Time for a Clean Up

 TIDYING UP

The early summer gales only lasted a couple of days, but the effects in the garden will be felt for the rest of the year. So much young soft spring foliage was shredded that the plants have been weakened and will now be more prone to attacks of pests and diseases. Most plants will regrow again quite strongly if the weather warms up a bit. We have had plenty of rain to keep the garden moist, but not a lot of warm sunshine.

This is also the time of year when we do a tidy up of spring bulb flowering drifts, so the summer flowers can start off with fresh weed free soil.

Time for a clean up

I had just finished cutting back dead wood from numerous shrubs that were killed off after the cold winter when along came the gale and nature had another go at thinning out my garden. More pruning is now needed for my plum tree, peach tree, figs, shrubby loniceras, and climbing roses. The gales broke the main stems from a large lemon yellow flowering broom, Cytisus praecox. It was part of a group of flowering shrubs including many Cistus varieties all enjoying a dry sunny spot, but most died out in the winter, opening up the group and letting the gales smash into the normally very hardy broom. However all of this material will be recycled through our shredder reducing it to wood chips which then get mixed into my compost heap.
The rhubarb suffered a lot of broken leaves in the gales so they will end up as compost.

Daffodils, tulips, crocus and other spring flowering bulbs have had their six weeks of rest after flowering so the old foliage can now be pulled off and added to the compost heap. Hellebores, Doronicums, Aconites, and Bluebells can also be tidied up, but don’t add any bluebell seedheads to the compost heap as they will survive and sprout up all over the place when you spread the compost.

Spring flowering wallflowers, pansies, Forget me not and polyanthus can also be composted.

Add all the kitchen vegetable and fruit waste and all lawn grass cutting to the heap, then turn it a couple of times to help it to breakdown. You do not need to buy special composting worms, as they are already present in the soil, so they will find your heap and multiply very quickly.

Home made garden compost will feed all your garden plants giving them strength to grow and fight off diseases.

Pests and diseases

Control of pests and diseases today is not easy as the amateur gardener no longer has access to a wide range of chemicals. We can, however select only those varieties known to be resistant to the main range of diseases, and remain vigilant so we can take action as soon as any pest appears.

Sawfly attacked my gooseberries and had to be hand picked off and disposed off. Similar action was necessary on all my brassicas after a visit by several cabbage white butterflies, and again it was the same story in my shrub border. I found a hundred caterpillars, give or take a few, munching their way through the nice young shoots of Salix britzensis. Control was very messy!!

I had pruned them down to ground level to encourage fresh new shoots for my coloured stem border, which were doing very nicely before the caterpillars arrived.

Peach leaf curl continues to affect some leaves on my peach tree despite two sprays of Dithane. I pick off any affected leaves and destroy them. You can be quite ruthless as the tree is very vigorous and will soon put on new growth.

Roses had a few greenfly on them, breeding furiously, before the gales came and shredded their food supply. I don’t see any now, but a plague of blackfly went for my new dwarf cherry tree causing the terminal shoots to curl up and die. These had to be cut off to let new shoots grow in and replace them.

At least this year I have no gooseberry mildew as I only grow resistant varieties such as Invicta.

Finish off the planting

Winter hardy cabbage and autumn cauliflowers are now ready for planting on the allotment, but will need netting to stop the pigeons eating them.

Cape gooseberries raised in the greenhouse have now been planted out in a sheltered spot against a south facing fence. They should do well as this area got a green manure crop of mustard, plus extra garden compost to increase the soil fertility. I just love this exotic fruit, and it is also a favourite of mine for a still life painting.

Courgettes and pumpkins would normally have been ready to plant out by mid June, but the gales shattered them, so it was back to the greenhouse for the survivors to see if I can revive them. When I plant them out it is always on well manured soil with extra compost forked into the planting areas. They really need very fertile soil that can hold moisture. Two courgette plants will give us more than we can ever eat and two pumpkins will give us five to eight large fruits. They store very well in the utility room for use as brilliant soups right through the winter.

Early harvests

The season has been remarkably early despite the bad winter and spring gales. Early salads are quite prolific, very tender and full of flavour. Lettuce, (now cutting the second sowing), radish, (now picking the third sowing), spring onions and baby beet are all getting harvested regularly.

Strawberry picking started in mid May and is now in full swing. It is strawberries for breakfast, lunch and tea and plenty left over for jam and freezing. Blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries are all turning colour and the two rows of saskatoons are very heavy with young berries swelling up just nicely.

This could be a good summer if there are no more climatic disasters just waiting round the corner.

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Pottering Around

 POTTERING AROUND

Writing a gardening article ten days in advance of publication has its disadvantages. After surviving a really bad winter which killed out many plants, the garden readjusted itself as good growing weather prevailed for a couple of months. Seed sowing, planting, soil preparations and weeding were all back on schedule and I even had time to test the sun lounger. Everything was going so well that it was well worthy of a good gardening article, “Perfect Weather for Gardening”

Fate had other ideas and I now know how Michael Fish felt. The day before my article appeared the gales arrived and blew half the garden away. Good job this is Dundee, as no-one took me to task on my perfect gardening weather. Trees were blown down, my hanging baskets blew off the walls, plum trees lost half their branches, and the end of my greenhouse exploded as the winds bent the structure. Courgettes and pumpkins outside to harden off got blown out of their pots, delphiniums were flattened and any plant with soft spring leaves got shredded including climbing roses, young saskatoon plants, vegetable plants in boxes, shrubs and my new cherry tree and mature peach tree.

However, our unpredictable weather then gave us two days of heatwaves followed by a massive temperature drop turning my greenhouse tomatoes blue as they now have a well ventilated end with no glass. Strawberries are all ripening but lack of warmth reduces the sweetness and softness.

I hope that when you are reading this weeks garden adventure I will be back up to date with tasks and start my pottering around with numerous pleasant wee jobs, interspersed with coffee breaks and wee seats in the baking hot sun.

The Garden

As one display ends another begins. It is now the herbaceous border that is providing the colour with a combination of bright scarlet oriental poppies and blue flag iris. The gales had no effect on them but my new cherry tree, already suffering from an attack of black fly got its leaves shriveled, as did my plum and peach trees.

Poppy seed sown in many bare areas is germinating strongly and promises to give a good display.

My climbing roses, Dublin Bay and Gertrude Jekyll lost half their leaves in the gale, but are still putting on a decent display of flowers.

Cornus (dogwood), and Salix (willow) in the coloured stemmed winter border have both put on strong growth even after I cut them back right to ground level in March.

The Allotment

Strawberry picking is now a major task with a huge crop on all varieties. Gooseberries are also hanging heavily despite a thousand sawfly caterpillars mounting an attack when they thought I wasn’t looking. Black and red currants are also laden heavily with berries, already turning colour far earlier than normal. Nets will be needed for the red currants, but not the blacks.

Thinning turnips, swedes, chard and lettuce is at the two inches apart stage, but my thinly sown beetroot won’t be thinned till I can get thinnings as a baby beetroot crop. I do not thin leeks, spring onions or radish as they are sown thinly. Parsnips have germinated perfectly this year.

Chrysanthemums, sweet peas and gladioli planted out for cut flower and display have all established well as we have had good growing weather apart from the gales.

One area intended for a June planting of pumpkins, courgettes and cape gooseberries had been sown down with a mustard green manure crop to improve the soil fertility. This is now three feet tall and beginning to flower so it will be trampled down and dug in. It is best to dig with a trench so you can bury the green stems easily. They do not regrow once buried. It is an extra task, but has a really beneficial effect on the next crop. It is very worthwhile at the beginning of the growing period for late planting crops and also at the end after harvesting an early maturing crop such as broad beans, early potatoes, peas, salads and sweet corn.

The Greenhouse

Young vegetable plants left the greenhouse to get hardened off, then promptly returned as the gales blew in. Unfortunately it was too late for my courgettes and pumpkins which got shredded and blown out of their pots. I may be able to salvage some of them with a bit of luck.

Tomatoes were growing strongly, and flowering profusely before the gales blew out the glass. Now they are a bit cold but in time they should be ok.

Grapes now need constant pruning as every young shoot gets cut back to one leaf, as I can now see the bunches on the laterals growing from each rod.

Gardening Scotland

 

I have always attended this June event at Ingliston in Edinburgh as well as the Dundee Flower Show at Camperdown Park in September. However I now take a stand at these events to promote and sell my Saskatoon plants. They are becoming very popular as I was nearly totally sold out, only bringing back one plant. We also get the chance to look around other stands. Anna could not resist a gorgeous Peonia Doreen so it will now find a favoured spot in the garden. I really liked this Arisaema sikokianum, but was told it was a bit evil looking and a wee bit too much like a triffid, so I had to settle for a new rose for my garden hose. Life can be hard at times.

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Dundee Botanical Gardens

DUNDEE BOTANICAL GARDENS

The Botanical Gardens in Dundee is a unique asset for our town. It has developed along a different route from other Botanical Gardens. While it is a fantastic place to wander through enjoying a wealth of diverse plants from all over the world, it also serves to educate children, students and scientists in ecology, biology and the environment.

It celebrates its 40^th anniversary this month, and hopes to continue for many more years, but in these times of recession and cut backs funding for the future is always an issue.

The Botanical gardens started life on a very restricted budget, but this was turned into an asset as management of the natural environment as influenced by man was kept to a minimum.

However, as a horticultural enthusiast I enjoy looking at the beauty of natural landscapes, the smell of plants, not always found in garden centres, and finding rare and unusual plants, (all with named labels) that are usually only found in horticultural training colleges or botanical gardens.

There is a massive range of plants from mature trees to rock garden plants, tropical, temperate, rain forest and desert plants.

When studying horticulture during my apprenticeship days, knowledge of plants came from books in the Kingsway Technical College library. It would have been brilliant if this garden had been available to see all these plants and learn about them in a natural environment.

History

The gardens were started in 1971 by Dundee University to meet the needs of the botany staff.

The site chosen had a gentle southern slope, good soil, and a burn with very pure water coming from Balgay Hill running from the top western corner down through the gardens. This assisted the creation of several water features. It had great potential though initially it was quite barren and needed a lot of new plantings related to local needs.

The first curator was Edward Kemp whom I recall gave a lecture at Pershore College in the late seventies about how he was establishing a natural Scottish environment at the gardens using the south facing slope. This helped to establish a mountain flora at the top slowly changing by altitude to a seaside environment at the lower end, but going through other natural plant associations as you went down the slope. It was quite fascinating.

In 1980 Les Bissett became curator and established the new visitor centre. He brought with him a fantastic knowledge of plants.

The current curator Alasdair Hood arrived in 1998 and is concerned with promoting the gardens to increase visitor numbers and the education facilities for children, schools, colleges, university students and scientists studying biology, conservation and other plant sciences.

Education even extends to the establishment of a typical allotment garden, though some work needs to be done to bring it up to City Road Allotment Garden standards.

Education

This starts with toddlers who love to explore and discover where the tea and coffee comes from and what a banana and orange tree looks like. School children can study botany, see how plants grow, spread, defend themselves and reproduce and see local wildlife around the garden.

Facilities for teachers, students and scientists studying plants and their habitats and special research projects can be arranged.

Visitor Centre

Ample car parking allows for the increasing number of visitors to the gardens. Get advice on plants, garden problems and book a guided tour of the garden at the visitor centre. The visitor centre hosts a frequently changing art exhibition of local artists (I will be holding an exhibition of recent paintings in mid October), as well as an excellent cafe and plant sales area.

Greenhouse

There are two greenhouses. One is for tropical rain forest plants and the other for plants needing a desert habitat. Here you can see tea, coffee, oranges and bananas growing, and a giant water lily.

A wee bit of garden violence is provided with a good collection of insectivorous plants that feed on insects. The honeydew has a sticky secretion on the inside of its leaves. When an insect gets bogged down and begins to struggle the leaves fold over it so it cannot escape. The pitcher plant has long funnels with slippery sides and downward pointing hairs. Insects are attracted to it seeking some sweet nectar. Unfortunately, there isn’t any, but once they go into the funnel they can’t get out and slowly weaken and fall to the bottom of the funnel where they drown in a watery fluid full of digestive enzymes.

Natural Environments

The garden has developed over the last forty years as a place to study plants from all over the world growing in their own natural environment as much as the Dundee soil and climate will allow.

The shelter of the north west slope behind the glasshouse creates a drier environment suited to herbs and Mediterranean  plants.

At the other end of the garden plants from Australia and New Zealand which also enjoy a drier climate are well represented with some excellent mature Eucalyptus species, shrubs and ground cover plants. I really appreciated finding a Hebe macrantha with large white scented flowers, a plant that we grew in the Parks Dept nursery at Camperdown, but I had never seen since.

Another area hosts plants native to the Americas with some impressive giant redwoods.

Plants native to Scotland have a special area of mountain, glen and burn, and the specimen of Camperdown elm is the strongest and healthiest I have ever seen. It does not grow very tall as it has a strong tendency to weep.

A new section to show plant evolution from mosses to flowering plants has been created in a series of dry stane dykes which meander around leaving behind planted beds showing the different stages of plant evolution. Those dykes are very impressive showing that they can be very strong as well as ornamental allowing the builder ample scope to be as creative as he/she desires. They are a fantastic piece of pure stone mason craftsmanship.

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Tuberous Begonias

TUBEROUS BEGONIAS

Tuberous begonias are one of the most reliable summer bedding plants, providing a wealth of large blooms in any weather in just about any colour except blue. They are perfect for bedding, tubs, window boxes, hanging baskets and as a house plant on a sunny window sill. They are also used extensively by exhibitors at gardening and flower shows.

The flowers are usually double and can be frilled and some have a beautiful picotee edge.

Once you have grasped their basic cultural needs for growing and storage they will last for years. I purchased my tubers about fifteen years ago and at the end of each season I have more than I started with as the tubers grow larger. Protect them from frost at all times as they are half hardy.

It is usual to use different varieties suitable for summer bedding (doubles, Non Stop, Frilled, Picotees), those with a trailing habit for baskets (pendulas), and those with large bright flowers for showing (expensive upright doubles). You can pay up to £30 for one tuber of the best variety, whereas tubers for bedding are about £1 to £6 each. They may be expensive to start off with, but they last for years and slowly increase in size.

Early training in Begonias

Away back in the mists of time when the Dundee Parks Dept had numerous apprentices, (here we go again) we were trained to grow begonias to exhibition standards. Our head gardener at Duntrune Terrace training gardens grew them for exhibition at the Dundee flower Show. It was absolutely essential, we were told, to line the inside of the clay pots with fresh cow manure. Apparently only fresh manure would stick to the pots, not to mention the apprentice’s hands. So a wee trip to the countryside was arranged for some unsuspecting young gardeners early in the morning before our ten o’clock tea break. We never forgot how to grow exhibition begonias.

However the begonias were terrific all summer and I needed to get my hands on some for my own garden. An apprentice’s pay does not stretch to the purchase of tubers which at that time cost a fortune, but I could afford a packet of seeds from the country’s specialist grower of begonias, Blackmore and Langdon from Bath. These arrived one January, were sown immediately according to our resident head gardener and I subsequently obtained a small crop of about fifty tuberous begonias. These all flowered that summer and the tubers lasted for years.

History

Plant collectors brought back the first begonia species from Bolivia and Peru in the nineteenth century, but these plants only produced a few small flowers on tall plants. Breeders starting crossing the species, selecting the best plants and slowly over time the begonia began to improve. At the beginning of the twentieth century a partnership of two amateur growers got together and formed Blackmore and Langdon of Bath. They produced hundreds of seedlings to sell to other nurserymen. They also exhibited successfully in London and have continued hybridising begonias ever since.

Propagation

Although cuttings can be taken and root fairly easily, the plant does not produce many sideshoots for cuttings nor are there many initial shoots on the sprouting tuber to take. It is also possible to split the tuber in April when emerging shoots are quite prominent. You need at least one or two shoots on each piece, but this is a very slow way to bulk up stock.

Seed sowing is the best way to produce a lot of plants quickly.

Sow in January to February on finely prepared seed compost. Do not cover the seeds as they need light to germinate, but to retain a moist atmosphere cover the seed tray with glass. Turn this over daily to remove condensation. . They must always be moist, but never wet and need a constant temperature of 65 to 70 F. to germinate. Always water by immersion from the bottom. The seed is very small and the seedlings are equally small, so when big enough to transplant you will need to make a forked stick to lift them out together with a very small dibber. Do not handle seedlings with your fingers. Plant them in trays about 4cms apart and once they fill those, transplant them again into larger containers. Young seedlings are quite tender and may be damaged by strong sunlight, so shade for a few months till they get a bit hardier. They should be big enough to plant out in June.

Culture

Dry tubers are started into growth by placing them close together, concave side up in shallow trays of compost in January or February. Cover them with compost but not too deep. They need a temperature of at least 65 F. Once the sprouts begin to grow and need more space, replant them into larger boxes or pots. Keep them watered and fed. Harden off by mid May and they should be ready for planting at the end of May or early June.

I plant out my begonias in beds at about a foot apart as my mature tubers now grow into quite large plants. They do not need staking, but if you are growing for exhibition you will need stakes as the large flowers are quite heavy.

The plant produces one main large male flower together with two smaller female flowers at the end of each flowering shoot. The smaller female flowers only need to be removed for exhibition. It is not necessary to remove them in a flower bed or tub. They are gross feeders in tubs, pots and baskets and need constant watering, but will reward you with a fantastic show of colour right up till the autumn.

Storing

At the end of the flowering season, about mid October, cut back the plants to about three or four inches and lift them carefully. Knock off any loose soil and store them in an airy dry cool but frost proof place. Let the soil around the tubers dry out and fall off. Store them in boxes concave side up covering them with the dried out soil or old potting compost. Make sure it is fairly dry.

Keep checking them to make sure they are still dry but firm.

Some time in late February the buds will begin to grow, so then it is time to start them back into life.

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