Steve Bradley MA MHort (RHS) has written (or co-written) over 40 gardening books, including You can listen to Propagation Basics, The Pruner’s Bible, The Ground Force Workbook and What’s Wrong With Steve on alternate My Plant? He is resident expert on BBC Radio Kent, Sussex and Surrey, and he has built medal- Sundays 10am-2pm winning gardens at both Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace. on BBC Radio Kent’s Sunday Gardening (BBC Local) Step-by-step: how to propagate by air layering 1 Cut into the stem, slicing upwards 2 Insert rooting powder at an angle, about 1-2in (3-5cm). or gel into the cut. 3 Wedge the wound open 4 Pack damp moss around to prevent it healing. the wounded area. 5 Cover the moss with 6 Pack the moss firmly and seal polythene and seal the base. the top of the polythene cover. this is to expose a large surface area of and healing, rather than producing roots. cutting the base open and drawing it tissue to encourage the formation of The wounded area needs to be packed over the shoot. Wrap the polythene callus and root initiation. with damp sphagnum moss and the around the base of the shoot and secure whole area covered with a polythene it with sticky tape, then pack the moss Packing the wounded area wrap to keep the packing moist and in around the stem. Gather the top and This can be encouraged by inserting place. Use black or milky polythene in a secure that with tape to leave the rooting powder or gel into the wound. sheet long enough to cover the area and wounded area completely covered. Now The cut needs to be wedged open with wrap around the stem and packing you wait. Check the area now and again something, such as a twist of moss or (about 3-4in/7-10cm wide by 4-6in/10- to see whether roots are showing in the matchstick to prevent it from just closing 15cm long). You can use a plastic bag by moss, but rooting may take months. 23 JULY 2022 AMATEUR GARDENING 51
AANskNE SWITHINBANK Masterclass on: helping out struggling alstroemerias Deep rosy-cerise Our ‘Inticancha Step Rescuing ‘Tessa’ is one of Sunset’ was planted by step alstroemeria several taller-stemmed out while dormant varieties that works in spring, but new well as a cut flower growth never appeared. It was Alamy mid-June before I carefully forked the plant from the ground, and this is what I found Alamy Shorter-growing 1 Fleshy roots have stayed alive ‘Mauve Majesty’ is despite no top growth at all. ideal for borders and Stems that had tried to grow from container gardening, the crown had been rasped away and flowers from by slugs and snails as soon as they summer to autumn broke through the soil. Improving your alstroemerias 2 I divided the crown into two. The Q Inspired by alstroemeria flowers in potted one was placed out of florists, I have tried planting them basic Chilean A. aurea. This had no reach of slugs and snails, the one in the garden. Some arrived as tubers and trouble colonising our stony north Kent the ground surrounded with sheep’s others as plants, both small and large, in soil, where it spread like a weed and wool pellet barrier or slug pubs. pots. However, they stop flowering and returned to make masses of red- fail to return the next year. Why is this? streaked golden flowers every summer. 3 Pot up using a good-sized pot Ella Durban, Cambridge Then the Ligtu hybrids were all the rage, to accommodate the roots but I found these difficult and would (prune the bottom sections rather A There are many long-stemmed struggle to describe any of the hybrids than fold them in) and a loam cultivars of alstroemeria grown as easy. In my experience, they are not compost. The plant can have a under glass as cut flowers. Known as the sort of perennials you can plant and better-looking container next time. Peruvian lilies, their exotic-looking then just forget about. blooms are often bicoloured, decorated by contrasting spots and stripes, and My short-growing ‘Inticancha Sunset’ have a long vase life. Sturdier, shorter- (with flowers like confections of cream, growing varieties have been bred for pink and yellow) is tough, but first planting in borders, where they usually refused to grow in rather poor, dry soil delight their owners by flowering for and after being moved to a more long periods from summer into autumn. welcoming site, it was ravaged by slugs and snails. Just as for dahlias and The wild species originate from delphiniums, slug barriers and controls South American mountain scree and need to be in place from February. grasslands, and this is reflected in their love of well-draining soil. With their Once you have an alstroemeria fleshy roots, they are built to survive growing, apply water during droughts drought, but for maximum flower power and treat it to either a controlled-release a moist, fertile soil will deliver the goods. fertiliser for flowering plants or regular high-potash liquid feeds in order to When I started gardening, the only guarantee a summer full of blooms. alstroemerias we came across were I suspect your plants failed due to winter wet, poor dry soil or slugs and snails. All photographs John Swithinbank/Future unless otherwise credited Alamy Alstroemerias to try Alstroemeria ‘Indian 4 Water in well so that all the Summer’ roots receive moisture. Wait THERE are some gorgeous alstroemeria around. until the surface begins to dry out ‘Majestic Maze’ bears green-tipped white flowers before watering again. with chocolate markings at 28in (70cm). For dark foliage, ‘Indian Summer’ is deservedly popular for cherry-orange and yellow flowers against dark bronze foliage at 3ft (1m) tall. For fiery-red flowers on a short plant, choose ‘Inca Bandit’ at 10in (25cm). 52 AMATEUR GARDENING 23 JULY 2022
LYoEuTrTERS TO WENDY Write to us: Letters, Amateur Gardening magazine, Future Publishing Limited, Unit 415, Winnersh Triangle, Eskdale Road, Winnersh, RG41 5TP (please include your address). Email us: [email protected] A boost for Star Please continue to send us £W2I0N Please note, prize monies will be sent approx 10 weeks after publication fundraising letter your themed poems. This week, Mrs Stevens L IKE many gardeners I have Steph grew plants from packets of free shares her thoughts on the “collected” the free seeds I seeds and raised £200 daily struggle and quest for receive with the magazine, not survival amongst the visitors always having space to grow to her garden. them. This year I grew many of the packets and sold the plants at a sale on A Day In My Garden my drive. I made £200 which I divided between the Alzheimer’s Society and the TI Archive The world around me is at war! Frailty and Dementia Ward at our local I sit and stare into the sky, hospital. Thank you for helping really Concentrating, questioning why, deserving causes. That kite, I now wonder what Steph Hall it saw? Wendy says Well done Steph for growing on your spare packets. Winning compost is too pricey Waves of colour sway, Bees buzzing around, P HEW, gardening will be getting more prize for the sustainability product at .Crickets make that methodical expensive if we have to follow the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Good sound, rules. Dobbies new Peat-free John news and bad news. The good news, All going about their busy day. Innes 1, 2 and 3 won the inaugural some people reckon it’s the bees’ knees. The bad news, it costs a whopping £3.99 for 10 litres and £5.99 Mr Squirrel is visiting the table, for 25 litres. Robins, duty soldiers, wait What proper gardener buys 25 litre and sit, bags for their plots. Am I right or am I wrong? Check it out. Magpies, jays, blackbirds Tony Hoare, Bootle, Merseyside and tits, Editor Garry replies I am afraid you Wait, anticipate, eat when they are spot-on Tony. Conventional peat- are able. based compost has already risen by at TI Archive “Compost will be getting more least 20% and the better peat-free Dusk brings night like a shroud. expensive if we follow the rules” options are around £9 for a 30 litre bag. The days of special deals of three Air is cooler, eery and damp. 70 litre bags of good compost for £15 are long gone. Pools of yellow light from the solar lamp. And then it comes, dancing all around. Pick a posy of potato flowers! Moths flutter, dive and hum. Silent wings dart by, HAVING taken heed of Bob Flowedew’s The bat flying in the night sky. advice given in a recent column to Creatures silently come! remove the flowers from my potatoes it seemed a shame to just compost them, The day is over and done. so I popped them into a small vase. Creatures repeat the day I didn’t realise they were so pretty and they have lasted several days. tomorrow. Chris Jones (Mrs) Reader Material unless credited I will sit full of wonder and Wendy says Good idea, Chris, and why sorrow, not? After all, we admire the flowers of The WAR around me who the scrambling climber Solanum crispum, which is in the same family as Removing potato flowers as they form is has won? Mrs D Stevens believed to boost yield the potato, and the flowers are similar. 23 JULY 2022 AMATEUR GARDENING 55
SHARE YOUR STORIES TIPS AND PHOTOS and you will receive a fantastic pair of Town & Country’s Master Gardener gloves — the UK’s best-selling gardening glove and a perfect companion to help you in the garden. State small, medium or large with your letter. Photo Hanging Future Publishing Ltd Unit 415, Winnersh Triangle, owfetehke garden of Eskdale Road, Winnersh, RG41 5TP hostas Slug free – these Editorial: baskets of hostas I THOUGHT your Editor: Garry Coward-Williams make a lovely readers might be feature interested in my hosta .Email: [email protected] tree, created using old & 0330 390 3732 (Mon-Fri 9.00am-6.00pm) hanging baskets. And the best bit is the slugs Gardening Editor: Ruth Hayes haven’t found them! Sue Beale, Assistant Editor: Janey Goulding Maidenhead, Berkshire Art Editor: Al Rigger Why do hedgehogs ignore slugs? Editorial Assistant: Lesley Upton I HAVE been putting out food for hedgehogs for several Picture Editor and Letters: Wendy Humphries years. Lately though I have found that cucumbers, Email: [email protected] courgettes and sweet peppers have been devoured by Photography All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected slugs as soon as they are planted, when I had hoped TI Archive Advertising Media packs are available on request that by encouraging hedgehogs, they would to some Ad Manager: Jackie Sanders, & 07899 882370 email: [email protected] extent curb the slug menace. Amateur Gardening is available for licensing and Could it be that our resident hedgehog has filled his/ syndication. To find out more contact us at licensing@ futurenet.com or view our available content at her tummy and has left without hunting for the slugs? Jacob encourages Jacob Dales, Frome, Somerset hedgehogs but the slugs futurecontenthub.com remain a problem Head of Print Licensing: Rachel Shaw Wendy says Hedgehogs do eat slugs, they like the small ones that usually Subscriptions cause the most damage, however, they much prefer to eat beetles and other Email enquiries: amateurgardeningsubs.co.uk/subsave invertebrates. Slugs and snails are sometimes hosts to a parasitic worm, and if UK orderline & enquiries: & 0330 333 1113 eaten, hedgehogs can get infected with lungworm. 8 Gardenwildlifehealth.org Overseas order line & enquiries: & +44 (0)330 333 1113 Slugs are no friend of mine Online orders & enquiries: myfavouritemagazines. co.uk THE article by Val Bourne about slugs (AG, 14 May) said that Dr Andrew Subscription delays Salisbury [principle entomologist at the RHS] asks us to Disruption remains within UK and International delivery networks. Please allow up to 7 days before contacting us think kindly on them. about a late delivery to [email protected] Well, Mr Salisbury, so far, without the benefit of slug Circulation Retail Category Director: Ben Oakden pellets, the slugs in my garden have eaten nearly all the Production Group Head of Production: Mark Constance marigolds that I grew from seed, pricked out, potted on Senior Production Manager: Matthew Eglington and planted. Once they got through those they started Advertising Production Manager: Joanne Crosby on the zinnias. Every single one of the Lupin ‘Pixie Digital Editions Controller: Jason Hudson Delight’ have been eaten, they pick out the rudbeckias Director of Group Finance: Oli Foster even if I disguise them between other plants. They have Editorial Director: Rhoda Parry crawled up the stalks of the sunflowers and chewed Managing Director: Jason Orme through them half way up, they are now eating the Group Managing Director: Sophie Wybrew-Bond bottom leaves of the runner beans. Future Printed by Walstead Group We mulch with Strulch, put out beer every night “Gardeners need to Distributed by Marketforce (UK), 121-141 Westbourne (costs a fortune, I wish the pub would let us have slops) re-think how they view Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR. marketforce. and do night-time patrols. The only things they seem slugs, snails and greenfly,” co.uk & 0330 390 6555. not to eat are roses and bedding geraniums. Marion Moverley, Easingwold, North Yorks says Dr Salisbury We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. . All contents © 2022 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions. Wendy says How frustrating for you, Marion. I would suggest growing on annuals in pots and planting out once grown on a little, they will be more resilient this way. The RHS expert says cover with cloches while small. In winter, rake over soil and remove fallen leaves to reveal slugs eggs for birds to eat. 23 JULY 2022 AMATEUR GARDENING 57
TOBY BUCKLAND Plantsman and BBC gardening presenter Unlike regular lawn If you need help disposing of Toby’s trivia clippings, long grass is full hay (cut long grass), perhaps of wildflower seed so you must your furry friends can help? take care getting rid of hay 1 Cut meadows when the seeds of any wildflowers that you want to keep have fallen. TI Archive Luckily, Bunson and Hedges are stepping up to the plate and are willing to help nibble the clippings Hay today, gone tomorrow 2 Once cut in late summer, keep Toby’s rabbits can sometimes be a handful, but they grass trimmed in autumn so Icome in handy when it comes to disposing of long grass brambles and nettles don’t take NEVER thought the day would flowers are ready to fall, I’m scything it hold and grass is smart in winter. come, but after four years of shelling out for bunny food and back to its ankles a section at a time or be buried deeply in bean trenches vet’s bills, my daughter’s pet (think Poldark, but fatter). But there’s a problem: disposing of rabbits are finally pulling their weight. the hay – as that’s what it is – is tricky. where its weed seeds won’t sprout. I say ‘my daughter’s…’ but almost the Unlike regular lawn clippings, long But I’d rather use the space for minute Bunson and Hedges arrived grass is full of wildflower seeds that something else, so this is where the through the front gate, the cleaning-out, an ordinary compost heap won’t conies come in. And according to our feeding and cotton-tail entertainment destroy. And if the composted long daughter, good-quality hay should make has fallen to me and Lisa, while No1 grass is used as a mulch, precious up most of a bunny’s diet. Green grass Daughter’s interests hopped off to meadow wildflowers will be a rash and (unbelievably) carrots should be pastures new. of weeds in the borders. given sparingly. What Bugs Bunny To be fair, the rabbits have tried to be Some gardeners deal with unwanted would say about that, we’ll never know. helpful, providing dung for the roses and hay by burning, creating choking and Still, I’m grateful, because by cutting, giving me many hours of free personal antisocial plumes of smoke in the drying and keeping the long grass for fitness training when they tunnel from process. Others build a separate the bunsters, not only are the stray their run and need catching. But it would compost heap where the stray matter seeds dealt with but I’m also saving be a brass-necked bunny that claimed can sit out of sight and mind for decades, cash at the pet shop. they earned their keep. Until now… Like many gardeners, my plans for Add yellow rattle to your plot an uncut lawn in no-mow May grew, quite literally, into a unmown meadow All photographs Alamy unless otherwise credited through June and July. And now that YELLOW rattle makes a great addition to any meadow, as seeds from the various grasses and its parasitic roots rob nutrients from the grass, curbing the luxuriant green growth and making space for more “The rabbits are wildflowers. Buy seed that’s been freshly collected – local wildlife trusts are a good source – and scatter finally pulling onto the grass immediately after cutting and raking up Yellow rattle (Rhinanthus their weight” the hay. Traditionally, livestock were used to trample minor) in bloom the seeds in, so there’s no need to stop using the lawn. In fact, the more you walk on it and scuff up the surface, the better the chance of the rattle taking hold. 23 JULY 2022 AMATEUR GARDENING 59 .
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