Amateur Gardening

“Despite the success of several AG readers and our own Ruth Hayes in using polenta to combat black spot on their roses, this has not stopped the spread of this annoying fungus on mine. I had high hopes for the treatment and loved that it wasn’t chemi

ONE of TV’s most popular gardening experts, Terry Walton, is encouraging AG readers to reduce their reliance on weedkillers and other pesticides to protect the environment. The renowned horticulturist has teamed up with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water’s PestSm

IT is around this time of year that I get a bit twitchy and start to examine some of our plants for their cuttings potential. Last year I took so many pelargonium cuttings that this year I have no room for them all so they are languishing on the side

THERE are bulbs for every situation and soil and now, as summer reaches its peak, it’s time to turn our thoughts towards autumn. Borders can easily be brightened by brilliant dahlias, tall nerines with their clusters of trumpet-shapes blooms in shade

THIS week’s free seeds are for another favourite plant of mine, Brompton stocks Hardy biennials, they are sown now so that next spring they will fill your garden with the sweetest of scents and the most beautiful pastel colours. Cottage garden stalwa

NEW potatoes are easy! You plant sets of early (fast-to-crop) varieties and then, two to three months later, you dig up new potatoes and eat them. Simple. However, if you want potatoes throughout the rest of the year, it’s worth taking care to harves

I OFTEN use the word dynamic when I’m writing about wildlife. However, it doesn’t mean go-getting or over-achieving. The other, lesser-used definition of dynamic means ‘a process or system characterised by constant change, activity or progress’. This

OUR garden is currently looking wonderful, the early summer foxgloves, alliums and delphiniums having given way to later-flowering hollyhocks, salvias, sea hollies, globe thistles, bedding and self-seeded larkspurs. But like all gardeners, I am after

IT’S the ultimate no-brainer: pay £3 per punnet for currants, or buy a bush for less than a tenner to give you 20 punnets per year for 15 years? Let’s think about that for a millisecond… Why anyone buys currants by the punnet is beyond me. Establishe

BUDDLEJA, commonly known in some parts as the butterfly bush, is a strong-growing, deciduous, flowering shrub producing large colourful cones of flowers in summer and autumn. Each flowerhead is made up of a number of tiny individual flowers that prod

Q In my mum’s garden she has a large number of fuchsias. They are beautiful when in flower but seem to have all got this gall mite. Is there any way of saving them, maybe by cutting out the infection? Some are 20 years old. Sue Read, Brighton A The f

ARCHITECT, landscape gardener, town planner, writer, editor and one of the founders of the Daily News and of several gardening magazines, organiser of a civilian construction corps in the Crimean War, forester, land agent and steward, designer of gia

This week it’s: Get out and about by visiting a park this week WE love our parks. They’re spaces for people to meet up and relax, take a stroll, sunbathe, exercise, play sports or have a picnic. They’re also great spaces for events. And some of the b

Q Inspired by alstroemeria flowers in florists, I have tried planting them the garden. Some arrived as tubers and others as plants, both small and large, in pots. However, they stop flowering and fail to return the next year. Why is this? Ella Durban

Editorial: Editor: Garry Coward-Williams Email: garry.coward-williams@futurenet.com 0330 390 3732 (Mon-Fri 9.00am-6.00pm) Gardening Editor: Ruth Hayes Assistant Editor: Janey Goulding Art Editor: Al Rigger Editorial Assistant: Lesley Upton Picture Ed

LIKE many gardeners I have “collected” the free seeds I receive with the magazine, not always having space to grow them. This year I grew many of the packets and sold the plants at a sale on my drive. I made £200 which I divided between the Alzheimer

I NEVER thought the day would come, but after four years of shelling out for bunny food and vet’s bills, my daughter’s pet rabbits are finally pulling their weight. I say ‘my daughter’s…’ but almost the minute Bunson and Hedges arrived through the fr