Get planting for year ahead (From York Press)

Get planting for year ahead

10:01am Saturday 10th September 2011 in Gardening By Gina Parkinson

GINA PARKINSON is busy as September sweeps in.

There are plenty of jobs to be done in the garden during September, from planting spring-flowering bulbs, such as daffodils, hardy summer-flowering bulbs such as allium, collecting seed and planting shrubs for instant autumn colour.

Seed collecting is easy to do and well worth the effort before plants are cut back for the autumn.

Sweet peas for example can be allowed to produce seed now which should have time to ripen before the weather gets colder. Once the seeds have swelled and the pods begin to dry they can be harvested and kept in a labelled paper bag until next spring.

It is also worth planting a few in a cold frame or greenhouse now and overwintering them in a cool, but frost-free environment. They will flower earlier than plants sown next spring.

Cerinthe is another annual that is easy to propagate from collected seed. I’ve grown this attractive plant for the first time for years this summer and it has been a magnet for bees who push themselves into the lilac blue flowers all day.

By the time we get to September the flowers are beginning to go over and produce large, black seeds which can be collected and stored. It isn’t necessary to sow this now, it germinates quickly in late spring and will be in flower by June.

Weekend catch up

Evergreen hedges can have their final trim before winter so they keep their shape over the many months until next spring.

A neat, green hedge such as privet, box or leylandii can become a focus of a winter garden when everything else has faded or fallen into dormancy. The shape of a hedge is down to personal choice, some prefer straight lines while others like to see rounded cloud pruning.

Whatever the choice, it pays to spend a bit of time in early autumn cutting back overgrown stems and clearing the soil underneath to leave a good shaped hedge that will need little attention until next year.

Nursery open day

Brunswick Organic Nursery and Craft Workshop is holding it’s annual open day today from 11am-4pm at Appleton Road in Bishopthorpe. Visitors will be entertained by music and Morris dancing as well as games, hands on crafts and a raffle. There will also be information on hand about organic gardening.

Brunswick is a local charity running a productive workplace for adults with learning difficulties and the Bishopthorpe site is continually developing.

The nursery stocks a wide range of quality plants from fruit trees to climbers, perennials to bedding. Of interest to gardeners at the moment are asters, echinaceas, perennial lobelia and bedding such as wallflowers and violas.

The shop will also be open selling local and organic produce as well as the nursery’s own-grown fruit and vegetables. Displays of hand-woven rugs, handmade cards and jewellery made from recycled glass and beads can be seen in the craft workshop and the café will be open selling teas, coffee, salads, savouries and cakes.

Autumn plant fair

Flower Power Fairs will hold an autumn plant fair tomorrow at Sutton Park, Sutton-on-the-Forest, near York from 11am-4pm.

A number of nurseries with a wide range of plants for autumn gardens as well as specimens to plant now for colour next spring and summer.

Exhibitors include Wacks Wicked Plants from Huby which specialises in carnivorous plants. Entrance to the show and garden is £3, the house will also be open (admission extra) and there is plenty of nearby free parking.

Garden wildlife

For a while my husband has been blaming the cat for the smelly deposits left around the garden, but I was convinced they were odorous foxy calling cards.

We’d heard a vixen and her cubs had been seen around a neighbours’ garden, then on Sunday the household was woken in the early hours of the morning by the sounds of yelping and grumbling that would subside then reoccur just as we’d started to doze off.

On Monday morning we finally saw the culprit right by the house helping himself to the bird’s bread.

There was a beautiful fox with thick fur and large bushy tail who sniffed around before casually walking through the shrubs and into the garden next door. The cat, who arrived back soon after, was unimpressed and stalked in, tail in the air almost as fat as that of the fox.

TV and radio

Sunday, September 11
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. Chairman Eric Robson and his team advise Lancashire gardeners. (Repeated from Friday).

Friday
3pm, BBC R4, Gardeners’ Question Time. A postbag edition with Eric Robson, Pippa Greenwood, Matthew Wilson and Bunny Guinness answering listeners’ questions sent in by post and email. (Repeated on Sunday at 2pm).

Saturday, September 17
7am, BBC Radio York, Julia Booth. Julia and gardening expert Nigel Harrison hold their weekly plant surgery.

Open gardens

Sunday, September 11
In aid of the National Gardens Scheme
Boundary Cottage, Seaton Ross, YO42 4NF, five miles south west of Pocklington. Plantsman’s ‘no dig’ garden with ponds and lined streams in bog gardens, giant island herbaceous beds, extensive mixed planting, maturing trees, gravel and rock gardens and unorthodox fruit and vegetables.

There will be an artist in the garden and teas in the house next door. The village plot in Seaton Ross can also be visited. Open 11am-4pm, admission £3.50.

Stillingfleet Lodge, Stewart Lane, Stillingfleet, YO19 6PH, www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk six miles south of York.

Large garden with colour-themed areas around the house, a wild flower meadow, natural pond, 55-yard double herbaceous borders filled with colour, a modern rill garden and rare breeds of poultry. The adjacent nursery will also be open. Open 1pm-5pm, admission £4.