Stray Gardener: Getting to the root of it

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight. Fiona has worked in horticulture for more than 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. This month, Fiona explains her methods for taking and propagating root cuttings. 

I love propagating plants and over the years I have tried lots of different techniques. One that I have found simple and useful to do is root cuttings. You can do them at a quieter time of year (November to March) when plants are dormant. It allows you to propagate up larger amounts of plants with limited tools and equipment, you don’t need expensive heated propagators or rooting hormone powder.  They are a little slower to root, but you tend to get a much stronger and healthier plant in the long run. As the root cuttings grow, they are less likely to be affected by foliar pests and diseases in the initial stages of growth, allowing them to grow to a good size to be able to fight them off later.

Root cuttings are particularly successful with mint plants.

Root cuttings don’t work with all plants. The greatest success comes from using thick fleshy roots and even more success comes from roots that have a tendency to sucker, such as mint.  Other herbaceous plants to use include: anemone, papaver, echinops, acanthus, primula denticulata and phlox. Some woody plants are also successful from root cuttings, including aralia, catalpa (Indian bean tree), chaenomeles, robinia and syringa.

The process of taking root cuttings is very simple. Select a nice strong healthy plant with a good-sized clump. Dig this up, or if it is very large, try to dig and expose the roots to select the thickest ones. Try not to use more than a third of the root system, and once the roots are selected, make sure you replant very quickly to avoid the plant drying out. I tend to grow mint in containers to avoid it growing everywhere, it is then very easy to take the plant out of the pot and select the roots you want to use.

Fiona plants her root cuttings in trays and pots

Choose young, roughly pencil thick roots (although this does depend on the plant and some, like mint, can still root from thinner roots). Cut them off close to the crown using a sharp knife or secateurs. I then start cutting from the top of the root (the bit closest to the crown). Cut lengths of up to 8cm. To make sure you plant the roots the correct way up, if you cut the top straight across and then make a slanted cut at the bottom of the cutting you know the slanted bit needs to go into the compost first.

Use a well-drained gritty propagation compost and fill pots or trays with it. Make sure the pots you use are deep enough for your cuttings. Then insert the cuttings into the compost so the top is just below the surface (remembering to put the slanty end in first!). Top dress with grit to help keep excess moisture away from the top of the cutting, to avoid it rotting off before it roots. Place the tray or pots in a cold frame or other sheltered place and you should have some plants ready to pot on by the spring. Don’t forget to check them and water if they get dry!

Fiona suggests using a gritty propagation compost

Another technique you can use with thinner roots, is to lay roughly 10cm lengths of the roots horizontally on top of the gritty compost in a seed tray and then cover with grit again.  You will get small plants growing along the length of the root, which can be detached in sections and potted up in the spring.

This really is an easy, cost effective and fun way to increase numbers of your favourite plants. So, if you have a spare couple of hours, just give it a go! 

Fiona’s five top tips for December:

  1. Regularly check protective covers for tender plants to make sure they are still intact and in place.
  2. Start ordering seed catalogues to get ahead of the game and get your seeds ordered early before they are out of stock.
  3. Reduce watering on houseplants to ensure they don’t rot off over the winter.
  4. Tie wall shrubs and climbers securely to ensure they don’t get damaged by windy weather.
  5. Clean the glass and tidy in the greenhouse ready for next season.

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Stray Gardener: To dig or not to dig?

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight. Fiona has worked in horticulture for more than 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. This month, Fiona explains her easier alternative to digging – and how it can help the planet too. 

November is usually the time of year when you start thinking about tidying up your vegetable garden, start digging over the beds and adding manure or other humus rich material. But do you really want the hassle of all that hard work, and is it really necessary? I don’t think so and here’s why…

I am essentially quite a lazy person and if there is an easier way to do something I’ll have a go! I have found there is an alternative to digging that is becoming increasingly popular, especially by people who want to grow along organic lines and be more environmentally friendly.

‘No-dig’ as it is called, is a process where organic matter such as garden compost, well-rotted manure or spent mushroom compost is applied to the soil surface copying the natural process of decomposition when plants die back and leaves fall. Doing this avoids breaking up the fragile ecosystems that have developed in the soil and allows fungi and soil organisms to break down and incorporate the organic matter into the soil naturally. We have adopted this technique on all the raised beds in the Kitchen Garden at Rudding Park, and are now reaping the rewards.

No-dig is especially beneficial for vegetable growing, by making either raised beds (useful if you have very wet, clay soils) or beds that have narrow paths round them for easy access, but to avoid having to tread on them too often. That being said, once a no-dig bed has established, it is possible to stand on it and not do too much damage as the soil organisms produce a strong structure to withstand some light foot fall.

Once the no-dig beds are in place and they are established, you will find you need less time weeding. Digging over soil is a sure-fire way to expose seeds which will then germinate and can cause problems if not dealt with quickly; by not digging the soil over you can avoid this happening. By applying manure or compost to the top layer of your bed, you are effectively mulching, which can stop the first flush of annual weeds growing through in the spring, buying you more time for other jobs.

The downside is, it doesn’t get rid of all perennial weeds, so careful preparation beforehand will pay dividends. Removing any obvious perennial weeds before you start or by laying cardboard or other thick layers such as carpet that can be removed after a period of time should help to get rid of them. Any that pop up after that can be dealt with individually and will eventually decline in time.

No-dig is also a great way to help the environment. By continuously mulching your beds, it helps improve their ability to hold on to moisture, meaning you do not need to water as much in dry periods. Also, digging the soil can cause stored carbon to oxidise and be released as carbon dioxide, so by avoiding digging the carbon stays in the soil, helping to limit climate change.

If you have been put off growing fruit and vegetables in the past because of the hard work digging, consider giving no-dig a try. Once you have the structure in place, not only does it make life easier, you are also doing your bit for the environment.

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Fiona’s Five Top Tips for November:

  1. Prune your fruit bushes – blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants and gooseberries can all be pruned from November to March. Prune out any dead, dying or diseased stems, aiming for a goblet shape.
  2. Clear out fallen leaves from ponds to ensure the water stays healthy for fish and other wildlife.
  3. Prune roses down to prevent wind rock over the winter.
  4. Pot up amaryllis bulbs and water regularly for a good display at Christmas.
  5. Try root cuttings on plants such as papaver, anemone and verbascum.

Happy gardening!

Stray Gardener: Putting dahlias to bed

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight. Fiona has worked in horticulture for more than 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. This month, Fiona shares her advice successfully overwintering dahlias. 

Dahlias are one of my favourite flowers of all time. Back in 1989 in my YTS year (Youth Training Scheme to anyone under 40!), I was introduced to them for the first time. I just fell in love with their bright, blousy colours, shapes and textures – and I have not lost my love for them since then. I started my YTS in September when they were in full flower so alongside learning how to dead head them, I was soon introduced to the skill of overwintering the tender tubers, protecting the plants so they are not killed off by our cold, wet winters.

There are a couple of ways you can overwinter dahlia tubers successfully. Traditionally you would wait until the first frosts had blacked the stems, making the plant go dormant. However, as autumns have become warmer over the years, a job that would once have been carried out in October sometimes now creeps into November. As the flowers have all but stopped being produced, I must confess to getting a bit impatient and cutting down the stems before then and storing them away, which doesn’t seem to do any harm to the tubers.

Dahlia roots and in buckets

The first way of overwintering dahlias involves digging the whole tuber up, removing as much soil as possible, along with any tubers that may have been damaged or are starting to rot off.  Let the tubers dry out upside down for a few days, before setting them in boxes or large pots covered in dry compost. Make sure they are stored in a dry, frost free place, and check them every now and again for any signs of rotting off.

I have found that when you dig the tubers up, and you find that they are not as large as they should be, sometimes they will not store well. Potting them with damp (not wet) compost, and keeping them moist, and in a cool, frost-free place over the winter will actually help them to survive better.

Dahlia beds

The second way to overwinter tubers works well if you have planted the tubers in a sheltered, sunny position in fairly well-drained soil. They can be cut down to the ground and then mulched with straw, compost or wood chip. The mulch can then be raked away when the shoots start to grow again in the next year. For extra protection, pin fleece and a waterproof cover over the top to help avoid excessive wetness in the winter. This works especially well with strong growing varieties and can be grown in the ground like this for several years very successfully.

With both of these techniques, a word of warning! Watch out for slugs and snails early in spring as the tubers come back into leaf, especially under the fleece and mulch. Given the right conditions, they can have a wonderful time munching on the new leaves and ruin a clump in a few days. The best thing to do is to check regularly and to ensure there are no hiding places for the slugs nearby. Once the new leaves have got established then generally they will go elsewhere and allow the dahlias to grow away quite happily, ready to produce their wonderful, colourful display again.

5 top tips for October

Stray Gardener: summer pruning… it’s a snip!

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight. Fiona has worked in horticulture for more than 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. This month, Fiona explains what to prune this summer. 

So, why do we need to do a bit of snipping in the summer? It has loads of good reasons including restricting the size of your plants to ensure they don’t take over, and promoting future flowers and fruits in the year to come. If you think that pruning is a mainly winter or spring job, think again!!

If you want to ensure a good crop of fruit in the next year, trees such as apples, crab apples, medlars (sometimes known as monkey’s bottom and other rude names!) and mulberries all produce a crop on short flowering spurs along the bottom half of branches. By cutting back the vigorous growth made in spring, you will encourage more productive growth to develop, this is especially important with trained fruit trees as these could also outgrow their supports if left unchecked.

The cherry and plum family (Prunus), are particularly prone to a disease called silver leaf. By pruning cherries in summer you can avoid infection as the fungal spores are more prevalent between September and May. Choose a dry sunny day to do this as it reduces the risk of infection even further.

Pruning encourages new growth. Cane fruits such as summer raspberries, blackberries and loganberries produce new canes each year, which will go on to fruit the following summer.  Once they have finished fruiting, the old canes should be pruned out to make space for the new stems.

A wisteria flower needing pruning

Climbing plants including honeysuckle, jasmine, star jasmine and wisteria can become overgrown and tangled by the end of the summer. Pruning the long soft growth back to three or four buds helps to promote flowering buds ready for the next spring. It is also a good time to look at any new shoots that could be trained in to take over older shoots that have started to become bare.

Pruning keeps shrubs in shape and prevents them becoming overgrown with the flowers produced high up in the plant and not always as floriferous as they could be after pruning. Cutting out the flowering stems once they have finished helps to produce new shoots lower down that will go on to flower the next year. Anything that flowers from early winter to late spring can be pruned like this, plants such as deutzia, forsythia, kerria, philadelphus and weigela.

Deutzia flowers should be pruned out in summer

Topiary and hedges can be pruned later on in the summer, so cut back the current season’s growth to maintain shape and size. Shrubs such as beech, hornbeam, box, leylandii, thuja, privet and laurel can all be pruned at this time. It is important to check the hedge or topiary first to ensure there are no active bird nests, especially early on in the summer. Some species may need more than one cut in the growing season, depending on how neat you want these plants to be. Just be careful to watch the weather when you cut: try and avoid hot, dry, sunny days as this can cause your trimmed topiary to get scorched. Conversely, damp, wet days can encourage fungal spores which could infect your plant, so try to stick to a dry, cloudy day if you can.

Box topiary scorched from being cut in hot weather

Have a look at the plants in your garden, are there any mentioned about that you think fall in to the summer pruning category? If so, give it a go!

Fiona’s Five Top Tips for August

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Stray Gardener: To dead-head or not to dead-head?

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight. Fiona has worked in horticulture for more than 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. This month, Fiona’s been dead-heading her plants; she also shares her top tips for what we should be doing in our gardens this July. 

I love the therapeutic effect of dead-heading and would happily spend hours doing it if I could. I especially love dead-heading sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus), which were one of the first flowers I dead-headed as a child with my great aunt hovering over me, concerned that I wouldn’t do it correctly. Those plants were her pride and joy!

But, is it really worth while spending all that time dead-heading the plants in your garden, and does it need to be done for every plant?

In a nutshell, dead-heading is removing flowers from plants when they are fading or dead. There are a few reasons why this is worthwhile:

Violas and chives

There are many plants that are worth dead-heading, with bedding plants in containers and hanging baskets being the first contenders. Pelargoniums, petunias, pansies, polyanthus, violas and cosmos all benefit from dead-heading. Shrub wise, if you have time, it is well worth dead-heading rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias. Bulbs such as narcissus (daffodils) and tulips also benefit from dead-heading as the plant then directs any energy made back into the main bulb for flowering next year.

Fading or dead flowers can be removed quickly by hand and most will snap off cleanly when gently bent back. But if the flower stalks are tough or stringy, use scissors or secateurs to ensure a clean cut and to avoid damaging any developing buds underneath.

Plants such as dahlias, calendulas, marigolds and sweet peas are generally better cut with secateurs. Fading rose flowers can be snapped off just below the head rather down to the first set of leaves; this can actually help produce more flower buds more quickly on repeat flowering cultivars.

‘Tess of the D’urbervilles’ rose

But before you march out into the garden brandishing your secateurs, you don’t have to dead-head everything. Plants such as fuchsia, bedding lobelia and salvias will either dead-head themselves or don’t tend to produce a lot of seed so will keep repeat flowering. It’s also worthwhile finding out which flowers are good for wildlife. If you leave sunflower heads, the seeds will encourage birds into your garden. There are some cultivars of roses that produce beautiful hips and so are worth keeping for interest through the winter. Lastly, hydrangea flowers are actually best left until spring to protect the developing bud underneath.

If you have never dead-headed before, give it a go and hopefully you’ll find it as therapeutic as I do. Happy snipping!

Dahlias

Five Top Tips for July

If you want to hear more about the Rudding Park Kitchen Garden, I recommend subscribing to the Rudding Park Podcast. It provides a fascinating and entertaining insight into stories from Rudding Park and I recently joined host Peter Banks for whether the chat focuses on gardens, golf and gin – a great combination!

Enjoy!

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The Stray Gardener: mulch, mulch, mulch

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight.

Fiona has worked in horticulture for over 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. 

 

Mulches are a loose covering of organic matter over the surface of the soil that can be used on garden borders, vegetable beds, underneath trees and shrubs and on containers. If there is one thing you do this spring, get mulching!

February and March are the perfect months for mulching your garden, “but why mulch?” I hear you say. Well, for lots of reasons, including; reducing water loss in hot weather, suppressing weeds, making your beds, borders and pots look neat and tidy, reduce time spent weeding, allow rain to penetrate the soil more easily, avoiding run off and puddling. Mulches break down gradually into the soil and help improve its structure and fertility.

Mulching Veg Beds

The mulches I prefer to use are:

Garden compost, everyone should have a compost bin or three! Made well, this is the nectar of the gods for plants and is well worth making and is not difficult.

Wood chippings, these are much better used once rotted down, especially useful under trees and on shrub borders, it is also useful for paths in a woodland setting. I even use them on the paths around my vegetable beds at home to suppress weeds and to encourage more beneficial insects and wildlife into the garden. Most local tree surgeons are happy to supply wood chip.

Bark chippings, are a good option and can be sourced at your local garden centre or online, works very similarly to wood chippings but does tend to have a much nicer finish and aroma, well worth using on the tops of pots to give a more natural finish.

Leaf mould, another wonderful home-made product, and even with an estate covered in trees here at Rudding Park, and a massive team effort in autumn to collect them, there is never enough! Teeming with microorganisms, it is hugely beneficial to the soil. Plus, if you make your own, there are no air miles and no carbon footprint!

Well-rotted manures as long as they have been allowed to rot down properly most animal manures will work really well, but my personal favourite is horse manure.

Rhubarb bed mulched with well-rotted horse manure

Mulch is best applied to at least 7.5cm or 3inches thick in spring from February onwards before weeds start to grow and herbaceous plants are still dormant. It’s a good idea to get it on before your spring flowering bulbs get too big and could be damaged whilst putting the mulch on. Be careful around low growing herbaceous plants, try not to smother them. Don’t spread it right up to the stems of trees and shrubs, leave a little space around the stem to allow air in and to avoid the chances of rotting off.

Don’t be stingy, it’s really important to get a good, thick layer down, this will help suppress annual weeds and insulate the soil better reducing the amount of water evaporating, and the amount of time you may have to water in the summer.

Try and avoid fresh material, to be at its most useful it needs time to rot down. Microorganisms in the soil can be encouraged to grow and use up reserves of Nitrogen, leaving less available for plant growth. If you are fortunate enough to have fresh material, store it somewhere for a few weeks to break down before adding.

Happy Mulching!

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The Stray Gardener: Time for evergreens to shine

The Stray Gardener is written by Rudding Park’s Kitchen Gardener, Fiona Slight.

Fiona has worked in horticulture for over 30 years in the UK and abroad, and specialises in growing fruit and vegetables for fine dining. 

 

At this time of year, when the garden has started to go to sleep and bare branches start to appear, there is a group of plants which keep doing their thing and provide much needed colour and structure during the dark, dismal days of winter. Enter – the evergreens..

Why not spend some time this winter admiring the many evergreens around, and possibly plan to add some more to your garden.

Not only do they have winter colour and are a useful foil to help other plants stand out more, they can provide good shelter and protection all the year round, not only for the garden, but also for wildlife. Evergreens can provide brilliant cover for nesting birds, and their leaf litter on the floor is a perfect home for hibernating animals such as hedgehogs. Many plants provide berries for birds and small mammals such as wood mice and dormice. Most are also very useful for cutting to use in flower arrangements, wreaths and garlands.

A Yew Pedestal at Rudding Park’s Follifoot Wing

Amongst my favourites are Yew (Taxus baccata) and Holly (Ilex aquifolium), not only are they lovely trees in their own right, they are a great choice for hedges and topiary, and are a reliable choice in any garden. Holly has the added advantage of having many different cultivars, variegated and green to add extra interest. They are also very easy to re-shape and prune back hard if they start to get a little out of control. Hollies are dioecious, meaning they need a male and female to produce berries, so that may be something to keep in mind if berries are your thing..

A Monkey Puzzle Tree

For evergreen shrubs to use on walls, you can’t beat Ivy. It does need to be monitored regularly, and is probably not the best option for an unstable wall with loose mortar, but it is fantastic for wildlife, being a great place for birds’ nests. I’ve even seen ducks nesting at the base of an Ivy plant and it also provides a late nectar source for pollinating insects. There are many different cultivars to choose from with large and small leaves and various different colour combinations.

For something a little more exotic looking, try Pittosporum, Myrtle, Mahonia japonica or the Monkey Puzzle tree. Pittosporum are a lovely range of plants with different coloured and textured leaves that can be used in containers and in the border, ranging from small rounded shrubs to small trees. Myrtle (Myrtus communis or Myrtus luma) having beautiful, small, fragrant leaves and small white flowers is extremely attractive to pollinating insects making the whole bush hum with activity in the summer. Mahonia x media cultivars is a winter flowering shrub with large spiky leaves and large yellow flowers that appear in December and January. They positively glow in the winter gloom and have the most amazing fragrance, reminiscent of lily of the valley.  The monkey puzzle tree or Araucaria araucana needs no introduction, it’s a wonderful structural tree that stands out, especially in the winter months, just make sure you have room for it, but if you do, what an addition to your garden!

There are many more evergreen plants to consider, so when you get out for some fresh air over the Christmas period, why not pay a little more attention to the evergreen shrubs and trees that play such an important part in our environment, be it wild or cultivated. Enjoy!

 

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