Amateur Gardening

“Our report on the RHS plant of the year from the Chelsea Flower Show is on page 9 and you can also read about the memorial at Chelsea created to celebrate the life and work of our former columnist Peter Seabrook. Peter’s contribution to gardening ca

WHILE I love growing native flowers and filling the garden with pastel hues and delicate grasses, I can’t resist the exotic allure of dahlias and cannas. I’m obviously not alone in this as they are two of the most popular summer varieties, and with g

WHILE we’re busy catering to the every need of our beds, borders, pots and baskets, let’s not forget that our lawns need looking after too. It’s often the largest single area in the garden and the UK’s usual warm, damp early summer is perfect growing

MOST years Team AG approaches the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with slight trepidation because many of the gardens verge on the pretentious and show nothing that our loyal readers would consider adding to their patch. This year, however, our fears were un

OUR Deutzia and weigela are still just about flowering so I’m not quite ready to prune them, and the forsythia is growing well so I won’t trim that or I’ll lose next year’s flowering stems. However, this point of the summer is the perfect time to pru

I CHOSE the Armeria pseudarmeria ‘Dreamland’. I’m a fan of what I call sea thrift, (it has many common names including cliff rose and lady’s pincushion) and I have several. Armeria pseudarmeria is a larger, taller variety that got my attention. The p

AS we’ve passed the longest day, although there may seem a lot of summer to go, our plants will have noticed the change and some respond accordingly. Instead of the days lengthening and the nights shortening, these now reverse – and although it’s onl

THIS week’s free seeds are for Bellis perennis ‘Goliath Mixed’, a pretty biennial with pom-pom heads in white and pink… These delicious daisies are perfect for edging borders and adding to pots in spring and if you get them started now, they will flo

I’M in heaven! It’s rose time and I have a large collection at Spring Cottage. My rose, peony and phlox borders are close to the cottage. There’s a cutting garden, although I can’t bear to cut the roses in it! There are roses up my garden path and th

FRUIT and vegetable gardens don’t need to consist of regimental rows of crops with bare earth in between. Imagine walking through a small woodland glade plucking nuts, berries and herbs – that’s the essence of forest gardening, and it sounds pretty h

WITH nearly 16,000 different iris varieties that have been given names over the centuries, it is obvious they cannot all be discussed here. They need dividing up to make them easier to understand. All irises have basically similar flowers, with three

Q What are the symptoms of box blight and how can I protect my plants? Patricia Holden, Taunton, Somerset A Box blight first appeared in the UK in 1998 and has been causing gardeners problems ever since. The key symptom to look for is signs of fungal

This week it’s: Stories behind this native of South Africa ON the roadsides and verges of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in midsummer, you’ll see agapanthus in all their flowering glory. In such milder parts of the country the plant has become natu

DRIVES, patios, paths and larger areas of paving can soon look untidy if weeds begin to take hold. Even worse, large weeds can erode concrete edges, break up tarmac and lift brick paviors. Also, a build-up of algae on a hard surface in the shade of t

Q I’d like to start a herb garden on a budget. How can I grow lots of herbs cheaply and is it too late to sow our coriander and fennel favourites? Sam Deacon, Shrewsbury, Shropshire A Keeping a wide range of culinary herbs fresh, readily available an

Editorial: Editor: Garry Coward-Williams Gardening Editor: Ruth Hayes Assistant Editor: Janey Goulding Art Editor: Al Rigger Editorial Assistant: Lesley Upton Picture Editor and Letters: Wendy Humphries Advertising Media packs are available on reques

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: amateurgardening@futurenet.com Star letter The Chelsea issue of AG, 19

I WOKE up, hung-over, to the sound of my neighbour mowing his lawn. He’ll have to mow around me’cause I’m not moving – ba-dumtish! I was drinking because my other neighbour ran off with my wife… I really miss him. Boom, boom! I don’t care what anyone