Gardening Archives

“Summer has set in with its usual severity.” S .Coleridge

Daylilies – Flowers of the Moment

It is no exaggeration to say that Daylilies are one of the premier flowering perennials. From only a handful of wild species belonging to the genus Hemerocallis, breeders have produced tens of thousands of hybrids in a dazzling array of colours, patterns, and shapes. Adding to their appeal is their hardiness, ease of care and propagation and ability to combine so well with other plants. And many are at their best right now!
Daylilies had been cultivated for thousands of years in China before being discovered by the west where they were valued as much for utilitarian purposes, as a food and medicinal plant, as for their beauty. Indeed almost all parts of the plant are edible except the leaves and flower stalks. The petals or whole flowers make excellent additions to salads.
Although species such as H. altissima (which flowers at 6ft with wonderful buttery yellow petals that fade to a soft apricot) are beautiful in their own right it is the modern hybrids that are so renowned.
Hybridising is especially popular in America where daylilies are known as ‘poor man’s orchids’ because of their exotic looks and the ease with which hybrids can be produced, making daylily hybridising a popular amateur hobby. Because of the proliferation of varieties, those who want to try this for themselves should do a little research first and make sure the varieties they want to cross are not tetraploids with double the number of chromosomes (44 instead of 22) as these do not produce viable seed easily.
Daylilies are amongst the easiest plants to cultivate in gardens and can survive in practically any climate except the very warmest so no worries there then! Daylilies will grow best in full sun although part or dappled shade will do. Indeed plants with the darkest flowers are better in full sun as the colour will intensify.
to planting, preparing the soil with a little organic matter will be beneficial. Dig a hole large enough to accommodate the root system and tubers. A spade or two of well-rotted manure at the bottom is as good as anything and plants will feed from it for years and require very little in the way of supplementary nourishment. Moist but well drained soil is best although plants will adapt to all but the driest or most waterlogged soils.
Daylilies are amongst the most trouble-free of garden perennials but it is worth knowing about the most common pests or diseases. Daylily rust, a coppery orange powdery substance, can disfigure leaves but it usually does not persist. It can be treated with a systemic fungicide.
A new pest and one that has reached Shropshire this season is Hemerocallis gall midge. The tiny white fly deposits its eggs on young flowers where the larvae eat the developing flowers causing them to distort and drop off. There is nothing to do but pick off the affected buds and burn them.
Daylilies are also amongst the easiest plants to propagate in the garden. Simple division with a sharp spade when dormant will suffice. What many people don’t know, or often encounter, are small plantlets that are sometimes produced on the flowering stem. These don’t always form roots except in a wet summer but they can be detached towards the end of the summer, before autumn, and put in a glass of water. Treated like a cutting they will be a copy of the mother plant.
By and large all daylilies experience some level of dormancy whether they are completely deciduous or only lose some of their foliage. The removal of old foliage in late winter will keep the plant healthy and prevent diseases or pests from re-infecting plants when the new growth emerges.
In the Vegetable garden
“It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating your own home grown veg” Lewis Grizzard
Well, hopefully by now you are enjoying the fruits of your labour whilst wallowing in pleasant thoughts. As with many things there is always something to cast a shadow, we are just coming into potato blight season so I thought it may be worth while talking about it this month.
Infection of potatoes by blight (Phytophthora infestans) seems to be inevitable in this part of Shropshire, even with blight resistant cultivars (unless the crop is sprayed to prevent it). A method for dealing with the problem (without the use of chemicals) is to cut the haulms (top green growth) down to ground level at the very first signs of infection, and remove and destroy the foliage . This prevents the fungus spores from being washed into the soil down to the tubers, and stops the tubers from being spoiled.
As with all things prevention is better than cure, although some of this advice is too late for this year, if you can follow these measures infection may be avoided:-

• Use only certified seed.
• Rotate crops, try to leave a gap of at least 3 years before planting potatoes in the same plot.
• Try to harvest every tuber and destroy any infected ones. If shoots appear from previous crops then remove them immediately with the tuber if possible, as any carried-over infection will arise from the leaves.
• Avoid overhead watering which washes spores down into the soil, and earth up well to protect the tubers.
• Planting early or second early varieties may mean that they will be mature enough to harvest before the ‘infection season’.
• Plant resistant cultivars such as King Edwards, and avoid cultivars such as Maris Piper and Desiree which are very susceptible.
• Be vigilant, checking the crop at least daily when the risk is high during July and August, as the disease can appear overnight. Either dig up the tubers straight away or cut the haulms back as described above.
• There are also chemicals that can be used as a protectant or curative.

This month keep on sowing small batches of fast growing crops such as carrots, lettuce and radish. A few of you have mentioned to me about lower than normal yields on some of your soft fruit. I think that this is down to the lack of decent amounts of rain we have been experiencing since April, disappointing, but just one of those things we have to live with.
Please note: images have been removed from this pages because some of them may have been used without permission.

“Spring being a hard act to follow, God created June” (Al Bernstein)
May and June – A Passion for Peonies.
May and June are wonderful months in which to experience the first flush of herbaceous planting and no flower symbolises the glories of early summer more than herbaceous and tree peonies.
Both of these genera hit their peak at this time of year, producing wonderful ephemeral blooms and both come in a variety of species and forms.
Most peonies in the garden come in two forms, either herbaceous P. lactiflora or hybrid cultivars, or the woody stemmed tree peonies.
Peonia lactiflora was first introduced into Europe towards the end of the eighteenth century and has given rise to thousands of cultivars. It is one of the easiest and most popular peonies to grow, tolerating a wide range of soil conditions. Peonies grow best in fertile, well drained soil but can be grown in sandy or clay soils with the addition of plenty of well-rotted manure. In fact manure is a must for herbaceous peonies. Applied during the dormant season, it is best to avoid the crowns of the plant to prevent scorching of the developing buds.
Some cultivars such as ‘Festiva Maxima’ were first raised over 150 years ago but are still popular today and many make excellent cut flowers. ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ is one of the best for this purpose and many acres are given over to it in Holland. Often, when the crowns are too old for commercial production, they are divided and sold cheaply for garden use.
Paeonia lactiflora cultivars come in all colours although, because of genetics, there is an absence of a good red, the closest being magenta. On the plus side many are deliciously fragrant; ‘Boule de Neige’, ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ and ‘Gainsborough’ are a few of the most fragrant.
Paeonia lactiflora has given rise to a number of hybrid herbaceous peonies when crossed with other species. These hybrids flower over a long period of time from early spring, when the majority of the species flower, to early summer when the lactifloras are in bloom. Amongst these are also good red forms such as ‘America’ and ‘Scarlet O’Hara’.
By contrast, Chinese Tree Peonies are amongst the oldest cultivated plants in the world and make an indelible impression on anyone who sees them. They often appear delicate because of their exotic flowers and delicate foliage but in fact they can withstand very low temperatures as well as summer drought. However, they are slow growing: a mature specimen may be 3m tall but this could take 50 years or more! Many tree peonies will tolerate some shade as well as full sun.
There are also a number of intersectional or ‘Itoh’ hybrids which are crosses between herbaceous and tree peonies. At first sight they appear to be tree peonies but they are usually herbaceous and die back in the autumn, but they have the advantage of retaining their shape through the year and extra vigour which means they can establish quickly.
Hybrid, lactiflora and tree peonies will prove perfectly hardy in all areas of the U.K. Most plants will establish better if planted in the autumn as dormant crowns, or bare-root plants in the case of tree peonies. However, modern retail horticulture offers plants in flower and as long as the ground is prepared with plenty of soil improver and organic matter, and the plant is watered, they will do well. However it is important to plant the crown no more than 2in below the soil level. If this is done then the peony should settle in, although it may not reach its best for three years. If planted too shallowly the plant may not flower at all, but it is important that it gets a good chilling in winter to initiate flower production.
It is an oft quoted fallacy that peonies cannot be moved, or that if they are they will sulk. Herbaceous and tree peonies can be moved when dormant and herbaceous peonies can be propagated by division. As long as care is taken when replanting they should continue to grow well, although flowering may be affected for one or two seasons.
The main disease that affects both herbaceous and tree peonies is Peony blight which can seriously damage them. Infected tissue turns brown, then black and finally wilts altogether. It is most prevalent in wet springs, so good air circulation is important. It can be controlled by removing and burning infected tissue as soon as it appears. A preventative fungicidal treatment is beneficial.
In the kitchen Garden.
“Time flies like a jet plane, fruit flies like a ripe strawberry!”
May seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye; it’s already June which brings the summer solstice and then we are already into shortening days. There is hopefully still plenty of good weather to come and if you haven’t had chance to get out in to the veg garden yet, it is still not too late to get some produce this summer.
The beginning of May finally brought some desperately needed rain to the garden. Much of the middle of the month returned to dry conditions, accompanied by almost constant wind. This led to a need to irrigate the garden at a time of year when it is not normally required. If your veg is looking a bit stunted, or if it has bolted, then it’s probably down to the dry conditions. There were a few cold nights (but thankfully not too many and not very cold) which meant covering crops like courgettes or early French beans with horticultural fleece.
The bird nesting season is well under way and I have had the pleasure of having the company of Garden Warblers, Bull Finches and a Green woodpecker amongst others, as they energetically go about rearing a brood of chicks. The Cockchafers or May Bugs have been out on the wing also, a nuisance to us gardeners as the grubs eat the roots of our treasured plants, causing the plants (and consequently us) distress.
A certain amount of mystique and romance seems to surround vegetable and fruit growing. In reality it is mostly fairly straight forward (it’s a different thing if you want to grow a 10 metre long carrot, or a 50 kg marrow, but why would you?). Most of the skill comes in managing your growing space in such a way that famine and gluts are avoided. This can be done with successional sowing, i.e. sowing small amounts of a crop at regular intervals throughout the growing season. If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to get on with a second or even a third sowing of things such as radish, carrots, lettuce, baby turnip and peas, if you have the space of course.
I have also been planting brassica transplants this month. When I first came to this garden 12 years ago, a half to two thirds of every brassica crop was lost to root fly. Then I discovered the trick of placing a short piece of rhubarb stalk in the bottom of the planting hole. Most people think I’m away with the fairies when I suggest this as a cure for brassica root fly but it has shown its self to be very effective.
Please note: images have been removed from this pages because some of them may have been used without permission.

April and May in the Garden – No Time to be standing still.
We’ve all had a treat this month haven’t we? The glorious sunshine has been a treat and put me in mind of a few lines of Frost’s which might be relevant to gardeners.
 
“Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since Earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)-
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.”
One of the glories of this time of year is to see early flowers against a clear spring sky, particularly when these flowers are borne at the ends of magnolia branches.
Magnolias are the queens of garden flowers, there is such a variety of form and habit from shrubby types such as M. stellata or its pink form ‘Rosea’ to large trees, amongst the finest of which are the Campbellii species as hybrids such as ‘Darjeeling’ or mollicomata which flowers earlier than most. Typically the magnolias we grow in our gardens are precocious, the flowers appearing before the leaves. However there is a magnolia for almost every season if you have the site, soil and situation. Magnolia grandiflora is an evergreen suitable for growing as a large tree. Football sized fragrant white flowers are a vision in summer. As this magnolia comes from the southern U.S.A it is used to higher average summer temperatures and humidity then we get in the U.K so it is better grown against a warm sunny wall, even in full sun. If you have a north facing wall then a good upright growing variety such as ‘Daybreak’ will prove successful, as the lack of strong sunlight protects the buds from being forced into flower early and thus being damaged by frosts.
For fragrance M. ‘Merrill’ which has white flowers and grows 12 or 15 feet high cannot be beaten whilst M. salicifolia has aniseed scented foliage.
Magnolias come from a wide variety of climates and habitats but those we buy from the nurseries will be grafted onto one rootstock or another to control vigour as well as to induce them to flower earlier. They are very amenable. Most will grow in any reasonable, slightly acidic garden soil but they do demand decent humus and organic content. Most magnolias are forest plants and so enjoy companionship and the shelter from strong winds provided by other trees.
Magnolias have a system of shallow feeding roots which, once planted, resent disturbance. When planting, I don’t even tease roots away from the root-ball as I would do with any other shrub or tree. Thorough ground preparation with plenty of leaf-mould or soil conditioner is essential and it is important to plant the top of the root-ball level with the surrounding soil. I have learned to my cost the fatal effects of planting magnolias too deep despite the well intentioned desire to keep as much moisture as possible around a newly planted specimen.
If Magnolias are the queens of garden flowers then Rhododendrons ( including Azaleas) are the kings. April and May are the best months to go to gardens boasting collections of rhododendrons and admire their many forms and flower colours.
Rhododendrons have suffered a fall in popularity over the last few years. Many people have been of the opinion that this was because they could not be accommodated in smaller gardens, but I rather feel that it was the result of nurseries and garden centres failing to offer a variety of plants. When many people think of rhododendrons, they often think of R. ponticum or its hybrids, which line the drives of many a stately home and, after flowering, form an unattractive green lump. When the gardener is looking for a plant that gives interest over more than one season it is understandable that many begrudge giving space to rhododendrons with their short flowering season. However if we look beyond the common hybrids there is a rhodo out there for everyone. Many of the species and cultivars have attractive foliage with either silver backed leaves or leaves marbled with brown hairy indumentum as well as attractive bark. I would rather look at the foliage of many a rhododendron all year than give house room to a camellia. These shrubs seem to have gained popularity at the rhododendron’s expense but, in my opinion, they make a much less attractive shrub when not in flower.
Azaleas, members of the rhododendron family, make excellent garden plants. Many cultivars are deciduous and have the added bonus of scented flowers and autumn colour. They come in a wide range of colours from the pure white of ‘Persil’ to pinks and the bright yellows of R. luteum.
Of course this is only my opinion and you are free to disregard it but in a family as large as rhododendron there is one out there for every size of garden that can provide the right conditions. Indeed rhodos are very accommodating, needing only moist acidic soil with good humus content and some shade. We all want our plants to perform for as long as possible but if we have an eye for the subtle, and the energy to seek out nurseries and growers growing more specialist plants and be adventurous enough to try them, then we can all enhance our gardens.
We all want our plants to give us value, to perform for as long as possible and with as little demand on our time as possible. There is nothing wrong with this view; my argument is simply a blend of the practical and philosophical. Firstly, not every plan is suitable for every garden or situation within a garden so we should all chose plants suitable for what we have, rather than try too hard to change the soil or situation to our advantage. Secondly, imagine the most beautiful magnolia flower you have ever seen then ask yourself if in fact part of the charm is that very ephemeral nature. Would you be as excited or notice it as much if it flowered non-stop?
You might think that I have lost touch with reality with all this talk of Magnolias and Rhododendrons, that I might be thinking like Gertrude Jekyll when she said that however small your garden “always leave a few acres for trees”! There are more things happening. One of the stars of these months are tulips which impart a touch of elegance to any garden. Euphorbias are coming into their own, displaying acid green or yellow bracts. My own favourite is E. palustris which works well in damp soil and has good autumn colour before it dies back. There is a euphorbia for even more gardens than there are rhododendrons!
Finally, my top tip for this time of year is not to cut the foliage of flowering spring flowering bulbs down until they start to die down on their own. This might not appeal to the tidy minded gardener but these bulbs are entering the most critical stage of their growth when they are making food to support new flowers next spring. Look at your snowdrops. Now they have finished flowering, the leaves have elongated and widened to capture as much light as possible. If you have daffodils planted in grass leave it alone, don’t mow. If you don’t like having long grass then you shouldn’t have put the daffodils there in the first place!
A very brief word from the kitchen garden.
Over the last few days a couple of people have mentioned to me about frosts damaging their newly emerged potato haulms. One way of reducing or eliminating this problem is to spray the foliage with cold tap water using a hosepipe. This needs to be done first thing in the morning after the frost has occurred.
Please note: images have been removed from this pages because some of them may have been used without permission.

Beginning Again – Reflections on the garden after winter.

We all know that it has been a long hard winter and, unless you are fortunate enough to have been able to get away to sunnier climes, we’ve all had the same winter. So it might seem like rubbing salt into open wounds to keep going on about it. However, as spring finally unfurls its regal greens it is now, more than ever, that we are aware of the damage done by persistent low temperatures.
We might have just passed the first day of spring but for the gardener the signs are unmistakable; the jackdaws are busy playing noisily in the oaks and beeches, toads can be seen crossing back and forth from water where geese, swans and ducks proclaim their presence.
As far as plants are concerned, sap is rising and most are putting forth new foliage. Yet the haze of fresh green fails to mask the ugly browns of withered stems and leaves left by the harsh weather. And it is always to these unsightly bare splodges that the gardener’s eye is drawn. But the time to mourn our losses is long gone: it won’t revive anything so move on.
Inevitably many of us will have lost the same things. You’ve only got to peek over a low hedge or into a neighbour’s garden to find out. Most of the casualties have been amongst those plants that have benefitted from milder winters, but in truth have always been a bit tender. Pittosporums have universally suffered, even in sheltered spots, as have Cistus and of course Ceanothus (Californian Lilac).
Now is the time to take action! Confronted with a large gap it is tempting to look at what has come through the winter and replace losses with more of the same. This, in my view is a mistake. Here in the garden there are many patches of bare soil where once there were lovely shrubs, but the idea of putting in more Pieris, Forsythia or Hydrangea simply because they have survived is a course fraught with pitfalls. For one, you run the risk of seriously reducing the palette of plants available to you. We wouldn’t be able to call ourselves gardeners if we weren’t experimenters! Of course, if you’ve already had your Ceanothus for ten years then you’ll already have had the best ten years out of it so don’t worry too much. Don’t get me wrong, if you are looking at your border and thinking “what I could really do with is some summer colour,” then go for a hydrangea, maybe H. paniculata ‘Unique’. Or for a splash of spring yellow, Forsythia ‘Lynwood’ is a good option.
Yet none of us can predict the future. We don’t know if this winter was an exceptional one or will form a pattern for the future. But before we leave all of the more tender shrubs on the nursery bed remember, they’ve done well for the last ten years. Where would our sunny well-drained places be without Olearia haastii or Cistus ‘Alan Fradd’, which look especially good tumbling down banks or over walls? We would all miss that splash of summer colour.
Roses make a good compromise. Long lasting summer colour and there is a rose for almost every position from low growing cascading shrubs like R. ‘Rushing Stream’, ‘Little White Pet’ to strong upright shrubs. Of the latter the species often capture my attention, in particular Rosa complicata which has wonderful large single pink flowers in early summer followed by juicy red hips. Yet this winter has even claimed many established roses which just shows that nothing is ever certain in gardening.
Looking Good.
More than anything, this month is devoted to Narcissus. Our own native daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus can be seen in the dappled shade amongst trees or even in wet hedgerows and ditches. It’s striking yellow contrasts well with the expanding greens of hawthorn and the hazel catkins.
At the other end of the spectrum Narcissus poeticus, the poets narcissus, hails from high alpine meadows where its pure white reflexed petals and orange corolla reflect the sunlight, and its delicate fragrance can be appreciated when planted en-masse in open grass.
Readers might have already guessed my preference for species wherever I find them but amongst Narcissus are some wonderful cultivars. Amongst my favourites is ‘Spellbinder’ which has a wonderful lime green hue.
Also looking good at this moment are the early cherries. Their delicate petals look lovely when backlit by morning or evening sun. One of my personal favourites is Prunus ‘Kursar’. It’s a good early variety with a strong pink colour and a fairly upright habit, which is good for smaller gardens or merits close group planting where space permits.
Despite mentioning it earlier, I am not a fan of Forsythia. Lovely when in flower it makes an inelegant shrub, even when pruned immediately after flowering. Let’s not forget that although they are stealing the show now we will still have to look at them for the rest of the year and for me the foliage holds little joy. By contrast, Corelopsis is a genus of elegant upright shrubs which display delicate pendant clusters of primrose yellow flowers accompanied by a light but appreciable fragrance. These are followed by hazel like leaves that altogether make it a statelier alternative to Forsythia, especially when placed around a corner or next to a path. C. ‘Spring Purple’ is available now and should suit any size of garden. Corelopsis is a lovely shrub, it also has some soft yellow hues to its leaves in autumn. I do like plants in the garden to have more than one season of interest, and what’s more it is very hardy.
For fans of Forsythia why not seek out Abeliophyllum, the ‘white forsythia’. Similar in form, it has white flowers which open from February onwards accompanied by a strong scent. It will appreciate some shelter and makes an excellent wall shrub.
In the Kitchen Garden.
One of the things that keeps me going through the cold months is that no matter how long the winter, Spring always follows (it has up to now any way). I think it must be a sign of me getting older, but over the last few years I have become increasingly intolerant of winter and more impatient for spring to arrive.
I love to see the greylag geese, the tufted ducks and the little grebes arrive back after their winter getaway. It raises my spirits after a long winter to see the first Brimstone and Coma butterflies along with those big bumble bees that appear with the warmer weather.
Trugg is right about not dwelling on plant losses from the garden, it’s better to look at it as an opportunity. Four large bay bushes that I planted as rooted cuttings ten years ago have succumbed, as well as some climbing plants and all the French Lavender. The most surprising losses have been some of the roses used for cut flowers.
I also agree with Trugg, that one of the most enjoyable aspects of gardening is experimenting with plants in the garden. I don’t think there is anything quite like a mature Ceanothus in full flower, the trouble is around here you are lucky if varieties other than thyasiflorus repens survive more than 3 or 4 winters, even the supposed hardier varieties such as Skylark are a risk. If you do plant one then you need to be selective about where it is put.
March is always a busy month in the kitchen garden as the weather starts to warm up and you hectically try to get all the jobs done that should have been completed during the winter. These jobs have included pruning of the fruit bushes, preparing ground for sowing and putting muck on the roses, fruit trees and peonies.
This month I have been planting replacements for some of the increasingly unproductive perennial crops. This includes three new varieties of strawberries, my favourite one is Honeoye. It may sound daft but it has the most incredible sweet strawberry flavoured fruits. New rhubarb crowns have also been planted to replace those that have been in for around 15 years and are ‘worn out’. A new asparagus patch was also planted, it will be at least two seasons before either these or the rhubarb can be harvested.
Seed sowing has also been in full swing, with carrots, beetroot, turnips, early peas, runner beans etc all being sown directly into the ground. The very dry weather has meant that germination has been slow, despite the warm conditions. As soon as we get some rain they will all be up, along with the weeds!
Over the next month I will continue to sow vegetable seed in small batches. I like to sow small amounts of a crop regularly to try to get continuity and therefore reduce a glut. The vegetable seed sown indoors in pots and jiffy 7’s will need hardening off before being planted out later in the month.
Please note: images have been removed from this pages because some of them may have been used without permission.

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!”
– Robin Williams
Daffodils and the first of the spring flowering shrubs have been in flower since mid February, leaves are starting to break out of the confines (and protection) of their buds and many birds seem to have gone into full nesting mode. Does this seem early to you?
In flower in the garden at the moment is the wonderfully scented Oemleria cerasiformis. Also known as the Osoberry or Indian Plum, it is the only species in genus Oemleria. It is native to the Pacific and mountain ranges of North America. In the garden here it is one the first plants to come into flower in early spring. The flowers appear before the leaves. It can grow to a height of 1.5–5 m; in the garden here it is kept to about 2 m by pruning. Apparently, Native Americans eat the small bunches of plum like fruit. Alas, I have never seen the fruits on any plant in Shropshire.
Roses have been pruned and hydrangeas dead headed. If you have not pruned your roses yet, try to do so as soon as possible to prevent any check in growth. The winter has been so mild that grass has continued to grow. Many lawns need cutting already. It is good practice to only reduce the height of grass by a third with any individual cut. Cutting grass too low too quickly weakens the grass, allowing moss and weeds to get established, so remember to check the blade height on your mower (and raise it if needed) before you set about the lawn.
Winter Work – Replenishing Rose Beds
The past week has been a heavy one in the garden. A rose bed that had become sparsely populated because of rose dieback needed to be prepared to receive new plants. As everyone knows, you can’t just dig out a dead rose and stick a new one in its place because of the unexplained phenomenon of rose replant disease. This causes loss of vigour, restricted growth and eventually death. If a rose is to be replaced with another rose then we have to mitigate rose sickness by changing the soil. This can entail some serious digging!
The rule of thumb is that when replacing an individual plant you need to dig out an area of soil down two feet and two feet around where the old rose was planted. In our case we were replacing a whole bed, swapping one variety for another so the whole bed had to be dug out. Now if you just want to replace one plant you can try one of two methods: either plant the rose in a cardboard box, a little bigger than a shoe box or whatever will comfortably accommodate the root ball. Then plant the box in the ground. By the time the box has rotted away traces of rose sickness should be minimal. Alternatively you can feed a newly planted rose through rose sickness by putting microrhizal fungi directly onto the root ball before planting and then feeding heavily with a high nitrogen fertiliser. However I have not experienced this method myself so offer it only as a suggestion!
As we dug down we removed and saved the top soil. This can be used on other areas of the garden where there are no rosaceous plants growing. It might seem obvious that soil infected with rose sickness should not be used around other roses but you should also steer clear of using it around other members of the rose family such as apple or pear trees. The sub soil was also kept as it often comes in handy for filling in holes around the garden.
It is amazing what you find when digging over old beds. We came across a layer of cinders that had been put down 40 years ago in an attempt to improve drainage. It had not worked and had formed an impermeable layer inhibiting the roses from growing well.
Soon we were down to the bedrock which in our case was sandstone. This is normally a good thing as it means good drainage but we used a borer to further open up the bedrock and allow drainage.
We managed to procure some pretty good topsoil from a local supplier. To this we added some well rotted farmyard manure at a ratio of 3 of topsoil to 1 of mulch and mixed it well together and then back-filled the hole until the new soil was well above the original level. This was to allow for future settlement. We will leave this unplanted for 4 to 6 weeks to allow it time to settle. If it is planted straight away the new soil can settle away from the roots which will leave the plants prone to dying of drought or being rocked clear out of the soil by strong winds.
As everyone will have noticed, the mild weather has accelerated the development of growth buds on many plants, including roses, and this means that pruning cannot be delayed. If your roses are well advanced you can still be robust, it will just delay flowering. Luckily roses are adaptable to rough treatment. Along with bud break comes the decision of whether to spray against blackspot and mildew. A word of warning; don’t spray your rugosa roses. They are genetically averse to spraying even for their own benefit. For those averse to spraying try mulching around your roses with lawn clippings, this mulch is excellent at keeping in moisture and at stopping rain splash from moving blackspot spores onto the roses from where they are difficult to dislodge.
Lets all hope for a summer in which we can enjoy our roses!
In the kitchen Garden
Due to the heavy workload in the main garden, very little work has been done this month in the kitchen garden. If you haven’t done so yet, get out there and prepare the ground and get some stuff sown; a mild Spring means the possibility of early crops. If a hose pipe ban comes in then you may be glad of early sowings. According to data from the Environment Agency, Shropshire reservoirs and ground water levels are at an exceptionally low level at the time of writing. It seems likely at that there will be a hose pipe ban this year, which is not good news for us gardeners.
Please note: images have been removed from this pages because some of them may have been used without permission.