Innehållsförteckning för February 2020 från BBC Gardeners' World

Our award-winning app Keep up to date while you’re on the move with our digital edition, made for iPhone and iPad. Get extra content plus videos from Monty and the team, plus access to our subscriber-only, online Secret Garden. Pay from £4.99 an issue in the App Store. See: bit.ly/GW-digital Highgrove events Explore the private garden of HRH The Prince of Wales, and be entertained by talks from top gardeners, in the Talking Gardens festival this April. Go to highgrovegardens. com/talkinggardens New Year, new skills Boost your gardening skills through our Masterclasses in March. Choose from seed sowing or pruning, at Savill Gardens, Windsor. Places cost £75: book at gardeners world.com/savill-garden Caribbean dream The gardens of the Caribbean should be on every gardener’s bucket list – so turn dream into…

Sowing the seeds of contentment I have looked forward to the start of the vegetable sowing season since I was given a packet of chilli seeds 20 years ago. Those seeds grew into healthy plants, bearing tasty fruit, on the windowsill of my council flat. Not only do I agree with Monty and the other writers that home-grown food tastes great and is good for your physical health (Grow Yourself Healthy, Jan issue), but also, at what can seem like a gloomy time of year, I find that watching the first seedlings emerge is wonderful for improving my mental health. It gives me a sense of achievement, as well as something to look forward to and a feeling of hopefulness. I look forward to using the advice to grow a…

Making space for bugs in your garden borders Leaving bare patches of soil in your borders and lawn helps wildlife, reveals the third and final paper of the four-year Royal Horticultural Society research project, Plants For Bugs. While dense planting offers food and cover for insects, some soil-dwelling creatures, such as hunting spiders, do better in areas of sparser ground. “Ground-dwelling bugs recycle dead plant matter... they’re almost Wombles!” “It may be that hunting spiders can prey more easily where there is space and we know that ground-nesting bees also prefer to make a home in south-facing uncovered earth,” Andrew Salisbury, lead author on the reports and principal entomologist at the RHS, tells us. “There’s still a misconception that gardening for wildlife equates to a plot that’s densely planted, messy…

It has long been a dream of mine to live, if not entirely, then predominantly, on the plants I have grown. In my allotment adventures over the past year I have experimented with the kinds of ideas I hope one day to try on a larger scale – growing plants, not just for food, but for every aspect of life. I have encountered some amazing projects, both in the UK and other countries, where plant materials have been used to create natural remedies. But can we make them ourselves? Well, with some expert guidance from Kim Walker, author of The Handmade Apothecary, I was able to try some surprisingly simple recipes, which also, incidentally, make lovely gifts. Although all the following recipes are safe, we should never underestimate plants. What…

Butterflies A huge influx of painted lady butterflies came to British shores last year. Butterfly Conservation’s Big Butterfly Count recorded half a million of them, 30 times more than were sighted in 2018. It was a similar picture for our wildlife watchers. Some 35 per cent of readers saw painted ladies, compared with 23 per cent in 2018. Richard Fox, Associate Director of Recording and Research at Butterfly Conservation, said: “Painted lady years don’t happen very often – the last one was in 2009 – but they are worth the wait. Huge numbers of this migrant butterfly arrived on the east coast of Britain in June and then again at the end of July.” Other butterflies had a slightly better year in 2019 than 2018, according to our survey results.…

Force strawberries Select some strawberry plants and lift them for forcing. Bring them under cover and pot up ready to fruit a few weeks early. Trim off any dead leaves, water and give them a good feed. They’ll burst into growth. Keep the vents open to encourage pollinators in and improve airflow to keep fungal disease at bay. Discard plants after fruiting or trim back and replant into the garden. DON’T FORGET ■ Prick out seedlings grown in small pots and trays once they have developed two true leaves ■ Clean out greenhouse and conservatory gutters to avoid the build up of leaves ■ Prune greenhouse climbers such as passion flowers and bougainvillea ■ Ensure that the greenhouse is well ventilated and that pots and trays don’t become too wet,…

4 TASKS for lawns Tidy your lawn up before it starts back into vigorous growth. Try using a spade to make a strong vertical edge by pushing soil back into the borders. The ground is at its coldest now so growth is very slow, which makes it a good time to do the reshaping jobs. 1 BREAK up dry worm casts with a wire rake then brush them into the grass. If they are wet, rake them off and put them on the compost heap. 2 LINE a straight plank up as a guide if you want to make a new edge. Stand on it as you cut through the turf with a half moon blade against the edge of the plank. 3 SET the blades high then mow the…

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The primrose is the iconic spring wildflower that grows across Britain and Ireland – everyone knows and loves it. Hedgerows, woodland, north-facing banks – the primrose thrives anywhere that’s shady and moist. It’s by far the most widespread of our five native primula species and, along with the cowslip, is a parent of the garden polyanthus. The cowslip’s preference for more light and better-drained soils brings an adaptability to the polyanthus and its many cultivated relations, which now come in vast variety – some garish and brash, some subtle and sophisticated, some tough and long-lasting, and some more fleeting. They extend from the gold and silver-laced types, with the bright, wiry edging of their petals – long grown as show plants in the same way as auriculas – to the…

I couldn’t agree more with Monty’s column regarding rewilding (The Full Monty, Jan bought our house, the garden was a dark, soggy mess of brambles that attracted neither man nor bee. After a lot of hard work, it now has flower beds, a veg patch, a bug hotel and a mini wildflower meadow. This past summer, it was alive with birds and insects. Learning to be good stewards of the earth is the first step in respecting and valuing our own place in the cycle. Rebekah, County Down As an admirer of Monty Don’s writing I was dismayed to see his perfunctory dismissal of the complex issue of rewilding (The Full Monty, Jan issue), in particular of the proposals to allow our natural forest to return to some natural ecosystems in…

In the depths of winter, on a sunny but chill day, a lone buff-tailed bumblebee is on a mission. It is whizzing sleepily over the fence of a little London patio, oblivious to distant police sirens. With a thwump, it lands on its target, one of the few flowers in the garden at this time of year – a showy disc of petal-like sepals. Then it drinks nectar frantically fromacircleofacid- nectaries the green , plant’s inconspicuous true petals. Hellebores are amazing plants – they’re fully hardy, grow well in light shade, require little watering or attention, and flower for weeks on end at a time when few plants are awake. I always add them to garden designs and grow many myself. I love their spectacular, early, pollinator-friendly flowers. But often…

1 Lithops Known commonly as ‘living stones’, these succulents really do match the terrain on which they are naturally found growing. Try growing them in a shallow terracotta pot and surround them with pebbles of similar colouring. You’ll then see how they avoid being eaten by goats! 2 Schlumbergera The Christmas cactus needs different conditions to most cacti. Give it a spot out of direct sunlight and where, in summer, conditions are rather more humid than that appreciated by other cacti. Great in a hanging basket where its flowers will cascade over the sides. Repot annually and rest the plant, by not watering it, between January and March. 3 Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’ The deep purple rosettes of this succulent are carried on branching stems and will eventually form a large plant.…

Best border spade Greenman Half Brite Border Spade £23.99 A strong, treaded, carbon-steel blade with a long, robust socket to prevent snapping. Balanced, comfortable and the long shaft is easy on the back. Lifetime warranty. Best for clearing ground Sneeboer Pointed Spade £111.75 Excellent at clearing ground, this handles well, slicing through roots and stony soil with ease. Expensive but the testers loved it. Lifetime warranty. Best ergonomic spade Wilkinson Sword Ultralight Pointed Digging Spade £27.99 Easy to use and handle. Performed well and felt substantial despite its low weight. Ideal for long jobs and less-able gardeners. Best transplanting spade DeWit Shark Tine Spade £59.99 Razor-sharp zigzag blade and long socket. Comfortable to use and cuts through roots and around plants easily. Good value for the…

STEP BY STEP Divide snowdrops Split clumps of snowdrops as soon as they finish flowering, and replant around the garden in lightly shaded spots. They’ll settle into their new homes quickly, before dying back and going dormant over summer. 1 CUT down into the soil around a clump of snowdrops with a spade, then lift out with all the roots. 2 PULL the clump apart into smaller handfuls, keeping some soil around the bulbs if you can. 3 REPLANT in a new site, at the same depth as before. Put some grit around the new clump, so you know where it is after it dies back. Sow tender stars For a blaze of colour this summer, start sowing tender perennials now. Pelargoniums, heliotropes, dahlias, ricinus and tithonia (above) are great…

How to chit potatoes Many folk don’t have room for masses of potatoes on their veg patch, but a short row of first earlies can be fitted into most gardens to produce tasty new potatoes. The earliest crops come from seed potatoes (raised specifically to be healthy and virus free) that are chitted before being planted. The word chit dates from the 17th century and means ‘a shoot’, so chitting is the act of encouraging seed potatoes to sprout before they are planted. This is done because if they are given a head start and planted with young shoots that are already growing they are likely to produce a crop sooner than if planted totally dormant. This means that you can be enjoying your new potatoes earlier than if they…

Did you know that peas and beans can provide their own fertiliser? Belonging to the group of plants called legumes, they have a special (symbiotic) relationship with a type of bacteria that lives in nodules in their roots. The bacteria gains sugars made by the plant during photosynthesis, and the plant benefits from the bacteria’s ability to ‘fix nitrogen’. This means it converts nitrogen from the air into nitrogenous compounds in the soil. While plants cannot use the atmospheric nitrogen, they can access these soil compounds. Legumes take up the nitrogen from the soil, using some of it to make nutritious proteins. But legumes can also benefit the soil – leguminous green manures, such as clover and vetch, will give nitrogen back to the soil when cut and left to…

There is a degree of responsibility involved in writing the last page of a magazine, especially when one has occupied that position for quite a while. I have had the pleasure of filling this space since BBC Gardener’s World Magazine first hit the newsstands back in 1991, which means that I have penned nearly 350 columns. (It’s at this stage that the reader begins to wonder “Is that it? Is he going then?” No, I’m not going yet – at least, not that I’m aware…) “Whatever I write about, there is, beneath the surface, a passion for growing things that has never dimmed” I’d like to tell you that the subjects I choose are carefully mapped out, that I have a 12-month plan of what I will talk about in…

Has there ever been a better time to be a gardener? We have more plant choices than ever, more gardens open for inspiration, more opportunities to swap ideas online and social media… and more knowledge than ever before of how vital it is that we garden. Vital to all of us – not just for our wellbeing but for our environment. The more we learn about the climate emergency, the clearer it is that tackling the biggest problems starts with the smallest actions – affirmed by David Attenborough, no less, when he called on us all to garden more for the sake of the planet (see Clippings). To highlight this, our key theme this month is gardening for wildlife. Everything we do in our gardens can either harm or benefit…

In the centre of downtown Seattle are three huge domes resembling overlapping dark bubbles. Light emanates from them and they reflect the skyscrapers looming on all four sides. These are the Spheres that have been built by Amazon for its employees – of whom there are over 53,000 based in Seattle. The idea is that the interior of these domes provides precious and all-too-rare contact with nature, and thus enhances the quality of employees’ lives and, therefore, the quality of their work. Everybody wins. The interior is a cross between a palm house and the vast atrium of a particularly well-heeled bank. Steel hoops, triangles and girders (I am informed that in fact they are pentagonal hexecontahedrons, so there) support the glass dome and have a structural swagger that 19th-century…

It’s a natural human instinct to want to help injured or vulnerable animals, whether they be wild or domesticated, but therein lies a problem. These two groups of animals live in distinctly different states and important questions should be asked before taking the understandable step to save a wild animal’s life or to end its suffering. And, while many of us want to do what is morally right, I’d argue that that might not always be the best route. “While many of us want to do what is morally right, it might not be the best route” If you do find an animal that seems in distress, you need to ask yourself several questions. Do you know, for example, that it really is in difficulty? A lone fox cub may…

1 Use a folded sheet of newspaper to make a narrow strap that can be positioned around the body of the cactus to hold it steady and avoid pricking your hand. 2 Choose a new pot one size bigger than the old one and half fill it with gritty compost. Gently tip the plant out its old pot. 3 Slide the cactus into its new home and, gripping the newspaper strap, manoeuvre it into position. 4 Holding the newspaper strap firmly, fill around the plant with fresh compost, firm it down and add grit to the soil surface. Water in two days later.…

Typically one of the first tools a gardener buys, a spade is invaluable for a host of jobs around the garden. The classic model is the digging spade, (reviewed in On test , September 2019 issue), but there are many others that are designed for a particular use. To see how good these different spades are at their specific job, and to help you choose which spade you need, we tested three of the most popular types: border spades, which are similar in shape but smaller and lighter than a digging spade; pointed spades, which have a curved blade that is pointed at the end; and transplanting spades, which have sharp, jagged blades. Gardeners of different ages, heights and abilities put each spade through its paces, lifting and planting, and…

Sustainable tool care Clean, oil and sharpen your tools to get the most out of them. Make sure that they are always wiped clean and dried before being put away, even if you plan to use them the following day. This will keep handles from rotting and blades from rusting. It makes sense to buy the best quality tools you can afford, and keep them working for as long as you possibly can, so you’re doing the planet a service too. Look for tools that can be taken apart for sharpening and general maintenance. Penetrating spray oil is good for loosening tools that have jammed, but lubricating oil is much better for regular maintenance and guarding against corrosion. Save some old rags and wrap them around your sharpening stone and…

Bob Flowerdew Bob is an organic gardener and a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time. Matt Biggs Matt trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and has been gardening professionally for over 30 years. Pippa Greenwood Pippa is one of the foremost experts on pests and diseases. She gardens using organic methods. Q Why do my Italian cypress trees keep dying? Elizabeth Turner, East Sussex A PIPPA SAYS Based on what I can tell from your photos and your description of what has happened over the last few years, I think the most likely cause is honey fungus ( Armillaria ). However, without examining the trees myself and with no samples, I can’t be completely sure. For a definitive diagnosis, I suggest you employ a reputable arborist…