Blooms save the buddleia (From York Press)

Blooms save the buddleia

9:30am Saturday 13th August 2011 in Gardening By Gina Parkinson

A buddleia earmarked for removal was given a reprieve as part of a pact not to change too much too soon – and GINA PARKINSON is glad she waited for the flowers.

ADVICE I gave to myself when we moved here last September has proved sound. This was to avoid doing anything drastic until we had been here for a year.

Apart from the autumn clear-up and removal of a couple of trees killed by the cold winter, I have not done any redesign or uprooting, and can only now see how changes will be made over the next few years.

We have a very large buddleia that had been earmarked for removal as it partially blocked a rough path and had grown far too tall. I kept to my pact and gave it only the usual late-season treatment of cutting the stems back by a third or so.

It was left until early spring for the stems to be pruned again, hard back this time to just above a low-growing shoot. Some of the older stems were removed at ground level, including a number that blocked the path.

Then we waited for the flowers. I am so glad we did, as it is a beautiful variety with long, fat blooms of a gorgeous soft pink.

A quick trawl through reference books and the internet suggests it is Pink Delight, the large, fragrant flowers seeming to match any photos found.

So this buddleia is to avoid the chop and will be here to stay. It has already responded to the pruning it has been given, and new stems are beginning to appear on even the oldest, thickest wood.

Buddleias are masters at rejuvenation and will re-grow even when practically razed to the ground.

Buddleias are great for attracting butterflies, bees and hoverflies, hence their country name of butterfly bush. Butterflies have been in disappointingly short supply in our garden this year though; we have been visited by very few, despite the buddleias and other plants in the garden that would normally attract them.

We have even left areas of nettles in the hope they would use them as caterpillar nurseries. The very dry spring following a long cold winter could be one answer for this lack in numbers.

However, we seem to have been very successful in providing a home for cabbage white offspring, despite putting a large net around the savoys.

In the veg patch

BEING novice fruit and vegetable gardeners, August has come as a surprise.

There is so much to pick and if it isn’t done regularly, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of produce that ripens on, it seems, a daily basis.

Even though the patch is by no means full, we still have French beans and runner beans, courgettes, carrots and potatoes, lettuce, chard and beetroot.

Then there are the plums just beginning to ripen and the brambles, horrid to pick but delicious to eat.

I think we may need another freezer.

Weekend catch-up

THE vegetable garden may well be full, but the summer vegetables won’t last through the winter and there is still time to plant out a few leeks. It is too late to start off with seed but small plants are still available to buy.

These can be put directly into their permanent spot now, sooner rather than later.

The traditional way is to make a hole with a dibber and pop in the leek plants, one per hole. It should be deep enough to leave a couple of inches of green above the surface of the soil.

Fill the hole with water and leave the soil to fall in naturally over a period of time.

Open gardens

Saturday, August 13

In aid of the National Gardens Scheme

Littlethorpe Gardens, Littlethorpe, HG4 3LG, 1.5 miles south east of Ripon. Three village gardens open.

• Field Cottage has a one-acre garden with a formal walled garden, vegetable and cut flower area, a Victorian-style greenhouse with a collection of pelargoniums, island beds and a border filled with bright late-summer colour from dahlias, asters, heleniums and grasses.

• Greencroft has an informal garden with many ornamental features including a gazebo, temple pavilions, a stone wall with mullions and a pergola set among long colourful herbaceous borders, a circular garden and a large wildlife pond.

• Kirkella is planted by a flower arranger for year-round interest with a gravel garden at the front and a paved rear garden with unusual hardy and half-hardy perennials and a willow hedge screening a vegetable garden. Open from noon to 5pm, combined admission £6.

Gardening TV and radio

Saturday, August 13
8am, BBC Radio Humberside, The Great Outdoors. With Blair Jacobs and Doug Stewart.

9am, BBC Radio Leeds, Tim Crowther and Joe Maiden.

2pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Matthew Biggs, Christine Walkden and Matthew Wilson advise gardeners from Blackpool. The gardening weather forecast is at 2.40pm. (Repeated from Friday).

Friday, August 19
3pm, BBCR4, Gardeners’ Question Time. Eric Robson, Bob Flowerdew, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson help gardeners from Canning Town in London with their horticultural problems. (Repeated on Sunday at 2pm).

8.30pm, BBC2, Gardeners’ World. Monty plants autumn flowering crocus for late-season colour, Joe visits a modern garden set within the walls of a Victorian kitchen garden and Carol visits a couple who have created a garden for all seasons.

Saturday, August 20
7am, BBC Radio York, Julia Booth. Presenter Julia and gardening expert Nigel Harrison hold their weekly plant surgery.