It’s now late in the season, dahlias, helenium and asters are still flowering, and will do so for a time yet providing they are deadheaded. Herbaceous perennials can be divided now, it is quite easy to do with two garden forks, it helps to rejuvenate the plant, and needs doing every few years.
Plant bulbs in containers for a spring display, there is a lot of good choice winter bedding to add to the containers, wallflowers, heathers, cyclamen and winter pansies and violas, but do remember you must keep deadheading to keep them flowering and tidy.
Reduce the height of roses, buddleia and lavatera (these are prone to wind rock), then prune again in the spring. Clear up dead leaves and spent plants; keep the garden tidy and it helps to prevent pest and diseases overwintering. As soon as we have a little rain you can plant or move trees and shrubs. If you do it before please remember to keep watering them generously.
Barbara Clemerson
Notes from the Under Gardener
Backalong (in April actually) the Head Gardener allowed me to write a short article about my experiment with heritage tomato varieties. Now she is letting me tell you about the results.
I tried several old varieties including Brandywine, Black Krim, and San Marzano. The weather has been fantastic this summer, and they all had more or less ideal conditions, but the results were quite varied. San Marzano produced an average crop of unusually long tubular tomatoes, with a good taste, but they seemed particularly susceptible to blossom end rot, despite my automatic watering system. My verdict was cceptable, but not outstanding. I probably won’t grow them again.
The Black Krim were a disaster. A very low number of fruits, badly scarred, and very slow to ripen, never achieving the promised black colour. The taste was average, but this is a variety I will not try again. There are still some late fruits ripening, so I could still change my mind.
Brandywine, an old American variety bred by the Amish community in the 1886, was probably the best of the old varieties. Huge ridged fruits, with a good taste, but rather slow to ripen to a rose pink colour, with solid almost seedless flesh. This must be the ultimate prototype beefsteak tomato. The plants were not over prolific, and the fruits were so big and heavy that they tended to make the stems bend and fall down. I will try this one again.
So what have I learned by this experiment ? It is good to keep these heritage varieties going, if only to preserve the gene pool, but the reason most of them are so called ‘heritage’ varieties is that the modern introductions are better; easier to grow, with better colour and shape, and also more productive. Next year I will go back to my old reliable favourites like ‘Shirley’ and ‘Gardeners Delight’.
I do have some of the other seeds if anyone is interested.