You’re feeling a bit peaky So you reach for Grandma’s cure, But if a plant is feeling poorly The answer’s not so sure. You can call on Mr. Google, And wade through loads of stuff, But whatever is on offer May not be enough. What you need is an expert, Always ready on hand, The answer’s Auntie Planty’s Advice voucher, rescue planned. They are like an investment To save your ailing plants, A Christmas gift for your garden Or for green-fingered aunts. £10 will buy a … [Read more...]
Christmas cracker of an idea!
When you develop a headache, what do you do? You reach for whatever remedy works for you, whether it’s an aspirin, Grandma’s secret concoction, or you lie down in a darkened room for a while until the world looks and feels brighter.. Result - issue solved without too much of a drama. But what do you do when a plant looks poorly? Ignore it and hope that it will heal itself? Give it a bucket of water and fingers crossed that it was dehydration that was the cause? Or what? I’d like to … [Read more...]
spreading plant happiness
Christmas vouchers to solve plant and garden issues When you develop a headache, what do you do? You reach for whatever remedy works for you, whether it’s an aspirin, Grandma’s secret concoction, or you lie down in a darkened room for a while until the world looks and feels brighter.. That’s an extremely useful bit of automatic knowledge to have within easy reach – issue solved without too much of a drama. But what do you do when a plant looks poorly? Ignore it and hope that it … [Read more...]
Christmas gift voucher
calling all gardeners!
The next Auntie Planty Garden Zoom session is on Monday 10 May at 13.00. It’s for half an hour, it’s free and everyone is welcome. Gardening is the one physical activity that we all dive into without doing any warming up for. And, when we’ve done a good day’s digging and clipping, the chances are we’ve just sunk into an armchair and done nothing to stretch put those overworked muscles This month, I’ve joined forces with Patricia Goka, Transformational Movement Coach. I’ve given … [Read more...]
this year’s Christmas tree
The perennial question in our house is not merely ‘where will we put the tree this year?’ but more like ‘where will our fully lit tree complete with dangly tinsel balls of all sizes and colours be safe from the night-time marauding antics of a fully grown, but slightly delinquent moggie?’ While I am vexing over this, here are some handy hints on getting the best out your real tree. Most of the cut plants that are being sold locally will have made quite a journey already. Here’s a quick … [Read more...]
purple4polio
Saturday 24 October was World Polio Day, and to celebrate I was honoured to be invited to support Richmond Rotary in the mass planting of 6000 purple crocus corms. This wasn't some random act of horti-madness; it was done in an act of hope. There's a very strong link between polio and COVID-19 - they are both virulent viruses which are transmitted by saliva and other body fluids. Polio affects more than 300,000 children every year, and those that survive could be paralysed … [Read more...]
the joy of bright colours
There's a lot of really bright pink in my garden at the moment; a rhododendron (probably 'English Roseum') a Crataegus laevitgata 'Paul's Scarlet' and clumps of the amazing everlasting wallflower Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve'. All of them are giving great joy, but I need to talk to you about the everlasting wallflower. If you leave it to do it's own thing, the plant will soon become leggy and will soon lose its charm. However, if you're quick, you can keep it compact, and the flowers will … [Read more...]
garden composting
For the time being our garden waste collections are paused so we’re being encouraged to make our own compost. Before you groan, why not give it a go? Compost is easy to produce, but making good compost is an art. It's a result of the careful mixing of vegetable and other plant waste. Get it wrong, and you’ll end up with a slimey mess.. Get it right, and you can create your own source of liquid gold…. There's no need for expensive equipment or specialist knowledge. Just find a dedicated … [Read more...]
daffodils and moving plants
Q: A lot of my daffodils this year just produced leaves and no flowers – is there something that I can do to improve things for next year? A: Daffodil blindness is where the plant looks reasonably healthy with no flowers at all, or the stem grows an ‘empty’ bud at the end. The most likely cause is that the bulbs have been starved of water and nutrients over the previous year, making them shrivel up. During droughts, we tend to forget to feed and water the plants that are out of … [Read more...]
Mothering Sunday gifts
It’s a lovely sunny Mothering Sunday. I was reminded of a couple of plants that ‘found’ their way into my garden specifically to give colour in early spring. The first is a flowering currant – Ribes sanguineum which I bought completely out of season. You know the way that garden centres tend to push those right-at-the-moment plants for sale, even knowing that when the flowers fade the magnificence will have passed! Anyway this amazing early spring flowering plant has now rewarded mewith … [Read more...]
stopped in my tracks
As I spend more and more self-isolation time in the house, the view from my kitchen window is getting rather more close scrutiny than before. I spotted a rather annoying clump of ivy that could do with a bit of a haircut. What I wanted to remove were the long strands of juvenile ivy. It's this juvenile growth that causes most of the ‘I hate ivy’ emotions in the garden. Juvenile ivy leaves have those distinct ‘points’, and adult ivy leaf shape is quite different - gone are the three … [Read more...]
Box tree moth caterpillar
There is a pest around at the moment that needs to be shown who’s boss! It’s the box tree moth caterpillar, and I was slightly annoyed that two presenters of the recent TV Chelsea coverage said that there’s no answer. If you have any box plants in your garden, you may wish to read this before digging them all up. The box tree moth caterpillar is quite striking looking with green and yellow stripes from head to tail, with black dots on either side. It has a voracious appetite, … [Read more...]
skeletonised rose leaves
I always say that vigilance is the key to combatting plant pest and diseases, so keeping your eyes peeled for the very first signs of a problem will serve you well in your attempt to get rid/control the effects. Imagine my horror the other day when deadheading some roses in my front garden that I found that a lot of the top leaves had just vanished, with only the mid-rib left behind, telling a sad sorry tale. What had happened was an attack of the rose sawfly larvae. These little … [Read more...]
Air Pots – great news for plants
It’s been raining so much lately that I cannot get outside into the garden – mine or anybody else’s. So I now have time to tell you about a minor miracle in the plant pot world. Picture this; you have had a plant in a pot for a long time, and when you try to remove it you find that as roots have poked through the bottom of the pot, it’s a great tussle to get anything moving. When you eventually get the root ball out, you more than likely find that the roots have started a circular journey … [Read more...]
topiary troubles
If you have box topiary in your garden, then there are a couple of rather devastating issues that could compromise their health. The first is the airborne fungal infection known as box blight. It’s a disease that was relatively unknown in the UK before the mid 1990s, and no one is quite sure where it came from. It has certainly got quite a hold now, and this is down in part to the warm damp summers that we have been experiencing. Box blight has certainly been one of the garden plant … [Read more...]
fallen leaves
Today the weather is bright and clear. Looking out of the window, I see the leaves are beginning to drop. I know that I mustn’t leave them as they'll kill off the grass if they lie there too long To some people, fallen leaves are a big nuisance, but I would like you to think of them as a wonderful garden resource. If you gather them up, and without adding any other plant debris, place them into large plastic bin bags, poke a few air holes in the sides, and store them well out of … [Read more...]
safe disposal of old garden products
In an ideal world we would all buy just the right amount of fertiliser, garden disinfectant, weed-killer, insecticide, fungicide, or whatever that we need, and the garden shed wouldn’t fill up with leftovers. But of course life isn’t that simple. However, you can minimise the problem without any effort by using ready-to-use bottles and sprays. These are formulated to stay fresh, usually for at least two years, so you can carry on using them until they are all gone. Then, simply rinse … [Read more...]
giant orchid at Kew
I’ve just come back from Kew Gardens where I'm privileged to be a visitor guide. I was taken behind the scenes in the Tropical Nursery to see the amazing Grammatophyllum speciosum otherwise known as the giant orchid. Kew is very excited about this plant as it is flowering for the first since it was collected from Malaysia in 1983. Although it still has some growing to do before it beats the giant orchid on display at Crystal Palace in the 1851 Exhibition, it’s pretty big already at five … [Read more...]
getting rid of rose blackspot
It’s at this time of year when the nation’s favourite plant – the rose - gets attacked by the dreaded blackspot. the problem Rose blackspot is an extremely common and widespread fungal disease on most rose cultivars, as well as on wild roses. However, there are some cultivars that are partially resistant. The disease thrives in warm moist conditions, and most early attacks come from those spores that have spent the winter in uncleared plant debris or in dormant buds. You’ll know if … [Read more...]