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COME GARDENINGThe magazine of the National Blind Gardeners’ ClubEditor: Val George Technical Editor: Wendy ChamberlainReaders: Actors from Sound TalkingSubscriptions: SueTwiggCopying and mailing: Rita Goodall and Marilyn GossSeries No 114 July 2010
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
ANNOUNCEMENTS – Plant a Difference scheme, Thrive Chelsea garden, and reformatting the Audio library
GARDEN WRINKLE 1 – cutting back plants in July for a later flowering
MARKETPLACE – hardy orchids, spring flowering plants, potatoes for Christmas, a useful marking fluid and some lightweight containers
GARDEN WRINKLE 2 – build a bee hotel
NEWS AND QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERS – starting with club news, some favourite plants, and getting rid of cats and ants
GARDEN WRINKLE 3 – saving seed
THE FLOWER GARDEN – Buddleias
GARDEN WRINKLE 4 – spreading fish heads!
GREENFINGERS – some seasonal tips
GARDEN WRINKLE 5 – autumn lawn care
AUDIO LIBRARYTAILPIECE
Please send all correspondence, including changes of address, to:
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The National Blind Gardeners’ Club, Thrive, The Geoffrey Udall Centre, Beech Hill, Reading RG7 2AT Telephone: 0118 988 5688, which has a 24-hour answerphone facility when the office is closed or email: [email protected] or [email protected] Registered Charity no: 277570
EDITORIALWelcome to this summer issue of Come Gardening. It’s good to hear news from quite a few gardening groups this time, and we are thrilled to see the success some projects have had in securing their own dedicated garden spaces. We hope to hear more from these as they settle into their new sites.
We hope you enjoy the Marketplace finds that Wendy has sourced this time and would be glad to have your feedback on any of the products and plants. It would be interesting to know how you get on with growing hardy orchids, for instance.
Finally, members want to know how to deal with problem pests in the garden - cats, squirrels and ants - and we have a range of solutions to try.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Plant a DifferenceIn the last edition of Come Gardening, we told you about Thrive’s ‘Plant a Difference’ scheme which has been launched to raise the money to send boxes of plants for disabled gardeners to grow. The boxes will contain ready to plant vegetables, herbs or perennials which can be planted on the kitchen windowsill, in patio containers or in the garden. To register for a Plant a Difference Box for yourself or for another disabled person, please call us on 0118 988 5688 or register through the Thrive website www.thrive.org.ukOne box has already been sent to Greenshoots club in York to help with planting up their new garden which you will hear about later in this issue.
Chelsea GardenAt the time of writing Chelsea has just finished and we are delighted with the award of a Gold medal and ‘Best Urban Garden’. We hope that many of you will already have heard this news through the coverage
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that Thrive has had on both radio and TV. This is just the publicity that we had hoped for to spread the word about Thrive and the support we offer to all disabled gardeners. By the time you read this the Thrive show garden from Chelsea will be looking splendid in its new location at Thrive’s Trunkwell Garden Project - and will be enjoyed for years to come by both the gardeners and visitors to the project. If you are in the Reading area, come and see the garden on one of our open days on Sunday 18th July or Sunday 25th July 2010.
Audio LibraryThe Audio Library is a fantastic resource which, as members of Thrive, you can all benefit from. At present the library exists only on audio tapes. Since audio cassette tapes are rapidly becoming obsolete and the life of the tape reduces each time a tape is played, we have decided to have all the titles in the library copied onto audio CD in digital format. This means that the quality of this resource will be maintained, copies to CD can be made quickly and easily and, in time, they should become available as mp3 downloads from the website. We plan to re-launch the library in its new digital format in our next issue of Come Gardening, so watch this space!
International Year of BiodiversityThe United Nations has proclaimed 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, and people all over the world are working to safeguard irreplaceable natural wealth and to reduce biodiversity loss.
The term biodiversity is used to describe all plant and animal life found on earth, as well as micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses - and their habitats. In a garden, biodiversity covers everything from mosses and lichens, to plants and trees, different cultivated varieties of flowers, fruit and vegetables including common and rare species, soil micro-organisms, insects, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds.
As our gardens have trees, shrubs, ponds, hedges and a great range of plants and layouts, they offer habitats for pollinating insects and wildlife and contribute enormously towards sustaining biodiversity.
We can all make a difference by taking small steps in our gardens to help garden wildlife. These can include:
Build a bee hotel – see Garden Wrinkle 2 for instructions Make a log shelter Put in a pond Create a compost café Go chemical free Catch the rain Recycle something
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Save water by growing plants that need less water, such as hebes, lavenders and buddleias
Cut off old sunflower heads and hang them up. Birds eat the seeds and bugs hibernate in them
Plant pot saucers and dustbin lids make good birdbaths.
Gardening for AllWe are pleased to announce a new collaboration between Thrive and the RHS to assist with the inclusion of gardeners who have sight loss into their local community gardening groups.
The RHS currently runs three community gardening programmes which support groups and communities throughout the UK in:
Sharing their gardening knowledge Helping the environment Increasing civic pride Building a sense of community Getting the community active
The current programmes are:RHS Britain in Bloom: One of Europe’s largest horticultural campaigns in which over 1,000 cities, towns and villages participate each year in order to show off their achievements in environmental responsibility, community participation and of course, horticulture.RHS Neighbourhood Awards: The grass-roots community gardening sister campaign to Britain in Bloom offering support and recognition to over 600 community-lead groups who are cleaning up and greening their local patch.RHS Affiliated Societies: The UK’s largest network of gardening clubs which supports over 2,800 local gardening clubs and horticultural societies in sharing their knowledge and getting even more people gardening.
We have just launched a new guide called Gardening for all which gives information to enable community gardening groups to feel confident in welcoming gardeners who have sight loss to participate in their activities. This guide is being launched in the RHS July issue of their quarterly magazine “Growing Communities” which is sent to the 4,500 community gardening groups. The guide is available as a download from either the Thrive or RHS websites or as a copy from Thrive.
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If you are interested in participating in a community gardening group in your area and would like details of groups that are active in your area, please contact the RHS:Telephone: 020 7821 3651Email: [email protected]: www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Community-gardening
GARDEN WRINKLE 1A tip from Alan Titchmarsh’s website. The ‘Chelsea Chop’ is a method of cutting back plants for a later flowering, bushier plant, and is usually carried out in May, around the time of the Chelsea Flower show. In fact, depending on the species, you can do this operation at different times through the year. Here are some plants you can cut back in July and into August:
Aconitum napellus, or Monkshood: cut back early varieties after flowering (they're poisonous so wear gloves) to encourage side shoots to flower.
Alchemilla mollis - prevent self-seeding and tidy tatty foliage by cutting right back to 5cm (1in) above the ground after flowering.
Geranium (hardy) - after flowering, cut right back, feed and water thoroughly to get fresh foliage in a fortnight and a second flush of flowers later in the season. Geranium macrorrhizum is the exception, which only needs deadheading. Cutting back or deadheading also helps stop self-seeding which can be problem with some species.
Geum - after flowering, cut right back to new basal growth, feed and water thoroughly to get fresh foliage and a second flush of flowers later in the season.
Salvia - cut back fading flower spikes of perennial ornamental salvias to just above the side shoots below the spike to encourage them to flower.
Sidalcea malviflora – also known as Prairie mallow - cut back immediately after flowering to get fresh foliage and a further flush of flowers in autumn.
MARKETPLACE
Hardy Orchid - Cypripedium reginae
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Orchids are now fairly familiar to us as houseplants, as we saw in the last issue, but did you know how many hardier family members – both native and exotic – can contribute to the open garden, as reported in an article in the RHS magazine The Garden earlier this year?
European and North American producers are developing some reliably hardy slipper orchids and Dobies are currently offering the hardy Cypripedium reginae, the Queen Lady's Slipper. This variety has some of the largest and showiest blooms of the Cypripedium, with white petals that hover above the fuchsia-flushed 'slipper'. Dobies are supplying this plant as a root that is already six seasons old, which will produce strong rich green foliage of up to 50cm (20") to carry the flowers. The flowering time for this orchid is from mid June. As the plant becomes established in the garden the rhizomes will spread to form spectacular clumps – or you can plant three for an immediate clump. You don’t need to be an orchid expert to grow these - no experience or specific growing conditions are necessary. There is a current offer of ‘buy 2 get 1free’, and one bare root plant costs £14.95; Code: 440008. www.dobies.co.uk Orderphone (open 24 hours) 0844 701 7625
Wallflower Prince Mixed Plants Also from Dobies, this wallflower is described as an excellent dwarf growing variety with bright, fragrant flowers produced on compact, bushy plants. Colours include yellow, scarlet, primrose, violet and intermediate shades. Its dwarf habit -height 20cm (8") - makes it particularly suitable for growing in patio containers. Buy 20 Easiplants, for delivery in August 2010, for £6.95; Code: 479701. You can also save £3.95 on a pack of 40 Easiplants. www.dobies.co.uk Orderphone (open 24 hours) 0844 701 7625
Spring Bedding Plant Collection Dobies are also quoting a saving of £5.00 on their collection of Spring Bedding, which includes 40 Easiplants of Wallflower Prince Mixed, as just described, along with 40 Easiplants of Polyanthus Pioneer and 60 Easiplants of Pansy Paradise Mixed F1. Polyanthus Pioneer has excellent winter hardiness, a strong-growing, floriferous habit, and an impressive range of colours. Height 30cm (12"). Pansy Paradise will give you a display of pansies in an enormous range, both with and without ‘faces’. The vigorous, uniform plants are very hardy, showing some colour throughout winter, and reaching a spectacular climax in spring. Height 15-20cm (6-8"). £24.85 for the collection of 140 plants, Code: 481253; delivery: August 2010.www.dobies.co.uk
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Orderphone 0844 701 7625
Autumn and Christmas potato varietiesThese tempting seed potato varieties are on offer from JBA Seed Potatoes of Scotland.
Autumn Collection: These varieties should grow on until the first winter frosts hit them, which will start to kill the foliage off. You can plant them in your garden under a fleece or grow them in potato planter bags, also available from JBA. The Collection is £19.99 including delivery, for 1kg of Maris Peer, 1kg of Charlotte, 1kg of Carlingford and 1kg of Nicola. Each kilo pack should contain approximately 12 potatoes.
Christmas maturing potatoes: All of the following seed potatoes should give you a lovely Christmas crop if you plant them in early August. All are £6.99 per kilo.
Balmoral is a beautiful part-coloured, high yielding variety with shallow eyes, with good resistance to powdery scab, common scab and blackleg.
Carlingford is an excellent salad type potato which produces a high number of round to oval tubers with white skin and a firm waxy texture, with good disease resistance.
Charlotte is now the most popular salad potato in the UK and has been chosen by Gardening Which? magazine as the best tasting salad variety available. The long tubers have a yellow skin and firm yellow waxy flesh, with very good resistance to foliage and tuber blight.
Kestrel is said to be one of the best tasting varieties with an even colour, excellent cooking uses and disease resistance.
Maris peer has scented flowers, which makes these potatoes unusual. Tubers are oval, with a firm creamy coloured flesh and white skin. They have good resistance to all skin diseases.
Pentland Javelin produces heavy crops of short oval white skinned tubers with pure white tasty flesh.
So for your early winter or Christmas crop, contact JBA Seed Potatoes, telephone: 01461 202 567www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk
Tacti-Mark
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Tacti-Mark, from RNIB, is a liquid plastic that sets hard for use as tactile labelling in the garden and home. Excellent for marking tools, containers and plant labels, it can also be used on clothing, paper, metals, and hard plastics. The bottle nozzle has a fine point for accurate marking, such as marking controls on cookers, washing machines, thermostats etc. It dries within hours of application. Tacti-Mark does not stick to flexible plastic.
Available in three colours: Florescent Orange, order code DL40; Black, code DL40A, White, code DL40W.
Price per bottle: £3.36 excluding VAT and £3.95 including VAT. The RNIB helpline: 0303 123 9999www.onlineshop.rnib.org.uk
Potty InnovationsThis company produces some good looking lightweight expanded foam planting containers. Clover pots are designed to stack together to create a two tier container suitable for strawberries, tomatoes, herbs or salad leaves. Each tier is made up of a clover leaf shaped container with three planting spaces. The container is roughly 36cms in diameter by 38cms high when stacked. Available in granite, blue, green, gold and bronze, Clover pots are £11.99 or on offer at 3 for 2 - £23.97 - for a limited period.
Lucky Clover is a similar design with a four-leaf clover shape and four planting stations on each tier. It is currently available in blue and green, priced at £13.99, or 3 for 2 - £27.98.
Another idea is the range of Cultivation Station kits also made in lightweight foam. Interlocking planting blocks slide together to create a raised bed made up of small planting stations around the edge, with an open space in the centre. If you lay the bed onto soil, or even grass, you can fill the centre space with compost too. The idea is that you plant deeper rooted crops in the centre, and something like herbs or smaller crops in the planting stations. You can buy the planting blocks individually, as edge or corner pieces that simply slide together, or choose from various DIY kits. The Starter kit is a 1m square design made up of eight pieces; price £35.21. The Octo design has an octagonal shape and is again made up of eight interlocking pieces; 1.4m square, £45.94. The starter rectangular kit measures 1m x 1.9m and costs £58.18. All of these prices are ex VAT, and there is a delivery charge that only becomes clear when you order! To find out more, visit www.pottyinnovations.co.uk
GARDEN WRINKLE 2 - How to Build a Bee Hotel
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Unlike the familiar bumblebee, mason bees are solitary. Mason bees are much more effective pollinators than bumble bees, so they’ll help pollinate your fruit and veg. After hatching in spring, the female spends most of her life searching for hollow stems in which to lay her eggs. If you can provide something suitable, she’ll come to you. There are a number of commercial varieties of bee hotels available, but why not save some cash and make your own?
You will need:• Tubes – hollow plant stems or bamboo canes• Garden twine/string/wire
How to make it:1. Prepare the tubes: any hollow plant stems can be cut into 10-20 cm long sections. Bamboo canes have sealed nodes, cut them so that long hollow sections are exposed; they come in a variety of internal diameters, those up to 1 cm will be used by some species of bee. When cutting down plant stems in the autumn, keep some sections of hollow stems of shrubs and/or fairly tough herbs (even down to 2mm diameter hollows). Cut bramble and rose stems have pith into which tiny bees make their own burrows. If reeds are available, then dead hollow stems can be broken into sections.2. Tie a bundle of tubes together: with garden twine, string or wire.3. Hang them up: place and anchor your nest on a sunny or partly sunny shelf on a shed, or similar location. Ensure that the nest is protected from the rain.
Note: these nests will attract solitary bees, not those that live in groups. Some of these bees are very small and black in colour so they may not even look like what many of us think of as bees!You will know if your nest is being used as ends of tubes will be sealed with leaves or mud. The female selects a stem and lays an egg inside with a store of pollen for the grub to eat when it hatches. Then she seals up the cell with a plug of mud, and starts again. A stem can end up with several cells. The young bees won’t emerge until next year. Your nest may also be used by other bugs such as ladybirds and lacewings, looking for a safe place to shelter in!
NEWS AND QUESTIONS FROM MEMBERSWe start with a round-up of news from a number of clubs:“Watch this plot” – a report from Greenshoots club in YorkThey say when you are waiting for a bus, two come at once. Since our Greenshoots Gardening Club in York was established in 2004, we have been looking for a base for our activities, enquiring with the Allotment
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Officer, parks and lots of other places round the city. We had almost given up, thinking the only places we would get our hands dirty as a group would be in each others’ gardens or a Thrive workshop. Some of us did attend the wonderful Thrive gardening weekends, but are now unable to go, for family reasons. So, when we had all but given up hope, we were suddenly in the situation of being offered two possible plots.
We went to visit both plots on the same day. The first plot, run by a group called Garden Able, has just been built. It has stacked tyres set out in a horseshoe shape to form one group of raised beds and at the other side of the paving, some wooden rectangular raised beds have just been constructed. We all came away very impressed and ready to take on some of the beds, although there was no shed for our tools or to shelter. And some of the members would have had a two or three stage bus journey across the city to get to the plot.
The second plot is called Garden Explore, and is based behind a library on the west side of York. This garden has a wide terrace leading onto flat newly laid grass, about thirty foot square. There is a high wall on the left hand side, a high fence at the bottom and small buildings with a little open area to the right. Access can be made through the library during opening hours or we have been told that a gate can be constructed at the side for us. There is a coffee bar and toilets, most of us can walk from our homes and it’s also on a route for three buses. We discussed the merits of each site and the latter won.
Wendy (Chamberlain) came up in April and supported us at a meeting with the Library Manager, Allotment Officer, and council staff. Wendy showed them photos of other gardening club projects. To begin with, we are having two L-shaped beds built from wood by the Probation Service. These will be placed at each corner, on the edge near the terrace. There will be seats around them and underneath, a lockable store for tools. We hope to have borders around the rest of the plot.
The Manager of the library would like children to go into the terrace/garden for Story Time and wondered if we would like to grow salad crops for sale in the coffee bar. As I write, nothing has been constructed yet, but I am told everything is in hand.
Maybe we could be gardening as a group later this season and planting things to establish for next season…watch this plot. From all the members of Greenshoots, both two and four legged.
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Official Opening of the Sensory Garden at Kent Association for the Blind’s Sight Centre, Bromley On Saturday 24th April, Councillor Auld, Mayor of Bromley, cut a red satin ribbon and declared the KAB Sight Centre’s Sensory Garden officially open. Cllr Auld, whose charity of the year is KAB, congratulated a small group of KAB and Rotaract Bromley volunteers on the hard work that has gone into transforming a previously empty space. The Mayoress, Mrs Patricia Auld, was delighted to cut a special cake in honour of the occasion.
Thirty guests shared in the opening ceremony celebrations at the Sight Centre. Steve Evans, a KAB service user, spoke about how lovely it was to have wind chimes, a movement-detecting croaking frog, furry-leaved and fragrant plants, and other features in the garden which surprise and delight one’s senses other than vision.
Carrie Davis, a member of Bromley Rotaract Club, reported how their members had been looking for a more challenging project, which would really make a difference and be of long term benefit to the local community. She described how the process began when Lucy Morrell of Thrive visited the Sight Centre to give a workshop teaching various safe gardening techniques for people with sight loss.
Margaret Wilkinson, Team Leader at KAB Bromley said, “Gardens need continual upkeep. KAB has formed a Gardening Group who will be responsible for its maintenance and will carry on working here. They want to try growing tomatoes and other plants from seed. There is still scope for KAB to develop the garden further in the future, so we would very much like any further help that can be offered by people from Bromley. Please contact KAB Bromley if you can help, or if you would like further information about sensory gardening or the services that Kent Association for the Blind offers.”
KAB Sight Centre,18 Blyth Road, Bromley BR1 3RX, telephone 020 8464 8406.
GardeneyesGardeneyes is the brainchild of Mark Smith, the Leisure and Befriending Co-coordinator for the Norfolk and Norwich Association for the Blind. A keenAllotmenteer, Mark wanted to initiate a group of like-minded visually impaired people for mutual support, development of gardening skills and enjoyment. An inaugural meeting was called in August 2006 and the seeds of Gardeneyes were sown. Three years on and the group is flourishing, with 25 members.
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Mark is now assisted in the organisation by a small committee of visually impaired people, volunteers and supporters, who regularly meet to plan the future programme.
Mark says: Meetings are held monthly, apart from January and August. In the colder months we tend to have speakers, many of whom go to great lengths to move away from the customary chat or slide show format to provide talks of a much more ‘hands on’ nature.
In the warmer weather we visit gardens, nurseries, garden shows and other horticultural events. Many of these visits have included personalised guided tours.
Last year we held our first Summer Show, with classes for a whole range of flowers, fruit and vegetables. The judge spoke to the exhibitors as he dealt with each class, giving reasons for his decisions and pointers for the future.
The year ends with a traditional Christmas Social – a dinner, quiz and general review of the year.
But what of real gardening - digging and pruning and such like? Well, with our members coming from all corners of Norfolk and some facing quite arduous journeys on public transport, it wouldn’t be practical to have a communal garden or allotment where more regular attendance would be necessary. However, we do have workshops, many held at local garden centres, where our members can learn new skills and hone old ones. These can then be put to good use when members return to their own gardens.
Perhaps the most important benefit that Gardeneyes offers is one that we didn't plan for - and that is the friendships that have evolved; these are as strong as the love of gardening which binds us together.
Gardening Club for Bridgend Visual Impairment SocietyIn late summer, 2009, the Committee of the Bridgend Visual Impairment Society approached the Bridgend County Allotment Association to ask for a piece of allotment land on which they could hold a Gardening Club for their visually impaired members. Since allotments are very popular again the Association did not have a piece of land that was immediately usable. However, they did have a piece of very overgrown land which they thought might be suitable. The Association had just been awarded some funding to enable them to enlarge the car park on their site in Bronfair, Maesteg, so they added a little extra to this funding and while the machine was there clearing
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the land for the car park, the piece of overgrown ground was also cleared.
The Bridgend VIS Committee decided that they would like to involve other local groups in the scheme, and so the ‘Every Link Counts’ group were approached and they agreed to come on board. Friends volunteered their services, plans were drawn and estimates requested. It was decided that Phase 1 of the project should include sturdy paths suitable for wheelchair users, a patio area, a meeting hub (in other words a large shed), 12 raised beds, and a few other things.
By late September the ground had been cleared, with 450 square metres of flat, usable ground ready for the project. But now the hard work would begin, looking for the funding. Maesteg Town Council was approached; at a Council meeting, Julie Thomas, the Chair of Bridgend VIS, made an excellent presentation, and John and Doreen Morgan explained the facts and figures. The group were delighted that the Councillors awarded the project £9,200, which meant that Phase 1 of the project could start immediately.
With funding for Phase 1, match-funding could commence for Phase 2, which would be the first project in Bridgend county borough to provide a specially designed and built facility for local visually impaired and disabled people. The Glamorgan Gazette (the local newspaper) did a photoshoot, giving quite a bit of publicity, which meant that more people offered their help. In late October Bridgend VIS were awarded match-funding from the Western Valleys Regeneration Fund, so a new plan for the whole site was drawn up. The extra funding meant that we could now have 20 raised growing beds, a polytunnel, a sensory garden, and a compost loo, together with the meeting hut and patio area, all the paths being wide enough for wheelchair users, and the whole site fenced and secure. On 22nd February 2010 the contractors moved in, completing their work by the 2nd April 2010. The work cost just over £40,000 of which the Welsh Assembly has paid £21,700. The Bridgend Visual Impairment Society Gardening Club project is now well under way...
…We all look forward to hearing how this exciting project develops!
Wrexham Blind Gardeners ClubOur group of 14 members has been going strong for almost four years now, and like most active clubs we have evolved to provide the activities that members want. We began with monthly speakers but as meeting places became more expensive and we had exhausted our list of speakers, we became more of an activity club.
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These days we don’t meet in January or February but have a very varied programme of outings, which we decide on at our AGM in October. We have found the National Trust to be very accommodating and the head gardeners at both Erddig and Chirk have given us described tours of the gardens, including a tasting session at the Erddig apple festival in September.
We make full use of our members’ gardens by making visits in the summer and sharing tips on getting about in them and adapting tools, etc. This year we are taking a trip to Tatton RHS show in July and of course anyone providing guiding to our members will have free entry to the show, which is a service also provided by the National Trust.
The most memorable day we have had so far this year was a Thrive ‘masterclass’ put on by Wendy from Thrive. We spent a few hours in a magnificent Victorian walled garden in Wrexham, sitting outside in the sun and sharing tips and listening to Wendy sharing her expertise. It was truly gardening heaven!
We asked for your plant ideas for gardeners with sight loss – here are your comments so far:
Jane Howell, a NBGC member from London, says:I am partially sighted and I find that I can see white flowers quite clearly, so here are three suggestions. First rose ‘Iceberg’ which has a pure white flower with a sweet scent and which flowers all the summer, right into the autumn. I have even had flowers as late as November. It also seems to be very tough and disease resistant.
The next plant is Anemone Japonica, which has large decorative leaves and flowers late in the season when there are few flowers left. The flowers appear well above the dark leaves so that they hang like stars above the plant. They can be either white or pink, so make sure you get the white ones which are far prettier and more visible.
The last plant is the Hellebore which has dark green leaves, very bold and unusual. It likes a clay soil and semi-shade. Most of the varieties have pink or purple flowers which are not very visible if you have some sight loss, but I have recently acquired a beautiful white one which will show up well in a dark corner. Hellebores can be tricky to establish but are well worth the effort and will grow in that difficult shady corner. I shall be very interested to hear other people’s suggestions for plants.
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Thrive adds: the Christmas Rose – Helleborus niger - includes a white form; ‘Potter’s Wheel’ has large white flowers which should emerge close to Christmas. This hellebore tends to prefer a limey soil with good humus content to thrive. Lenten Rose - Helleborus orientalis, flowering in February – April can also include a white form.
Andrea Gordon, NBGC member Swansea, adds:My perception of beauty is different, linked as it is to shape, texture and context. I have, as an example, a really strong dislike of orchids, and of many flowers with very exposed open structures. Their popularity and esteem among sighted people totally baffles me, so I'd never grow them!
Wendy writes:We held a workshop at Thrive, Trunkwell Garden Project in May for a group from Berkshire County Blind Society, which included a tour of the garden. Several members of the group were very interested in the white version of the perennial cornflower, Centaurea Montana ‘Alba’, which they were able to see, as its white flowers show more clearly than the normal blue. This fully hardy plant likes full sun or partial shade, and a well-drained, moist soil. It flowers from May to July and its shaggy white flowers with reddish violet centres are twice the size of the native species. One supplier is Crocus, offering a plant in a 2-litre pot for £5.99. See the website: www.crocus.co.uk/plantsPhone 0844 557 2233
One member of the Berkshire group said that she had heard that squirrels could be prevented from eating nuts put out for the birds by adding chilli powder to the nuts. RSPB confirms that chilli powder – or even Tabasco sauce – is likely to put off squirrels, but is harmless to birds. There are more ideas for keeping squirrels off feeders on the RSPB website: www.rspb.org.uk/advice
Several members of the group asked how to keep neighbours’ cats from digging in their garden beds and containers. Since this is a question that I am often asked, I decided to do some more research into possible deterrents. There are lots of different ideas on the following website:www.hintsandthings.co.uk/garden/cats
Extracts from the site include this tip from Andrew Bell, who says: You need either lion or tiger droppings! I did not believe this at first but rang London Zoo many years ago to find that there was a four month waiting list. They eventually called to say that my lion droppings were ready. I collected a black plastic bag full of frozen produce and was asked to pay £5.00. The Zoo suggested dissolving a lump in a watering
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can and sprinkling it around the garden. My wife refused to keep the rest in the freezer so I distributed what I had in a once-only operation; a smelly but effective choice. I never saw another cat in our garden. The more common remedies are spreading citrus fruit peel, chilli pepper powder or eucalyptus oil. You can spray old teabags with deep-heat-type muscle treatment, and then place these in problem areas of the garden, covering with a sprinkling of soil to disguise the bags if needed. Alternatively you can dab the teabags with peppermint or eucalyptus oil, the smelly oils will last for 2 weeks even if it rains.
Ali Lister added: We recently put a large wind chime in a tree, in a corner which was used constantly by scores of cats. Amazingly, we have not seen a single cat in our garden since. The chimes are tuned to the notes of a Gregorian chant!
Another suggestion is to provide an area for cats to use by turning over some soil in a garden bed. Get some cat pheromone spray from a vet or pet shop and spray it around the new area to encourage them to go there.
The website www.deteracat.co.uk has a number of products for deterring cats.
Get Off Scatter Crystals release a strong citrus odour that deters cats from digging and territory marking. The jelly-like crystals can be sprinkled on the ground to ‘ring fence’ your beds. £5.95 for 450gm.
The Mighty Sonic Scatter-Cat is a hand held ‘gun’ that uses sonic and ultra-sonic technology to deter unwanted cats from entering your garden. It uses laser light sighting to target cats over 10 metres away. Set the gun to sonic, hold down the trigger and aim with the laser light. £24.95 + VAT
The Catwatch Ultrasonic Cat Deterrent is the only deterrent recommended by the RSPB. When an unwanted cat moves in front of the Catwatch sensor, an ultrasonic sound startles the cat which soon learns not to go near it. The unit can operate with an ordinary 9V battery, but the 12V mains adaptor pack will give improved performance. £59.95 with mains adapter, which has a 9m lead.
Colin Morgans from Mid Glamorgan emailed recently to ask - can you suggest a good way to rid a garden of ants?
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Wendy found these ideas on ant control on the Green Gardener website, www.greengardener.co.uk (helpline 01493 750061) which offers a range of natural home and garden products:
Up until recently there have only been chemical controls for ants, but now we have natural controls for ants in the lawn, patio and even in the house.
Ant nematodes: Ant nests in lawns and borders can be a real problem. Simply water these nematodes (Steinernema feltiae) directly into the nest using a watering can. The treatment is ideal for treating red ant nests in lawns. The product comes as a powder and should be used in one go. As the nematodes work directly on the ants, do not apply to the area until the ants are present and the soil temperature is 10ºC or above. The product is safe for children, pets, wildlife and for use near food crops. Simply repeat the treatment as often as is needed to keep the area free of ants.
A Standard Pack treats 16 large ant nests or a 12 square metre area and costs £9.99.
A Large Pack treats approximately 50 large ant nests or 36 square metres, at £24.97, saving £5.00.
DEbug - Diatomaceous Earth is a substance derived from the fossilised remains of diatoms (a type of algae). It is ideal for treating ants in patios, driveways or direct into the nest. DEbug is applied with the puffer bottle supplied and once exposed the insect can no longer retain its moisture and so dies within a few days. DEbug will control ants, earwigs, woodlice and other crawling insects. Available in 1 kg pails with a puffer bottle, £24.99.
Pestclear 2000 controls crawling insects including ants, in the house. It uses electomagnetic interference and ultrasonic sound to drive the pests away, but can't be heard by people or pets. It is mains operated - simply plug the device into any socket. Each device will cover an average house - up to 2000 sq ft. It is effective against ants, cockroaches, woodlice, earwigs, wasps and many other insects, as well as rats and mice. Pestclear 2000 costs £36.50.
Another suggestion is to mix a small bottle of clove oil (inexpensive from the chemist) in a large watering can with a rose sprinkler. Watering this over the area of ants will eliminate them.
GARDEN WRINKLE 3A tip from members of Greenshoots gardening club, York:
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Gather flower, bean, pea and pepper seeds and use for your next season’s crops. To make the seeds go further, swap with other keen gardeners or sell them to help your gardening club.
THE FLOWER GARDENBuddleiasThis is an extract from Darling buddleias by Robin Lane Fox (2008), as included on Buddleia specialist Longstock Nursery’s website www.longstocknursery.co.uk
Although we think we know all about them, buddleias are not well understood by gardeners: so I have been off on some research to find out what we are missing.
We think of buddleias as tall, easy shrubs with rather coarse leaves and plumes of flowers in late summer, whose shades of purple or white are beloved by butterflies.
The biggest buddleia collection in England is in the fine nursery at Longstock in Hampshire where mature specimens can be viewed on any day of the week. Longstock Park Nursery, part of the Leckford Estate, owned and managed by Waitrose, is set in and around a brick and flint walled garden, and is home to the National Collections of Buddleia and Clematis viticella and the Gilchrist Collection of Penstemon.
Longstock’s owners have had the good fortune to employ a buddleia fanatic and breeder, Peter Moore. He worked for years for the nearby nursery of Hilliers but his true home is Longstock’s smaller enterprise, where he can attempt to improve on nature and rear new hybrids in popular families of shrubs. Longstock is the garden and nursery of the John Lewis Partnership, lying in the grounds of its founder, the late John Spedan Lewis.
There are spring-flowering buddleias, pale pink-flowered buddleias and even a Mexican form, cordata, which attracts flies rather than butterflies. I am about to become a buddleia bore, not least because I have now bought too many varieties and have no idea where I can fit them into my gardens.
Mainstream buddleias are very easy to look after. They like a sunny site and are unfussy about soil. Most of them are best cut down to about a foot above ground level every spring. At Longstock they are cut in late March. Beginners find that this job needs a leap of faith as the yearly top-growth of a buddleia is so luxuriant. Veterans even do it
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with powered hedge-clippers! The plants survive this cut really well and then remain at a manageable height, liberally covered in flowers by August. The other essential is to keep on dead-heading them, which will treble their flowering season.
In Moore’s view, gardeners are obsessed about dead-heading their roses but never think of dead-heading their buddleias. Many plants show dead brown plumes of flower among the fresh but will usually send up new, short plumes from their lower leaf-joints. When dead-headed, most of the popular forms will flower on into mid-September. If their flower spikes droop badly in heat, water the plants in the evening.
If your idea of the best is still an old Davidi hybrid like Royal Red or Black Knight, you are landed with coarse untidy leaves and a tall habit which is hard to fit into a decent border. At the entrance to the Longstock collection, I realised how far I had fallen behind the new age. A 5ft-high beauty called Adonis Blue was showing dark, slatey blue spikes of neat flowers above tidy, slender leaves. It had been bred at Notcutts nursery in Suffolk. In front of it were the striking short white-grey leaves of Buddleia Silver Anniversary.
This new buddleia stands out in a crowd and its terminal white flowers have a honey scent. It has been bred at Longstock by Moore; I bought one of each variety, thinking how well they will look in the driest part of my garden. They are both completely hardy, but adapt particularly well to dry Mediterranean conditions.
Some buddleias are native to dry parts of China. In Europe they colonised post-war bomb sites and the untended ground along railway lines.
I asked Moore to name his top picks, starting with two of his own – shining white Silver Anniversary and the paleish blue Summerhouse Blue.
He recommends the former for big pots as well as for the garden because when they are brought indoors they can be persuaded to go on producing scented white flowers in winter. Summerhouse Blue is taller but not coarse and is easily contained by annual pruning. It arose at Longstock as a random seedling. Such are the wonders of plants in national collections, where their marriages are free and easy.
We argued about the third choice: I much like the recent Nanho Blue form which has chic leaves and good blue flowers. Moore picked Nanho
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Purple instead, insisting that its rose purple-pink flowers were far better when struck by late sunlight.
Camberwell Beauty is another pink-purple possibility with the agreeable habit of holding little sprays of flowers above the main plume. Many of you may know the similar habit of Dartmoor but Camberwell Beauty is less rampant. Among the whites, go for White Profusion, still the best of this class. Among the yellows with balls of flower, the best is Weyeriana Sungold.
I listened, noted and tested the flowers like a happy butterfly. Dozens more pressed to be bought.
Val adds: Longstock does not offer mail order, but Buddleia Silver Anniversary is available online, from www.floradirect.co.uk priced at £9.00 for a plant in a 3-litre pot. The plant has silver foliage and a height and spread of 1metre, flowering from June to November.
GARDEN WRINKLE 4Another tip from members of Greenshoots gardening club, York:Raw fish heads and tails well dug in around roses will give wonderful blooms!
GREENFINGERS
Seasonal tips
Veg garden
Sow an autumn crop of peas before mid-July. Tie in new growth on cordon-trained tomatoes and pinch out
sideshoots. Bush varieties can be left to scramble over the soil. Water runner beans, celery, marrows, courgettes and salads. Continue to make successive sowings of quick maturing vegetables;
these can include: French beans, beetroot, radish, kohl rabi, lettuce (winter/spring varieties), spinach, Swiss chard, turnip, onions, spring cabbage, corn salad, fennel, endive, chicory, raddichio, pak choi, and cut and come again salad leaves. You can also sow Swede and turnips to eat as green tops.
A tip from Len Betts from Northants in his entry for Blind Gardener of the Year 2009:“My best tip is to grow potatoes in buckets. The reasons for this are:
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you only need to sow one potato you can pick all the potatoes – you do not lose any it’s easy saves space in plot.Also if you sow potatoes in the second week of August they will be ready for Christmas.”
Fruit growing Thin apples and pears so that there are just one or two fruits in each
cluster (spur). Begin summer pruning of plums, apples and pears. After summer fruiting raspberries have finished, cut off the old
fruited canes at ground level. Tie in new canes. Once strawberries have fruited, remove runners and straw and cut
back old foliage.
Flower Garden Pick bulbils from lily stems and pot them up to raise new plants. Give shrubs and perennial plants a liquid feed. Cut down delphiniums once flower spikes fade. Take cuttings from non-flowering shoots on hydrangeas. Pick sweet peas regularly and remove any seed heads to keep them
flowering. Shorten shoots on Choisya to encourage a second flush of flowers. Feed roses to keep them flowering strongly. Pinch out the shoot tips on fuchsias and bedding plants for bushier
growth. Save seed from foxgloves and sow right away in small pots of
compost. Be vigilant for signs of lily beetle, vine weevil, Solomon's seal sawfly
and other problem pests. Sow or order plug plants of winter/spring bedding, eg winter
pansies, wallflowers.
A seasonal extract from the new Thrive/RNIB book, Getting on with Growing in Containers:
AutumnSome autumn container planting ideas include: dwarf dahlias, pansies, ivies, heathers, dwarf hebes, marguerites, diascias, potentillas, convolvulus and box.
Sunny yellow hanging basket4 yellow winter flowering pansies (Viola wittrockiana)2 yellow dwarf dahlias (eg Dahlia ‘Yellow Hammer’)
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1 Euonymus fortunei3 variegated ivies (Hedera)
MethodUse a 30cm (12-inch) hanging basket. Line the base of the basket with moss/moss substitute. Put in compost to the top of the moss. Lay three pansies around the edge of the basket, with the root balls resting on the compost and foliage through the basket openings. Lay each of the three ivy plants evenly in the spaces between the pansies.
Line the rest of the basket with moss and cover the pansies and ivies with compost, firming it around. Plant the Euonymus in the centre of the basket, with the two dahlias and one pansy in a rough triangle around it. Scatter a tablespoon of slow-release plant food granules into the compost. Water the basket well.
Top tipA tip from Norman Waddington from West Yorkshire:“For autumn baskets, I suggest using some perennials. For the sides you will need three variegated ivies, then for the top, one – or three – variegated grasses, and you could also experiment with an epimedium. If you want a purple basket, use three purple tellimas (one of the saxifrages). Or you could experiment with autumn flowering heathers, using a peat-based compost, as they like to be on the acid side.
One naturally flowering plant in October is the ‘Kaffir Lily’, Schizostylis coccinea. You will need several bulbs, which will arch and cascade down the sides of the basket.”
GARDEN WRINKLE 5For a lovely lawn next spring, start to mow less frequently and leave the cut a little longer than in the summer months. Scarify your lawn by raking out dead grass and moss that has built up over the summer. Follow this with an application of a high-potassium autumn lawn feed, which will release the correct balance of nutrients throughout the winter. It will be easier to work consistently over the lawn if you use a right angle guide to work inside. Details on making and using the guides can be found in the Thrive/RNIB book Getting on with Gardening Volume 2.
AUDIO LIBRARYThere are forty titles in the Library and the Library catalogue is available in large print, by email, on CD, or tape. When you have selected the title you want, simply send the number of clean, blank tapes required to Thrive, along with a note of the Library number and
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title. If you would prefer the title on CD, we can copy this for you. As we mentioned in Announcements, all library titles are going to be converted to a CD format and this new service will be launched in the next issue.
TAILPIECEOur thanks for all of your contributions to this issue. We hope that you enjoy the rest of your summer gardening season, and we will be back with Come Gardening in October. Cheerio for now from Val, Wendy, Sue, Rita and Marilyn.
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