Cornish hedges are an exuberant delight. I visited in April a few years back, and every lane was awash with alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum). This year, in May, they put on a stunning display that would put a Chelsea show garden to shame.
21.08.2023 - 12:04 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
The fashion world used to work so far in advance that if you wanted a new swimming costume for your summer holiday, you would have to buy it in the spring. By August, swimming costumes were nowhere to be seen, and it was time to buy your winter coat. Things have changed with the rise in long-haul holidays; it’s always summer somewhere in the world, and you can buy clothes of all types year-round.
That’s a real boon for those of us who have problems planning ahead (or, more charitably, like to be spontaneous :), but sadly it doesn’t work for gardening. Seeds need to be sown at the right time, plants need to be in the ground, or brought inside, as the seasons change, and you have to plan ahead to get the best out of your garden.
Spring can be a particularly difficult time to put on a good show. The weather is unpredictable, and the weeds will make a run for it whilst your prized plants are still sleeping. There are few plants hardy enough to flower in the cold weather, and the garden can look a little sad. In the vegetable patch there’s the Hungry Gap conundrum – there’s plenty of work to do, and plants will be growing, but there’s precious little for the gardener to harvest.
If you want flowers early in the spring then the best bet is to plant some spring bulbs. It’s quite late in the season to do that now, and you might be frustrated to find that your local garden centre is no longer stocking them. But you can order snowdrops, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and crocuses from an online supplier. Plant them straight away (and as it’s a mild December, in most places that should still be possible) and some of them will flower next spring (and any that don’t will be a surprise in spring 2015!). Choose a range of different species
Cornish hedges are an exuberant delight. I visited in April a few years back, and every lane was awash with alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum). This year, in May, they put on a stunning display that would put a Chelsea show garden to shame.
Whether you made a New Year’s resolution to cut your carbon footprint, or the credit crunch is putting pressure on your food budget, now is the perfect time to try growing some of your own vegetables. You don’t need a lot of space, or expensive kit, to get started – and it doesn’t need to take up a lot of your time.
If there’s one thing that makes gardeners gnash their teeth with frustration, it’s watching their favourite plants being eaten by pests. We’ve moved on from the ‘any bug is a bad bug’ mentality, and many chemical controls are being removed from sale amid safety fears, but this doesn’t mean that we have to abandon hope of an attractive and productive garden.
A lot of new gardening and plant books have landed on my mat this spring, and I need to up my book reviewing game! I like to do them justice, and spend some time reading them before I write a review, so that does create a bit of a backlog. Right at the time when the garden is demanding my attention. Anyway, the book that has found itself at the top of the list is one that really encompasses the gardening zeitgeist – The Community Gardening Handbook, by Ben Raskin. I looked him up, and he has impeccable credentials. He’s currently Head of Horticulture for the Soil Association; prior experiences include working for Garden Organic, running a walled garden and being a Horticultural Advisor for the Community Farm near Bristol.
Plastic bottles are everywhere these days, even floating around in the oceans. Fortunately for the environment, recycling facilities are improving (here in the UK at least) but a lot of plastic bottles still end up in landfill, where they just don’t break down. If you would like to give your plastic bottles a new lease of life once they’re empty, and save money too, then try recycling them into something useful for the garden.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (also called the Doomsday vault) in Norway was officially opened in February 2008. During the 3 months prior to the grand opening, engineers pumped refrigerated air into the vault to bring its temperature down from a chilly -5°C to an arctic -18°C.
Now that the days are longer and the first flush of spring is over, gardeners all over the country have a chance to step back from frantic seed sowing, transplanting, digging and weeding and carry on gardening at a slower pace over the summer.
It is one of the big ironies of gardening that the pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers we use to keep our lawns green make them one of the least ‘green’ areas of the garden. Many gardeners put a lot of effort into maintaining their lawns, and this diligence can be a real asset if you want to go green, because it requires a fair amount of work to keep your lawn in top-notch condition using organic methods. The good news is that a more relaxed approach rewards you with a beautiful, wildlife-friendly lawn.
One of the hottest gardening topics is how to turn your garden into a wildlife haven. Gardens are seen as a habitat of last resort for many hard-pressed species. Wildlife friendly products abound and you can buy homes suitable for any creature.
Organic gardeners aim to feed the soil, and let a healthy soil take care of the plants. The best way to add fertility to your garden is to make compost, but in most gardens there is never enough compost to go around and there will be times when supplementary feeding is needed.
Climb the cast-iron steps to the roof garden at the Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC) and you can almost forget that you’re in the heart of the city. Just 30 by 6 metres, the garden manages to fill every vista and the breeze through the trees drowns out all but the loudest city noises.
There’s nothing quite as British as a nice cup of tea, and sitting down for a good cuppa can certainly brighten up your day. A tea bush is unlikely to thrive in most UK gardens (although there are a couple of tea plantations) because of the climate, but there are plenty of herbs that are easy to grow and make a refreshing brew. They’ll even grow well in containers – so they make ideal plants for a windowbox or a patio. Having them close at hand means you can harvest leaves as and when you need them.