This and That in The Garden House
Posted:23 November 2014
It’s a gloomy day in mid-November but there’s still lots going on in and around the garden, so we thought in this week’s post we would highlight just few Garden House related bits and pieces which might interest you
Garden House friend, thrifty gardener, and Guardian journalist, Kim Stoddart introduces a trio of videos about seed saving, Let’s Get Seedy, and explains why all gardeners should be giving it a go. In one of the videos Kim visits an inspiring wildflower seed saving and planting project that’s taking place across council estates in Brighton.
We’ve been busy putting the garden House garden to bed for the winter – tidying, cutting back and mulching – but we’ve also been thinking ahead and have already started sowing in the vegetable plot.
Broad bean Aquadulce Claudia is the best broad bean for autumn or early spring sowing. It is a super easy crop to grow, and one we like to get started around now protected under cloches. The seeds will germinate within two to four weeks and young plants should overwinter and recommence growth as soon as conditions are favourable in spring, and we will hopefully be harvesting our first crop as early as May.
For more info on sowing broad beans, go to the advice section on the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) website click here.
We’ve also been busy planting out onion and garlic sets (prepared baby onions and single garlic bulbs). Again for advice on growing your own do check out the RHS website click here.
On the RHS news feed, we also found this great article: plantsman Graham Rice’s top 10 winners of the RHS Award of Garden Merit for creating structure in the garden in winter.
“With flowers relatively sparse, structure is an important element in the winter garden. In many gardens this begins – and ends – with evergreens and, in particular, hedges and topiary in box and yew, plus perhaps dogwoods with their coloured stems.
But so many other plants, trees and shrubs and even perennials, have a boldness of shape or an intricacy of pattern to ensure that when there are few flowers to enjoy, our gardens can still interest and delight us.”
The 10 winners are (for more info, click here):
- Acer negundo ‘Winter Lightning’
- Bergenia purpurascens delavayi
- Betula utilis jacquemontii ‘Grayswood Ghost’
- Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’
- Mahonia × media ‘Lionel Fortescue’
- Miscanthus sinensis ‘Septemberrot’
- Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’
- Phormium ‘Sundowner’
- Phyllostachys nigra
- Salix × sepulcralis ‘Erythroflexuosa’
And finally here are just some of our dahlias lifted and ready for winter storage!
