March 2009

Another one bites the dust

All weedkillers based on sodium chlorate are being withdrawn from sale by May 10^th 2009 and you will have until May 2010 to use up any you still have. The alternatives for uncropped ground and paved areas are Ground Clear from Bayer and Pathclear from Scotts. Both are total weedkillers and have a residual effect.

Bumper spring

Sales are still soaring in the garden centres as we all get going in the garden in the warmer weather. Mother’s Day was a huge success, many lines are still selling out and it’s expected to continue with the late Easter. There is a reported swing back towards peat-based compost and sales of vegetables are through the roof. Curiously, B&Q reported that sales in its outdoor section fell last year. Does this mean that gardeners are turning away from the “sheds” towards garden centres who can offer both quality plants and advice?

A word of caution

It seems that the world is rediscovering herb-lore and the use of plants for medicinal purposes. Before you dash out and make your own remedies, it’s important to make sure of what you’re using and when. There’s a big difference between using plants internally and externally, and several plants should not be used, for instance, by expectant mothers. Many herbs do offer an alternative to chemical medicines, but it’s really important to make certain they are safe for you.

Best sellers

Top 3 in the garden centre this week (28/03/09):

1. Bayer Baby Bio Original

2. Westland Organic Chicken Manure Pellets

3. Apta Pot Toppers

Off like a rocket

If you’d really like to grow your own salad leaves or herbs, but don’t know where to start, then Mr Fothergill’s seed mats are the simplest answer. They’re also perfect for getting children interested in growing edible plants. Each seed-filled mat is designed to be laid onto the surface of a pot of compost and is ready to grow once you water it. There are 5 types of salad Seed Mats, and 5 herb Seed Mats. They are available in garden centres or from Mr Fothergill’s Seeds, Kentford, Suffolk CB8 7QB, 0845 166 2511 or www.mr-fothergills.co.uk

Healthy Harvest

Johnson’s new Healthy Harvest range of seeds have been launched to help the home-grower produce the best possible crop. They have been bred to be resistant to the common pests and diseases of the crop in question, so for instance they include:

Beetroot Cardeal F1 – great tolerance of downy & powdery mildew

Courgette Primula F1 – tolerant of downy mildew & ring spot

Spinach Polar Bear F1 – resistant to downy mildew races 1-10

Tomato Lupitas F1 – resistant to tomato mosaic virus, bacterial speck, verticillium wilt & fusarium.

For more information, visit www.johnsons-seeds.com

Marching on

March is proving a bumper month for garden centres as we all get our gardens moving in the nice weather. It looks like being the best month for sales since March 2007. As a result, some lines (like planters, propagators and seed potatoes) are actually selling out, because the centres reduced their orders in anticipation of the financial downturn. Crazy really, because when money is tight the first thing you do is make economies where you can and growing your own fruit and vegetables is an obvious place to start.

Best sellers

Top 3 in the garden centre this week

1. Bayer Baby Bio Original
2. Unwins Potato Grow Bag
3. Westland Organic Chicken Manure Pellets

Grow your own

The good news to come out of the recession this week for British growers and buyers is that Wyevale garden centres are going to start producing more of their own plants again. The high cost of transport and the weakness of the pound mean that it’s going to be worthwhile increasing the number of nurseries they run from 5 to 10.

The Woking area in Surrey was once the centre of nursery stock production (and new plant development) in the world and yet most of those sites are now under housing estates. We have lots of talented and efficient growers here, but we’ve been losing out for years to countries where the industry is heavily state subsidised. How nice it would be to see our industry starting to recover and new, independent nurseries starting up, offering a range of different plants for us to choose from!

Out to launch

Talking of new plants, Thorncroft Nursery of Norfolk (www.thorncroft.co.uk) has just launched 8 new varieties of Clematis. They range from a carmine red to a raspberry pink-edged white so there should be something to appeal to everyone who loves these spectacular flowers.

Orchid Show

This weekend sees the RHS Orchid Show at the RHS Lawrence Hall, Greycoat Street , London , SW1. For the enthusiast (or the curious), there will be specialist displays of orchids from all over the world and at least 30 growers will be there with plants to sell. Bye then, I’m off……

For more information, go to www.rhs.org.uk

No more mossing about

Are you tired of trying to rake the moss out of your lawn? Then try the brilliant new moss treatment, MO Bacter. You simply apply it over the lawn at the recommended rate and let it work. The best bit? After the moss has died off, there’s a bacteria in the treatment that kicks in and eats the moss. Once the moss has gone, the bacteria die off.

You can find out more by contacting DJ Turfcare Equipment Ltd, MJF Yard, Chiddingfold Road, Dunsfold, Nr. Godalming, Surrey, GU8 4PB (01483 200976). 

Grow your own

As if we needed telling, grow-your-own is going to be huge this year. Sales of vegetables, and particularly tomatoes, are already going through the roof and are attracting the cost-conscious under 30s as well as the regular older market.

Dogs and slugs

If your dog loves to out in the garden, then you need to be aware of a spreading problem, called lungworm infection. It can be passed to the dog if it eats a slug or snail that is carrying the larvae of the parasite. It is dangerous if left untreated, so check out the details at www.lungworm.co.uk

At The Gardening Channel, we’re constantly expanding our films on growing your own produce. Coming very soon are films on chitting and planting your potatoes and growing herbs for the kitchen. There will be lots more advice on the way as fast as we can make the films. Keep checking in on us, but please forgive us if the clip you need doesn’t appear straight away.

Best sellers

Top 3 in the Garden Centre this week (16/03):

1. Fito Drip Feeder for Orchids
2. Unwins potato grow bag
3. Westland Organic Chicken Manure Pellets

Strawberries

The fruit-growing trade have realised that the public won’t usually pay more than £1.99 for a punnet of fruit. So this year, the average punnet in the shops will be a little smaller to compensate. There’s nothing wrong with splashing out on good healthy fruit, but why not supplement your purchase with fruit you’ve grown at home? Strawberries are really easy to grow, don’t take up much room and taste even better when you pick them straight from the plant. Our new film on growing strawberries at home will be online very soon.

Beeing helpful

With the population of honey bees on the decline, it’s up to us gardeners to do what we can to help, because bees play a vital part in pollinating our plants. At the trial grounds of Mr Fothergill’s seeds in Kentford, Suffolk, the staff collected data on which flowers attracted the most bees during the dull, wet summer of 2008. They have compiled a Bees Top 10 (in alphabetical order:

Agastache Golden Jubilee

Foxglove Foxy Mixed

Cornflower Blue Ball

Marigold Sunburst Mixed F1

Chinese Forget Me Not (Cynoglossum)

Salvia Willow Pattern (Salvia farinacea)

Clary Blue Denim

Sunflower Hallo

Dahlia Mignon Mixed

Wildlife Mixed

Bowled over

There’s a brand new snowdrop around, but you won’t be able to get one for a while yet. At the International Galanthus Gala recently, a single specimen of the beautiful ‘E.A. Bowles’ fetched £150. It was discovered at Myddelton House, Enfield (where plant hunter and artist Edward Bowles was born) and is pure white with no inner petals and no green markings. It’s now being propagated commercially, so look out for it in a year or two.

Planting through the gloom

Garden centres are reporting that, against expectations, sales figures were up on last year for Christmas lines, furniture, pets & aquatics, gifts and catering. These figures went up to January, so plant sales figures were down (especially considering the cold weather), but we think that the current economic climate will mean more people than ever turning to their gardens this year. Gardening is good for you in every sense: the activity keeps you fit, the flowers and scents make you feel good, and the fresh produce is much better for you than anything that’s been cold-stored half way round the world.

Best sellers

Top 3 in the Garden Products Chart this week (09/03) were

1. Westland Organic Chicken Manure Pellets 3kg
2. Fito Drip Feeder for Orchids
3. Unwins Potato Grow Bag

New product

Bayer Garden are following in the footsteps of market winner Bio Slug & Snail killer with their own organic Slug Bait, also based on ferric phosphate.

Free bulb guide

De Jager bulbs are offering an attractive and useful little bulb planting guide free to anyone who applies. You don’t even have to pay postage. Simply contact them on 01622 840229 or email at sales@dejager.co.uk. The handy guide lists bulbs from Allium to Zephyranthes with growing and planting advice.

Garden favourite Casuron G (used for controlling weed growth in paths and paving) is being removed from sale. It cannot be legally sold in shops or garden centres after March 18^th, 2009. You can still buy it until then and you will have one year to use it up, after which it must be disposed of.

Note: old chemicals need to be disposed of carefully, not poured down the drain into the water course. Contact your local council to find out the nearest safe disposal site to you.

Mail order kitchen garden supplier DT Brown are launching a delicious new fruit this year, the honeyberry, which has been grown and enjoyed for centuries in its native Siberia. Lonicera caerulea var. Kamtschtica is botanically a honeysuckle and produces seedless berries with a flavour similar to that of wild blueberries.  It is believed to be high in beneficial antioxidants and Vitamins A, E and especially C. “The honeyberry really seems to have caught our customers’ imaginations”, explains general manager Tim Jeffries.  “It shows the British are prepared to try growing something different in their fruit gardens.  We are much more adventurous in what we eat than we were a generation ago.  Honeyberries are so versatile as they can be eaten fresh or made into jams, jellies, pies and ice cream. They even freeze successfully.”

As the honeyberry is from Siberia it is incredibly hardy and has the advantage of virtually being pest- and disease-free, although wild birds also enjoy the fruits!  The attractive shrubs grow to around 90cm (3ft) tall and wide, producing good crops of purple fruits from as early as May onwards.  Two plants are necessary for pollination purposes.

Note: This is the only edible member of the honeysuckle family on sale so far. The normal climbing and shrubby varieties have berries that are highly toxic to humans.

Click Here to visit the web site  

An entirely new growing system is launched this year by VertiGarden. It is designed to fit flat against a wall, holding the compost and plants in place with a rigid plastic growing container. It was trialled last year at the BallColegrave open days near Oxford and at the RHS Inner Temple gardening show, where it attracted a great deal of interest. You can see it for yourself at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May.

Click Here to see the Vertigarden in action