BUSY TIMES

BUSY TIMES

The summer came at last, the rain went off and with warmer weather we got the chance to catch up with planting and sowing. However it was necessary to get the hose out and make sure young plants and seedlings did not suffer from the dry spell, but then once the ground was sufficiently moist the sun disappeared and the rain came back again. What the weather will be like when this appears in print ten days later is anybodies guess, but I am hoping for a return to summer.

Ground preparation

Overwintered Swiss chard runs to seed in spring so after a final harvest of young leaves the plants were dug up and added to the compost heap. The last of the winter Swedes were lifted, and leeks were finished a few weeks ago, so there was a fair bit of soil digging to do before the next crops can be planted. Land kept for sweet corn, courgettes, pumpkins, French beans and a later sowing of peas had been sown down in early spring with a green manure crop of red clover. This made excellent growth but it does not grow tall like mustard so it was easy to trample down and dig in. Clover has nitrogen fixing bacteria on its roots so adds food to the soil when it rots down.

Some garden compost was added while digging as all these crops like a rich soil full of humus.

Sowing

Peas, lettuce, radish, beetroot and spring onion continue to be sown for continuous cropping.

Swede Gowrie (clubroot resistant), cabbage January King and Swiss chard Bright Lights were sown as well as wallflower and myosotis for flowers for next spring. Some seed suppliers should really look after their customers a bit better if they want repeat business, A packet of Swiss chard seed was so sparse that it only sowed a four foot row. A normal allotment row is about twelve feet or more.

The first harvesting has started with radish, lettuce, spring onion and spring cabbage and I hope to have my first strawberries before this goes into print. The strawberry patch has had a deep covering of straw up the rows to stop soil splashing onto the young fruit as they develop.

Planting

Cabbage, cauliflower, kale, courgettes, pumpkins and sweet corn all got planted. The brassicas needed protection with nets for pigeons, and dressings of perlka fertiliser for clubroot. Carpet underlay squares are used under each plant to guard against rootfly maggots, but slugs just love to hide under them to slug pellets are a necessary evil. I was too late with some new plantings and some plants got attacked with about twenty maggots per plant. Fortunately I grow spares to replace lost plants. The battle continues.

On another battle front I pick off numerous sawfly maggots from my gooseberries every other day, but there is always more in reserve for another day. However the bushes look very healthy and the crop looks excellent and black and red currants are also looking fantastic.

Earlier sown peas germinated strongly and have now been supported with wire netting, and also netted to protect them from pigeons.

In the greenhouse Jalapeno peppers are now flowering and looking good. Tomatoes are also in flower and sideshoots are removed from the main stem as they form. Black Hamburg grapes are full of bunches on most sideshoots, but only a few on Flame and none on Perlette. Pruning sideshoots at one leaf on all grape plants is done at least twice very week.

Bedding geraniums, tuberous begonias, marigolds, petunias and lobelia have been mass planted all around the garden and allotment to give us a wealth of summer colour. Shirley poppies on the allotment from earlier spring sowing and Iceland poppies sown last year are all now in flower.

One border planted with tall scented lilies has had an intercrop of pumpkins as I had a few spare plants. They should be quite happy together as they occupy different height needs.

Plant of the week

Delosperma nubigenum also called the yellow ice plant is an evergreen fast growing succulent ground cover plant. Give it the right location in full sun in well drained soil even poor stony soil, and it will smother itself in yellow flowers in early June. When summer appeared in early June for nearly a whole week the Delospermas went crazy with flowers and there was hardly any green shoots visible. The plant was a solid block of golden yellow daisy flowers.

It is also great as a plant to push into crevices in south facing garden walls where it will root and look after itself. Propagation cannot be easier as all you need to do is pull a few shoots off and stick then anywhere. They always root easily.

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GARDENING SCOTLAND 2013

GARDENING SCOTLAND 2013

Gardening Scotland at Ingliston in Edinburgh in June is always a major event for many gardeners.

Every year is different from previous years. This year every exhibitor has had to reschedule plants as the season is so far behind that normal plants for June are just not ready, but those that are normally finished are still in full flower.

However this year the sun shone, the cold east wind subsided and the event went ahead just like an early summer event should. The highlight of this event for me was more musical than horticultural when the invited band the Red Hot Chilli Pipers played on stage and gave their version of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars. So absolutely brilliant that I had to leave my Saskatoon stand to go and see them perform that number.

I have always been very keen on large flowered tuberous begonias, but this year the The Scottish Begonia Society stand had to fall back on the begonia rex foliage plants, that may well be quite showy but cannot compete with the tuberous begonias that unfortunately were not available in great numbers.

I attend this event every year to promote and sell my Scottish grown Saskatoon plants, but as I have to arrive quite early to restock my stand it gives me plenty time to wander around the site and see all the other stands before the public arrives.

My saskatoons are proving very popular as this new fruit is slowly getting some recognition as buyers from a few years hence are now giving me positive feedback that bushes are now in flower and the first fruit crops are only a few weeks away.

There were great displays of peonies by Binnie Plants, clematis, chrysanthemums, rock garden plants and numerous other specialist plant growers. One of my great finds was the Trillium Snow Bunting with double white flowers in great profusion, but at £25 per plant a wee bit beyond my budget. Apparently the seed takes three years to germinate and another three years before it comes into flower.

Many stands are still selling a lot of heucheras in a wide variety of colours which are still the in plant to grow, and Jacques Armand still had perfect specimens of my favourite Arisaema sikokianum.

There were many stands and great displays of bonsai plants which were very old but in fantastic health with many rhododendrons and azaleas in full flower on miniaturised plants but as perfect specimens. These old knarled plants had great character and commanded attention.

However going back to my artistic side I was very impressed with the stand of original paintings by Daniel Campbell who is having a great run of popularity. Daniels Scottish landscape paintings are full of colour, selling very well and he also publishes many of his images in prints. Daniel also takes a stand at the Dundee Food and Flower Festival at Camperdown Park in September.

I spent a lot of time in my apprenticeship years training at Kingsway Technical College, now just Dundee College, so it was great to see that their stand had been awarded with a Silver Gilt for the stand designed by Ally McCloud. When I visited the stand two trainees, Lettie Bridgewater and Kathleen Coutts were on hand to offer help on the design as well as training at Dundee College.

The current idea for plant composts is a great reduction of peat in the mixture. However there are lot of very inferior products being marketed as peat free, and giving very inferior results. I have lost many plants as seedlings or cuttings in peat substitute composts that leave a lot to be desired. Good drainage is often compromised unless you add extra grit or sand.

One supplier of compost, Dalefoot Composts, creates their own brand using wool mixed with bracken and composted indoors in large sheds to control composting. Sheep need to be shorn and now there is no commercially viable market for sheep’s wool, but it can still be used as a very valuable composting material at times when there is a move away from peat based composts.

Wool and bracken are mixed in heaps and turned every week to assist breakdown, and once the wool and bracken has broken down to the correct degree, mixtures are created and designed for seed sowing, potting and soil amelioration.  I tried some of these composts on my young Saskatoon plants and got great results though they are quite expensive.

Plant of the week

Laburnum vossii is also commonly known as Golden Rain as it is very striking when in full flower in late May to June. This small deciduous tree is very easy to grow but gives the best display of long golden flower racemes in full sun in a sheltered spot.

This plant however has a bad reputation as all parts of the tree contain the alkaloid poison cytisine and it is strongest in the seeds and seedpods. Unfortunately these can resemble garden peas and young children have been known to eat them. They can cause severe illness but are rarely fatal, though this poison is a favourite for authors and television dramas. Gardeners often remove the seedpods after flowering to conserve the tree strength so it flowers profusely the next year.

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A GOOD YEAR FOR FRUIT?

A GOOD YEAR FOR FRUIT?

If flower quality and quantity is any judge of fruiting potential then I am in for a bumper year of apples, a good year for plums, blackcurrants, red currants, gooseberries and saskatoons, but pears and peaches are having a rest this year. Threatening them with severe violence just did not work this year. The peach had four miserable flowers, and the recently grafted pears had six flowers on a Beurre Hardy graft, but all the other grafts have nothing but very vigorous growth. However my outdoor grape Solaris is showing a few grape bunch initials so all we need now is a return to some brilliant summer weather like what we expect with the promise of global warming so the bunches can grow and ripen up.

Rhubarb has been fantastic as it seems to like this damp cool weather, so we pick, eat and freeze the abundant stems as they grow.

Top Fruit

I have never seen such a massive amount of flowers on all my apple trees from the early Oslin to the late Red Devil and Bramley cooker. They look fantastic and being so late there is no problem with flying insects around to pollinate them.

The old Victoria plum tree finished flowering a few weeks ago. There was only half the normal show of flowers but one solitary bee worked his socks off over four days pollinating all the flowers. Bees have not yet sussed out flexible working, overtime rates, unsocial hours or bank holidays.

If only I could find some way to reward him for his dedication.

Cherry Cherokee had plenty of flowers and now has excellent growth with no sign of blackfly which often attacks young growth tips causing them to curl up and distort.

The poor show of flowers on my outdoor peach Peregrine and pear tree could be caused by last years long cold sunless weather which prevented autumn ripening up of young shoots and formation of new fruit buds.

Soft Fruit

Gooseberries are looking brilliant with plenty of small berries, very healthy growth and no sign of sawfly, but I will check regularly as they are bound to appear soon. I will pick them off and crush them as soon as spotted before they build up to plague levels and defoliate the bushes.

Red and blackcurrants are also showing great fruit potential, but I will keep an eye out for greenfly which attack the growing points. Cuttings taken of the new large fruiting Big Ben variety are shooting just nicely and they all wanted to give me an instant crop of berries, but I had to resist so they are all stripped off to let the plants concentrate on vigorous new growth.

Saskatoons have just finished flowering but there was not as much as last year. I am putting this down to poor autumn ripening of young shoots. I just hope the smaller crop results in bigger fruit as there will be less competition.

Blueberries suffered a fair bit of dieback over winter, but there still seems to be a decent crop to come. Again it could be poor autumn ripening of shoots followed by cold wet soil over winter.

Raspberry Glen Fyne is my new variety replacing my Glen Ample wiped out by the root rotting fungus phytophthora. However they were planted on new land as phytophthora stays in the soil a long time. New cane growth is promising and older shoots retained from last year will give me a few berries to sample.

Strawberries are in full flower so crop potential is high, though last year I also had a huge crop, but lost most of it as the wet weather caused the fruit to rot on the plant. My strawberry Mae under low polythene tunnels is a fortnight ahead of Mae in open ground and the tunnels will give the fruit some protection from wet weather.

Grape Solaris on a south facing fence is now in leaf and has at last produced some young bunches. Time will tell if these will ripen up.

My mature Brant is only just breaking bud so too early to judge cropping.

New varieties Rondo, Phoenix, Regent and Siegerrebe are in growth and showing a few bunches. These should be removed to allow the plant to establish good growth in the first year, but I am very tempted to allow a couple of grapes to develop just to see how they perform up north.

Plant of the week

Robinia frisia can be a spectacular small specimen tree with golden foliage from spring till autumn, but it needs really good drainage especially in winter as it does not like cold wet soil.

I have had my tree growing happily for ten years, though last years wet weather and this year’s cold summer has got it struggling a wee bit. However it is well worth persevering with it as it is an eye catcher in summer. Remove any die back of young branches as they are liable to coral spot disease if left on the tree when young.

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PERFECT POPPIES

PERFECT POPPIES

A Scottish garden without some form of poppy is never complete. From the very popular Oriental poppy to the annual poppies sown from seed they somehow always find a spot to appear in, and if you let the weeds get a hold the corn poppy or Welsh poppy is sure to pop up.

Poppies have an ability to spread into everyone’s garden in one form or another. In my early training days my granny proudly showed me her two favourite flowers. One was an Oriental poppy with large scarlet heads and the other a smaller golden yellow flower which came up every year with a nice show of small blooms swaying in the breeze. Later on with more knowledge I realised this was the common Welsh poppy, a bonny weed by the name of Meconopsis cambrica. We also frequently see our soft red corn poppy Papaver rhoeas, another common garden weed, but never the less still very attractive. I have also had several poppy types blown into my garden and quite happy to set up a wee colony that expands every year. These have turned out to be the Californian Poppy and the Opium Poppy. Several years ago I got a packet of seeds of Poppy Ladybird, which were fine at the time. However the flowers dropped seeds which have lain dormant for about four years then reappeared to start flowering all over again.

Californian and Shirley poppies however can be a bit invasive unless you keep them controlled. One City Road allotment plot was very famous for his poppies which had run riot all over the place and in great danger of spreading into all the neighbouring plots till action was taken. However they were very attractive so I managed to get a few good photos of the show before a dose of glyphosate weedkiller sorted them out. This gave me a great image for a painting when I did a dozen allotment scene paintings. Poppy heads produce large quantities of seed which will all grow given half a chance, so only save enough of the best for your own needs then dead head the rest immediately after flowering, unless you have the space to establish an ever expanding colony.

Perennial poppies

The Californian tree poppy, Romneya coulteri can grow up to six feet tall producing large showy white flowers with a yellow centre of conspicuous stamens. The flowers are set off against the warm grey green deeply cut foliage. Being native to California it needs a hot dry location and can be quite a challenge this far north.

Oriental poppies come from Turkey and Iran, so also prefer a warm spot to show off their huge dazzling scarlet and other coloured flowers. They are very easy to grow and flower in great profusion every year. The foliage will die down after flowering in late summer.

Propagate by division in autumn, but don’t leave any old roots around as these grow very rapidly into big plants at the first opportunity.

Himalayan Blue poppy known as Meconopsis betonicifolia is a short lived perennial lasting a few years. It forms clumps which may die out in the centre but usually some buds around the rosette will grow into the next plant. It has intense blue flowers in May and June and prefers a woodland fringe aspect in dappled shade and moist soil rich in humus. I propagate mine from seed sown in seed trays late summer or early autumn then left outdoors to overwinter. It needs a cold frosty spell before it germinates in spring. Keep the soil moist at all times and protect it from slugs, mice and birds.

Annual poppies

Iceland poppies are biennials, flowering in early spring and summer from a sowing made the previous year. They are absolutely glorious with large pastel shade flowers blowing in the breeze. They grow about a foot tall.

Californian poppies, Opium poppy, poppy Ladybird and Shirley poppies are all annuals, sown in early spring outdoors on a fine seedbed and either left alone or thinned if very thick. Keep them weeded and watered early on to build up a strong plant. They do not need a fertile soil, or any fertiliser, so long as the topsoil is friable to assist good germination. They can all drop seed after flowering which will grow again the following year, so dead head the plants after flowering if necessary.

Plant of the week

Phlox subulata (moss phlox) is an easy to grow rock garden plant with pink flowers. It makes a perfect ground cover plant a few inches tall as it is an evergreen perennial flowering profusely in late spring every year. For best effects plant it in full sun in well drained soil. It loves spreading over walls and rocks in the rock garden. It is easy to propagate from cuttings taken in spring.

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