New
Year gardening resolutions for 2017
These included:
1. Edit: Maybe it’s time to go through your garden with a
cool, unsentimental eye.
2. Feed : The editing will help to increase the flowering by
letting in more light, but even mature gardens need plenty of feed and a good
mulch. Dorothy
is going to continue with her feeding regime.
An old soap dispenser or plastic lemonade bottle with spray left near
the water supply as a reminder were suggested.
Graham went one further and said he fills up 4pt milk cartons with feeds
for different species. Ann uses Rose fertiliser
on clematis, peonies and other plants of the Ranunculaceae family
as they are greedy feeders.
3. Plant more colour and more scent: Inject more
colour and scent. Which plants would be on your list?
4. Plant immediately : Not tomorrow. Not “soon”. Next year don’t leave new plants on back step
for weeks. As soon as you get home from the nursery or garden centre,
unload the boot, perhaps drink the very quickest of cups of tea, and then pull
on your wellies and head straight out into the garden. More haste, less
desiccation. Or in Jenny’s words,
letting them acclimatise
to your conditions!
5. Sit out more :
This is the big one. Even if none of the above
materialises, sit out in it more, drinking tea, taking friends out there in the
evening with lanterns lit and a glass of wine. Because, what is the point
in all of all your efforts if you don’t sit and gaze appreciatively at your
creation, however spectacular or imperfect it ends up being next year?
(headings borrowed from the Telegraph)
Other
good intentions were:
To grow more herbs and leaves
Jenny
vows to not be left with areas of her garden looking like “graveyard” with white labels. She is
now switching to larger black labels which she will write on using silver writing. It was suggested that black canes and cane
caps would also blend into the background.
Get on top of the pests early. Gill goes slugging on Valentine’s Day. Vine weevils have already been spotted and remedies
suggested were Provado, scalding the
soil a couple of times with water from the kettle to save the compost in pots
or leaving the contaminated compost on the path for birds to dispose of the
little pests.
Carl suggested flint chick grit from Blue
Barn near Poole for drainage and dressing pots.
We will be checking up with your progress later
in the year, so no pressure then!
Little
known fact
James explained the reason for the Libby’s
corned beef tin being trapezoidal in shape.
In WW2, in order to feed troops on front line, soldiers would be
supplied with these tins complete with key.
The key opened the tin in the middle, so a soldier could eat half the
contents and then close the two halves together and store it for a later meal. A Friday Forum member who shall remain
anonymous told us that she had no £1 coin for the supermarket trolley whereupon
a chivalrous gentlemen produced a key from corned beef can and released a
trolley. I wouldn’t suggest you try it
though!
Display
Table
 |
| Judith’s Hellebore Silver Dollar |
 |
Judith’s Coleus, or Solenostemon as it is
now called, has lovely green leaves with dark red on the underside.
|
 |
| Kate has collected these from her garden
today: Skimmia, Skimmia Kew Green, ivy, Bowles mauve, Viburnum Dawn, evergreen Polystichum Fern, Sarcococca, Arum and Pittosporum 'Tom Thumb' Tom Thumb | |
 |
| Ann
brought a snowdrop which has been flowering since mid-November |
 |
... and an appropriate Christmas gift for a keen gardener
|
 |
Other plants brought in included Mahonia Winter Sunshine, Sarcococca, the winter
honeysuckle Lonicera
fragrantissima,
Witch hazel, skimmia and viburnum
|
 |
Jenny displays her Snowdrop book and a pot with the early, tall snowdrop
which originated from the
mother-in-law of Dylan Thomas, Mrs Macnamara
which began to flower just after Christmas.
|
 |
| Mary asked about caring
for her Billbergia,
a genus of flowering plants in the family Bromeliaceae which originates in
South America and members were happy to make suggestions. |
Notice
Board
Membership fees for 2017 are now due
If any members have suggestions for garden
visits this year, please contact the committee
Next
Meeting
20th January: Presentation – Good Garden Plants Part 2 by
Pat Inman
