Garden, Garden Tips 4
Hi everyone,
Can you trust what those people from the met office tell you when it concerns our gardens? At the beginning of the year they were forecasting one of the hottest and driest summers on record, oh boy did they get that wrong in, fact it has turned out to be the wettest summer since records began.
We had visions of getting the hosepipe out every day to water the plants in the garden but instead some gardens have been water logged or completely under water. This weather has certainly had a disastrous effect on farmer’s crops like corn and peas just to name a couple. This has had a knock on effect for all of us as this has and will force up the price on the consumables we buy, as crops are left in the fields unable to be harvested, have rotted off or not has enough sunshine to ripen properly.
Have you noticed how the cost of the humble pea has gone up in price? You are now paying about twice the price you were paying last year. The same goes for flour and of course bread, unfortunately we cannot change it so we grin and bear it.
What has rusty our dog been up to? Running up and down the garden chasing his ball of course. As you know he just does not stop. We wish we had as much energy as he has considering he is only just younger than us, as every one of his years is the equivalent of seven of ours so that makes him 45.
Gardens Tips
The garden needs a good tidy up and cut back at this time of year. A lot of the plants have gone past their best and are searing back, so you need to get your secateurs out and start trimming back to keep the gardens looking great. This is also a good time to trim the hedges to keep them in check and also helps in maintaining the smartness of your garden.
This is a great time to grab some of the brilliant and bright asters, (michaelmas daisy) these give one of the last shows of colour around your garden, and there are an abundance of different varieties to choose from. Genus of perennials and evergreen or deciduous, being either half-hardy or full hardy. Asters prefer partial shade or sun with well-drained soil.
The dwarf varieties are best if you have an open wind swept or a small garden. Aster alpinus is a very small clump forming perennial height15cm (6in) spread 30 – 45cm (12 – 18in), with dark green leaves and either pink or purplish daisy like flower heads from mid summer to early autumn. They are great for your rock garden by keeping up colour when aubrietias and other plants have long finished flowering.
Taller varieties often need staking other wise the plant splits, but this little bit of maintenance is completely worth it, Aster allbescens reaches the height of 1m (3 feet) and a spread of 1.5m (5 feet) has gorgeous lavender blue flowers and is frost hardy. This variety is deciduous sub shrub and flowers from the end of summer.
There are so many varieties to choose from with many different shades from delicate pinks and mauves to hues of violet and crimson, and your local garden centre should have a good display on show now, so why not treat yourself. They are also excellent in tubs and containers but do need a good supply of moisture.
We had a decent crop of runner beans this year but not the most plentiful. Generally, poor crops are usually down to lack of water, as they really do need a good supply, but this year was not the case as you well know we had more than our fair share. We also had far windier weather that damaged the flowers in the garden and the heavy downpours of rain knocked them off too. More worrying is the fact that there seems to be a shortage of bees around this season, and other insects that help with pollinating.
Because of this and the fact that the whole family love runner beans, we have just planted up beans into containers that we had grown from seed on the kitchen windowsill. This is the first time we have done this and so we are quite eager to see the outcome and to find out what pitfalls we might make. The plants are about 10 – 12 inches tall now and rapidly growing, every day you can see the growth spurt they put on.
In each large pot we placed three plants and four canes for them to grow up. I used good old chicken pellets in each pot and a water retainer, thoroughly dispersed through out the compost, as they love water and feed and will ensure a healthy plant.
If you carefully tie the canes with twine or string you can make a good rigid support for the beans. At the moment as the weather is lovely and sunny they are standing outside in the garden, but as the season progresses they will probably end up in the green house. For this reason I rarely use grow bags, as they are not very easy to move and also do not have the depth for stability structures when growing climbers.
So now it is just a time to wait and see what develops with the beans, but as we are supposed to be having an Indian summer we are very optimistic, we will keep you posted on this.
Hoped you have enjoyed Garden, Garden Tips 4
Ted and Sandra
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