta. Satanta is red skinned with resistance to blight, great flavour and is said to grow well in areas prone to drought, (not usually a big problem in Scotland)

Seed sowing can now begin with those crops that like a long growing season or are more cold tolerant so won’t get affected by late frosts.

Onions, sweet peas and broad beans can now all be sown in warm conditions for a few weeks then gradually harden off. I sow my onions in small cellular trays with about forty cells and usually need two trays per seed packet. Broad beans get similar treatment but in trays with bigger cells. Later on once they have germinated and put on some growth they will all be transferred to larger celled trays.

Sweet

Snowdrops

peas are given an over night soak in water (old traditions die hard) then sown individually in cellular trays or use trays with larger cells and put three seeds in each. Again after germination, pot up into larger pots or cellular trays to grow into bigger plants. All of these plants are best kept warm until they make some growth then harden off with cooler conditions in an unheated greenhouse or cold frame. Depending on weather, they should be ready to plant out two or three weeks later.

Rooted Impatiens cuttings

Tomatoes can also be sown now but they are not hardy so need warm conditions till big enough to plant out. I sow mine in seed trays, then after germination at the two seed leaves stage, prick them out into individual small pots. Grow on for a few weeks then pot up so they can grow strongly. Plant them into their final pots, growbags or border once you see the first flower truss. If any sideshoots appear at this stage remove them as tomatoes are grown as single stemmed cordons.

Once we get into March seed sowing begins in earnest as there is numerous vegetables and flower seeds to sow as well as annual outdoor flower borders for poppies, cornflower and many others.

Wee jobs to do this week

Christmas cactus in February

The Christmas cactus, Zygocactus truncatus may be a beautiful festive pot plant where nurseries can time flowering

to perfection for the Christmas market, but the home gardener has a more difficult time. My cactus refused to flower at all, so it got relegated to a light, but cool and sunless windowsill and got dried off to let it go dormant. Six weeks later my petulant plant decided it would like to flower after all, so it was back into the light and warmth and a wee feed to keep it happy so it can show off its flowers, though a couple of months late. Once flowers fade it is back to drying off for its spring rest, then in mid summer young shoots should appear to it is back to watering.

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