Cordyline death...everywhere

This weekend I made my regular trip to Chelmsford to guest on the Ken Crowther Gardening Programme on BBC Essex. Ken was on holiday, so it was up to me to give all the gardening advice. It was a busy two hours with lots of calls, texts and e-mails.
The over-riding question was on cordylines - all suffering from the winter cold. It looks like cordylines have been one of the biggest casualties of the cold snap - we had numerous calls on this one, all wanting to know what to do to save them. I gave a talk last night at the Middlesex Hardy Plant Society and again cordylines were a hot (or freezing cold) topic of conversation. Well, if you're worried about your cabbage palms, here's some advice.

The vast majority of other questions on Ken's programme were to do with grow your own - both fruit and veg - so it looks like this is still a big gardening subject for 2011 - despite what some industry experts are saying.
We had questions on what to do with seed potatoes (to chit or not to chit that IS the question), growing sweetcorn, blueberries, scab on apples, what to do with too many leeks (eat them?), planting soft fruit, splitting and moving rhubarb, getting the best from raspberries and starting a new veg garden in a small space, among others.
Another new gardener thought her whole garden was 'dead', but it was just that she wasn't used to brown being the predominant garden colour in winter. And, like my last stint on the show, what to do to get the best from orchids - obviously either the most popular houseplant or one that causes more angst than any other - was worrying the county.
So, gardening is alive and kicking in the minds of gardeners - even if all their garden plants are dead!

Thanks for all the rain - and snow

I'm so pleased that February has been cold, wet and windy. If it had been nicer, I would have been feeling guilty about not going out onto the allotment. But with sticky, clay soil, any work done there would just cause problems with soil structure.

Instead, I've been up to my neck with work. Writing and editing the RHS Allotment Journal has meant I've been burning the midnight oil, but it's more or less finished - just writing December's copy left to do.

I've also been continuing my Garden News tests and my garage has now been turned into Hodge's Gardening Emporium - 37 pairs of secateurs, the National Collection of Horticultural Fleece, boxes of just about every kind of granular fertiliser on the market and now six or seven small electric lawnmowers. My next request will be for bags of potting composts. I just hope I never need to actually get anything else out of the garage or I'll cause a product avalanche!

From March 3, I'm going to be presenting Garden Bargains on Ideal World three days a week. IW is launching a new channel, and Garden Bargains will be on from 1-6pm every day of the week. So, if you love doing your garden shopping from the comfort of your sofa, tune in and start buying!

Yesterday, I was down in Essex on Ken Crowther's gardening show on BBC Essex. As usual, an interesting mix of questions - although there was an emphasis on houseplants (I wonder why!) with amaryllis and orchids taking top popularity position. A lot of people wanted to know what to do with amaryllis after flowering. The easy answer is keep them growing for as long as possible to help feed the bulb for next year's flowering. Keep the compost moist, feed every 10-14 days and only remove the foliage once it starts to die down naturally.

Another popular question was what to do with shrubs and other plants damaged by frost and snow. Again, the answer is simple - leave well alone and wait until growth starts in spring. Once you know which branches are alive and growing, you can prune out and remove anything that's dead. If nothing regrows (but be patient and wait until the end of April or even May) - then the plant is dead and it's time to dig it up and put something new in its place; maybe from Garden Bargains!

Enjoy your garden - if you can get out in it, that is!

Mixed blessings

Happy New Year. The 2010 growing season is just round the corner and I'm already starting to get itchy fingers to get sowing and growing. But the experience of previous years has taught me to be patient.
Sowing tomato seeds in early January, for example, has always resulted in stress and anxiety, growing them on in less than ideal conditions and plants that are too tall to plant out at the right time. So, I'm holding firmly onto the leash and waiting for better weather.

The mixed blessings refers to the weather - ah yes, the great British talking point. I've been banging on for a number of years about the disappointment of experiencing mild winters and the lack of bug-killing cold weather. But now that we've had more than a touch of frost this year, I think I, like many, wish it had been mild and frost free. The reason? Well, like many I've been suckered into planting lots of half hardy and tender plants in the garden and been relieved when they've come through the winter more-or-less unscathed. Even last year, nearly everything came through OK, but I'm not sure about this one.
Recent mild winters have lowered my winter defences campaign, no longer protecting tender plants with fleece, straw and the like. And this year it looks like some things are going to suffer. My trusty Weather Station recorded a minimum temperature of -7C last month. That's not necessarily a problem, but continued days of freezing conditions are much worse for plants than a 'quicky' frost and the mercury has struggled to get above freezing for extended periods.
Anyhoo, I'll just have to wait and see just how much damage has been done - and that wait may take until May/June for the full results to be revealed.

This time last year there were lots of things flowering in the garden. This year, most of those plants are struggling to put their heads above the parapets. Only the witch hazel and Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' have produced the expected display - although the viburnum has been in flower since June (global warming?)! Crocuses and hellebores are all reluctant to chuck out a few welcome flowers.

I just wish cold weather would put an end to plant diseases. If we have another muggy summer and tomato/potato blight cause as many problems as the last three years I'll spend the summer sulking. And now that Dithane has gone off the market...

Snow blindness, snow panic

At this time of year gardeners panic about one thing - snow and what it'll do to their plants. Well panic not - it'll do very little damage per se. It's the cold and frost you need to worry about!

Even hardy plants can suffer from extensive periods of cold, freezing weather, especially if they're growing in containers (even the hardiest of plants can be killed if their rootballs freeze solid for weeks on end) and even more especially if the cold is combined with strong winds.

In fact, snow on the ground provides some insulation against cold, freezing weather and is a blessing in disguise. Until it melts that is, and the garden becomes waterlogged!

I guess there is one thing to worry about snow - snow loading. That is the weight of snow on branches and the foliage of evergreens bending them down to ground level or even causing them to snap.

I've had one casualty in the garden so far. An old tree stump covered in ivy became so snow loaded that all the ivy has bent away from the stump and flopped all over my lean-to greenhouse. It needed a prune anyway and this has given me the incentive to go out and do it - maybe this weekend if I don't freeze to death when I go out there. Being a gardening journo I spend most of my time sitting on my bum in a nice warm office.

The only thing that will panic over the stump/ivy situation is the robin who has nested in there for the last three years. But with some 'judicious' pruning I should be able to save its nest site for years to come.