Amateur Gardening

IT’S the first week of March and we’re all hoping that the worst of the winter is over and we can finally – finally! – enjoy some extended gardening time. There are plants and bulbs to get in the ground, trees to feed and seeds to sow, but we also ne

TAKING care of wooden structures and metalwork seems like a chore, but it will pay handsome dividends. If you have a fence or other woodwork that needs preserving, or metalwork requiring scouring and painting, wait until a windless day when no rain i

RARE and heritage crops have been given a chance of survival thanks to HRH The Prince of Wales. Well-known for his interest in gardening and his fabulous gardens at Highgrove, the future king is growing two endangered varieties. He has tended a numbe

Top Tip To maximise your carnations’ flowering, plant them in a sheltered, free-draining spot that gets a minimum of four-six hours of sunlight daily. I USED to think that members of the Dianthus family – carnations and pinks – were rather old-fashio

IS it better to either sow and raise your own seedlings of salads and vegetables, or buy seedlings ready to plant? This was the question posed recently. The simple answer is: it is cheaper to raise from seed, but will take longer to harvest a crop. O

GENERALLY, we want earlier harvests. After all, soon we’ll have little left in store, and fresh will be expensive until the new produce starts coming in. Now, each crop takes a given amount of time to mature. Breeders have worked on this, and almost

I WAS born in Bend It Like Beckham territory, in Southall, London, and my working-class roots and northern ancestry are partly responsible for me being an organic gardener and an outspoken woman! Grandmother Lucy from Yorkshire, 70 years my senior, t

DECIDING what fruit, veg and herbs you’re going to grow on your plot this year is the most exciting part of having an edible garden. But making a list of what you like and then shoehorning it in willy-nilly is just setting yourself up for disappointm

THE primrose may not quite be Britain’s favourite wild flower – it’s pipped to that particular post by the bluebell – but as one of the first flowers of spring, it has a special place in our hearts. Wild primroses have been in flower in my garden sin

AS our climate gets warmer and wetter, it’s not surprising that jungle-style planting continues to grow in popularity. The large, lush leaves, explosions of colour and enclosed feel give a sense of the exotic – whether your garden is pocket-sized or

THERE’S no denying that splashes of red provide cheer in the garden. But scarlet flowers (such as those of ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ dahlias and Lobelia cardinalis ‘Queen Victoria’) can easily overpower their border companions, and while we’re happy to ha

Homegrowing means you can harvest veg while it is young and thin-skinned. Many only require a wash or light scrub before slicing, and the skins provide a variety of texture and colour. Q For Christmas, I was given a gadget for slicing and spiralising

Begonias are fun to propagate. Soft shoot tips root easily, and rhizomatous kinds take from leaf cuttings. STEP into the world of begonias and be amazed at the variety of leaf shapes, forms and blooms displayed by one of the largest genera of floweri

Write to us: Letters, Amateur Gardening magazine, Pinehurst 2, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hants GU14 7BF (please include your address). Email us: amateurgardening@ti-media.com I HAVE come late to the wonder of composting,

GOING with the flow has proved to be the key to creating a truly beautiful garden for Graham and Judy White. Faced with a split-level and L-shaped plot containing a natural stream, swamp and thicket, and very little else, the couple from Uttoxeter in

THE ancient art of coppicing involves felling a tree to stimulate new growth from the stump, and it dates back to prehistoric times – long before Percy Thrower had picked up a pipe and pruning saw. To our bucolic ancestors, the woodlands were worksho