Gardening section.qxp_Layout 1 16/12/2021 14:38 Page 50
MENDIP TIMES
New Year resolutions for gardeners
A HAPPY New Year to you all. Snowdrops are already pushing up through the soil and all plants are preparing for the new growing season ahead. Let’s take time to resolve to care for our precious planet while all plants are doing their bit as well in our gardening activities. Here are my With MARY suggestions for how you can help. PAYNE MBE 1. Try not to impulse buy – we all succumb to a good-looking plant with rarely a thought as to where the plant would like to grow. Our thoughts tend go to where we would like it to grow. It is far better to make a list of what would be happy in the gap that you have, with regards to shade, water availability and size. 2. Try to use bee friendly plants – we must all become very conscious that our pollinators are so important to us and that is not only honey bees. Bumble bees, and many other insects, also play their part. Plants that have open single flowers are preferred by bees and insects, although bees will bite a hole in the tube of some flowers to access the nectar. Some plants are able to produce more nectar after a visitation by a bee ready for the next visitor. Choose a selection of plants to give you both pleasure, and the bees and insects pleasure in every month of the year. 3. Use British raised plants from a local nursery if possible. So many plants are imported from the EU that the chance of bringing in a serious pest or disease is very likely. Every plant now has a plant passport, so its origins can be traced should a major problem arise. Bedding plants start life as a seed raised in one country, the seed is sown in another, and tiny plug plants raised in another, and sent to the UK to be grown on to garden centre size, not a good carbon footprint for a plant that itself is contributing so much. 4. Avoid pesticides, where possible, by better observation and early intervention by leaf picking or squashing the odd pest. Most UK growers under glass or tunnels are using integrated pest management which involves using insect friendly pesticides, only if absolutely necessary, and supplementing with a wide range of biological controls now available to them (and us). 5. Try to use peat-free composts. Finding a good multipurpose potting compost that is peat free is proving difficult. Peat was the perfect growing medium, but we are all keen to reduce peat use as peat bogs are fantastic carbon sinks and many are now being re- flooded and re-seeded with sphagnum moss. The inclusion of composted green waste by some manufacturers has proved controversial. Unlike peat it is not a stable, uniform product and has led to nutrient deficiencies and, in my own experience, classic hormone weedkiller damage. Coir (coconut fibre) is often used, but should we really be importing this by-product? Wood pulp, made from old pallets is proving popular, which is why you are seeing small toadstools popping up in your pots. Composted bark is another useful peat substitute. Can you reuse your old compost? So long as you have not had an attack of vine weevil larvae, then I suggest you use the compost from your summer pots and grow your spring flowering bulbs in it. After that it can be used as a soil improver on your garden. 6. Try to use bio-degradable netting for beans. Taking down PAGE 50 • MENDIP TIMES • JANUARY 2022
Bug hotel
the runner beans or annual climbers and trying to disentangle the haulms from the plastic netting is frustrating to say the least. Last year I made my own jute bean netting during lockdowns from a ball of jute string, using fishing netting techniques learnt from You Tube! I also re-use plastic labels. A quick scrub with a soap-filled steel wool pad cleans off the old writing. Purchased white plastic labels are very hard to write on in pencil which is the only permanent solution for plant labels. Even so-called permanent pens fade in the sun. Wooden labels or lollipop sticks rot away remarkably fast. You may have noticed that most garden centre plants pots are no longer black but taupe coloured, as recycling machines cannot identify black. 7. Visit gardens in your area and beyond that open for the National Gardens Scheme for new ideas for your own garden and help raise money for nursing, caring and well-being charities 8. Designate an area for wildlife e.g. log pile, bug hotel. We do not have to have loads of nettles and weeds to encourage wildlife, our gardens are havens for them, so keep your eyes open for bumblebee nests in the ground, sadly often predated by badgers, miner bee nests in your lawn or old mortar in walls. They are all fascinating to watch. Even wasps have their place and eat greenfly early in the season before they rasp away your wooden fence! 9. Use water sparingly, select drought tolerant plants for containers and line terracotta pots with old carrier bags to cut down on water loss through the sides. Plant the right plant in the right place and it will thrive once established. 10. Check your box plants regularly, from April onwards, for the first signs of the box bush caterpillar which is in our area. Look for the tell-tale signs of webbing and eaten foliage. Pick off as many caterpillars as possible whilst awaiting the arrival of the biological control Topbuxus Xentari, a very effective bacteria specific to caterpillars. This pest can be as destructive as the gooseberry sawfly which can defoliate a bush almost overnight. Let’s look forward to a productive new gardening year, hopefully the worst of the pandemic will be behind us. Our gardens kept us going during lockdowns and taught many new to gardening what a rewarding pastime it can be, not only for our physical wellbeing, but for our minds as well.
