White ZZ plants are not exactly “White” but have a tint of yellow and white on the leaves, which makes them appear very different from the regular green and rare black types.
07.03.2024 - 15:17 / gardenersworld.com
From earthy new potatoes and bite-sized salad varieties, to floury bakers and roasters, the humble potato remains the nation’s favourite vegetable. If you’re a potato aficionado, there’s a huge number of exciting potato varieties you can grow that you’ll never see in the shops. You don’t even need a garden to grow them – many grow very happily in large bags or pots on a balcony or patio.
There are three main types of potato to grow, named according to when you plant and harvest them.
First early or ‘new’ potatoes are the earliest to crop, in June and July. They don’t store for long so are best eaten fresh.
Second earlies (also called ‘new’ potatoes) take a few more weeks to mature and are harvested in July and August. These also don’t store for long, so are best eaten fresh. Salad potatoes have a firm, waxy texture and many have an intense, nutty flavour. They are usually first earlies or second earlies.
Maincrop potatoes take the longest to mature and are harvested from August to October. They are suitable for baking, roasting and mashing, and can be stored for a few months.
How to grow potatoes at homePotatoes are easy to grow – one seed potato will produce many potatoes to harvest. Prepare the soil by digging and removing weeds, and then dig straight trenches 12cm deep and 60cm apart. In spring, plant seed potatoes 30cm apart and cover them with soil to fill the trench. When the shoots reach 20cm tall, use a rake, hoe or spade to mound soil up around the bases of the shoots, covering the stems half way. This is called earthing up. You can also grow first early and second early potatoes in a large bag on a patio or balcony, covering them with compost as they grow.
More expert advice on growing potatoes:
White ZZ plants are not exactly “White” but have a tint of yellow and white on the leaves, which makes them appear very different from the regular green and rare black types.
Oxalis triangularis, also known as false shamrock, is an eye-catching bulbous perennial that makes an excellent and long-lived house plant. Bold, dramatic foliage in shades of dark purple to wine-red creates a striking contrast to blush-white flowers borne in summer. The leaves are three-lobed, hence the name of shamrock which it resembles, though is not actually related to. Oxalis triangularis is native to from Brazil. Its leaves have extra fascination because they open during the day and close at night.
Poppies (Papaver spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9) are one of the most beloved and desirable garden flowers, but they aren’t as easy to please as many sources make them out to be. While there are those who will claim that they are the easiest flowers to grow since they often self-seed around the garden with abandon, poppies—especially the annual species—remain challenging to grow for many gardeners. Below I’ll go over some common annual and perennial poppy species, some recommended varieties of each, and how to make them thrive in your garden.
Ranging from $500 to $5,000 per kilogram, saffron, or the Red Gold as it is commonly referred to, takes a total of about 150,000 flowers to produce just one kilogram! Now you know why it would be a great idea to have its plant at home!
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Parrotia persica, also known as Persian ironwood, is a deciduous tree mainly grown for its spectacular autumn display when its leaves turn shades of yellow, orange, red and purple. It’s a wide-spreading, slow-growing tree with bark that flakes away, creating an interesting texture and revealing younger bark below. Dense heads of red flowers will appear in late-winter and early-spring. The flowers of Parrotia persica do not have petals; instead, buds open to reveal attractive red stamen.
Acidanthera (Acidanthera murielae syn. Gladiolus murielae) – also known as the Abyssinian gladiolus, callianthus, sword lily or peacock lily – is a graceful summer-flowering perennial. It has erect grass-like leaves and slender stems up to 1m tall, each one bearing several nodding, funnel-shaped, white flowers with purple throats. The flowers are attractive to a range of pollinators, including bees, which visit for nectar and pollen.
Goji berries (Lycium barbarum) are a popular ‘superfood’ to eat fresh or dried. Native to China, they’re packed with vitamins and antioxidants and have been used in Chinese medicine for over a thousand years. They’re easy to grow at home in the UK and bear fruit after just one or two years. The best thing about growing your own goji berries is that you can eat them straight from the bush – most commercially available goji berries are dried.
Home-grown garlic takes up little space and requires hardly any effort to get a good crop. It’s an easy crop to grow, spouting from a garlic bulb separated into cloves, which you plant individually. Certified, disease-free garlic bulbs are sold at garden centres or online.
Common beech (Fagus sylvatica) is one of the most majestic of European native trees, yet also makes an excellent formal hedge as it tolerates regular clipping. Although deciduous, beech is still good to use as a screening hedge as growth is dense, twiggy, and the dead leaves usually remain on the branches for much of the winter, often until the new leaves appear in spring. There are both green and purple-leaved varieties of common beech which are suitable for hedging. The purple-leaved form (Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea’ is commonly known as copper beech. To grow as individual trees, the common beech species becomes too big for all but the largest gardens, but there are columnar (fastigiate) and weeping forms of beech that are much more compact in size.