NEWSLETTER
ARCHIVE
December 2006
Newsletter
Potty for gift ideas
Plant area’s new look
Spoilt for Choice
Gardening Talks
10 gardening tasks for December
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Buckingham
Garden Centre
Tingewick Road
Buckingham
MK18 4AE
Telephone:
01280 822133
Fax:
01280 815491
www.hedging.co.uk
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For your interest we have
an archive newsletter section.
Please note that any special offers and prices mentioned may not
now be current.
 Potty
for gift ideas
 There’s
always plenty of choice for gardeners at Christmas time, especially
when it comes to finding that special gift. We have plenty lined
up for you at the Garden Centre, including zesty citrus, cheerful
camellias (both are located alongside our cut Christmas trees) and
the beautiful bay trees as well as our seasonally themed ready-planted
pots located within our unique ‘The Potting Bench’ display
area.
If you are looking for something perhaps more traditional to brighten
your door entrance then how about Christmas box, Sarcococca hookeriana?
This is a wonderful evergreen shrub (sweet and strong fragrance),
which resembles traditional common box and is just as versatile
in its usage. You can grow it as a potted shrub, it looks great
in mixed plant displays, or even grow it as a dwarf hedge line,
multi-tasking or what! You could also combine Christmas box with
Skimmia Rubella with its wonderful red buds and contrasting deep
evergreen foliage. The plants hold in tight bud until late February
when the white flowers emerge, then you know spring is just around
the corner!
We’ve also brought together a wide range of hollies for
your consideration, including ball-shaped, pompon-pompon standard
forms as well as more mature sized plants. All you need to complete
your festive feast is a few well chosen ivies (Hedera).
Plant area’s new look
We’re looking proper posh in our plants sales area after
a major re-vamp, re-build and tweaking of our shrub and herbaceous
areas over the autumn period. Gone are the old benches and in their
place are brand spanking new, purpose-built display plant beds giving
extra height and convenience to your plant shopping. We continue
to offer, and feel it is very important to feature, the A-Z displays
of our favourite plants, but we are catering for the impulse gardener
as well by introducing plenty of display hot-spots to make your
plant selection easier and, above all, fun.
 We
do thank you for your patience in view of the recent plant moves,
but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s made a huge difference
to your shopping accessibility. As well as having a bit of a move
around (sorry for this but we thought now is the best time to do
it so you will be used to it by the spring). We are also upgrading
the plant information backboard labels giving concise information
and, where possible, pictures of the plants as well. It’s
a gradual process but we are hoping to be complete by late winter.
Elsewhere, fuller information can now be found linking in with
our mail-order catalogue, in the form of larger sized backboards,
many with pictures and guides, covering the hedging and fruit areas.
We know just how important good sound advice is, so the signs should
provide the answer to many of the pushing questions concerning specific
plants. Please, however, don’t neglect the Plant Information
Team - they are keen to give advice on all areas of plant care,
plant selection and the gardening questions the signs simply cannot
answer!
Spoilt
for Choice
In early January shelves in the shop will once again be laden with
40 varieties of seed potatoes – yes, even more varieties than
last year. As usual they will be sold loose so you can choose exactly
how many potatoes you want. A few interesting varieties to mention:
- Carlingford – round to oval, white skin, cream flesh,
smooth skin, medium eye depth. 2nd early which is excellent for
boiling or salads.
- Charlotte – pale yellow skin, yellow flesh, firm texture.
A real speciality salad variety.
- Pink Fir Apple – late maturing distinctively shaped,
excellent flavoured salad potato (winner of the ugliest/funniest
potato from last year’s Potato Day!)
- International Kidney – a classic of the English cuisine
and the most important crop on Jersey, produced and sold as Jersey
Royal. Heritage variety bred in 1879.
- Nicola – long oval white potatoes, creamy- yellow flesh,
wonderfully waxy. Excellent flavour, makes delicious warm potato
salad.
- Golden Wonder – dry, floury, rich flavour which improves
with storage. One of the best varieties for roasting and frying.
Brown russet skin and striking purple and yellow flowers. (Golden
Wonder crisps are not made from Golden Wonder potatoes but from
Lady Rosetta!)
- Duke of York – firm early scraper which matures to a good
all rounder. Pale yellow and slightly floury.
Typing these descriptions almost makes my mouth water, and certainly
enthuses me to get planting next year as home grown spuds really
do taste good – nothing like the bland, washed, supermarket
type. Whilst on the subject of the humble spud, we will be celebrating
its excellence again next year with ‘Potato Day’ over
the week-end of 17/18th February. Colin Randel from Thompson &
Morgan will be with us all week-end to give informal lectures, and
to talk to any visitors. He is a real font of knowledge about vegetable
growing and with his warm Devon accent is a joy to listen to, so
make a note in your diary to come along.
 For
newcomers to potato growing we will also have ten of the top Thompson
and Morgan varieties in l kg bags with full pictorial and planting
information. Even if you have no room to grow your potatoes in soil
in your garden the solution comes from Haxnicks who have produced
new for this year a ‘spud grow bag’ which means you
can grow your potatoes on your own patio. They come in a pack of
three – one for the earlies, one for second earlies and one
for main crop varieties – and cost £14.99. After you
have harvested they can be washed and stored for use next year,
or they could be used for carrots or many other vegetable crops.
Other vegetables you will find in the shop are a new shallot variety
called Pikant, onion Hercules, asparagus, rhubarb, garlic and Jerusalem
artichokes. Incidentally Jerusalem artichokes (helianthus tuberosus)
are not from Jerusalem nor are they a relation to globe artichokes!
‘Jerusalem’ is possibly a corruption of Italian girasole
or sunflower which they are closely related to, hence the sunflower
like flowers which appears in hot summers. The tasty nutty flavoured
tubers were thought to have a similar taste to globe artichokes,
hence its common name. They are also sometimes known as sweet potatoes
possibly because back in the 1920s they were a commercial source
of fructose.
Also in the shop you will find 72 varieties of dahlias from the
classic deep red flowers and dark purple leaves of the popular Bishop
of Llandaff to the more exotic Tsuki-Yori-No Shisha, a pure white
cactus flower that can produce up to forty flowers per plant. Dahlias
were named after the Swedish botanist Dr. Anders Dahl, a pupil of
Linnaeus and the variety Bishop of Llandaff was raised by the Cardiff
nurseryman Treseder in 1927/8 and named for Joshua Prichard Hughes,
the 1920s Bishop of Llandaff. It was much used in parks and gardens
before World War Two, then fell out of fashion, but in recent years
its popularity has soared. It has been given an Award of Garden
Merit by the RHS.
One more thing to look out for is the new Woodland/Wildflower
Bulb Collection which includes ferns, trilliums, and old favourites
like Decentra cucullaria (Dutchman’s Breeches), Belamcanda
chinensis (Leopard Flower or Blackberry Lily) and Arisaema triphyllum
(Jack in the Pulpit).
Gardening Talks
 Finally
we are delighted to announce that we will be presenting a series
of Gardening Talks next year. As we do not have a suitable lecture
room here at the Garden Club, Buckingham Golf Club who are situated
just over the road from us, are very kindly allowing us to use their
room for the talks. They will be held there at 10.30 am on the second
Wednesday of every month, the first date for your diary being January
10th when Chris Day will be giving a talk entitled ‘This Gardening
Business – a journey through 2000 years of gardening history,
plants, fashions and fads.’ Chris will talk for about one
hour and obviously take questions afterwards. There will be a free
raffle with a prize relating to Chris’s talk. The raffle will
be drawn back in the Garden Centre shop at 12.00. So all in all
a good morning out, especially as you will get double discount on
your loyalty card on that day.
The one down on this is that we have to limit the number of people
who can come to 40, so please apply for a free seat, as soon as
possible, via our web site www.buckingham-nurseries.co.uk/talks,
telephone/fax or if you are in the shop apply at the customer service
desk. The first 40 will be able to attend, and we will keep a waiting
list so if you are allocated a seat then find you cannot attend
please let us know.
10
gardening tasks for December
1 - CONTAINER MAKEOVER
Now is a good time, if you haven’t already, to give your
pots close to the front door or patio a festive makeover. There
are plenty of seasonal plants available to achieve the yuletide
look including red berried skimmias, gaultherias (pernettya), brightly
variegated hollies (ilex) and Picea abies (Norway spruce), the traditional
and best rooted Christmas tree available. Simply add red, gold or
silver ribbon in the form of small individual bows or a huge one
to the display to create the overall effect. Inexpensive low-voltage
lights will add the finishing touch to your display. You could also
leave a couple of spaces in your mixed displays to drop in pots
of forced bulbs, such as hyacinths or narcissi, ideal to inject
some welcome colour.
2 – TIME TO CUT
Give the wisteria its winter prune now, cutting this year’s
growths back to 2-3 buds from the older wood. This will save time
next summer. Vines need to be pruned during winter dormancy and
should be completed before mid-January. When cut later in the season
the rising sap will pour out of the cuts so weakening the vine.
Cut bush roses down to half way to prevent them blowing in the wind
and damaging the roots. The final pruning can be carried out in
late February or early March.
3 - BIG MOVES
December is a good time to move evergreens and large shrubs that
have outgrown their current position. Try to lift them with as large
a rootball as possible and tie them to stakes for extra stability.
4 - CHRISTMAS TREE CARE
Place Christmas trees away from fireplaces, radiators, heat vents
and anything else that could dry the needles. Keep your Christmas
tree well watered from the time it is brought home until it is discarded.
Always opt for a Christmas tree stand which has a good capacity
water reservoir built into its design – it will save you time
topping it up through the festivities.
5 - CLEAN-UP
As cold nights bring the final leaves tumbling from the trees,
rake lawns, sweep paths and patios, and pick up leaves from borders
and rock gardens, where their soggy mass can smother tender alpines,
hardy cyclamen and late-flowering bedding displays. Leaves also
provide shelter for slugs and snails, so clear them up without delay,
taking care not to disturb any nesting hedgehogs.r.
6 - BIRD WATCH
A few things you need to consider at this time of the year. Increase
the supply of food, especially if it is cold or wet. Check for ice
on the pond. Monitor the birds coming to your table – a great
Christmas gift is a subscription to the Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds (RSPB). Remember to keep up your wild life diary and if
you haven’t started one, make it a New Year resolution!
7 - UNDER GLASS
Lining the inside of your greenhouse with bubble wrap will keep
it warmer and reduce energy costs if you're providing additional
heat. Large sheets of white polystyrene can also be used to line
the sides below staging level. Make sure you wash the glass inside
and out before you start lining to maximise light levels. Remove
any debris from guttering.
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8 - SOIL SCIENCE
Continue planting bare-root hedging, soft and top fruit whilst
the soil and weather conditions are favourable. The current thinking
is to make trenches wider (up to 90cm (3ft) across and a good spades
depth (but no deeper than 60cm (2ft) and to improve the soil with
generous amounts of garden compost, well-rotted manure or planting
compost to encourage a much stronger fibrous root system. Combine
this soil preparation with Rootgrow ® and your plants should
get off to the best possible start.
9 - IMPORTANT ROUTINE
Check fruits, vegetables, corms and tubers that you have in storage.
Sort out any that show signs of disease and dispose of them. Take
a look at the forced rhubarb, hopefully there will be signs of new
growth.
10 - LAST MINUTE
Get your tulips in this month. Can anyone have too many tulips?
No, so long as you do not have them indiscriminately everywhere.
But where you do have them, be generous, have lots. Plant them 15-20cm
(6-7in) deep and they will go on for years. Remove mulches from
around fruit to allow birds to eat over-wintering pests –
make a diary note to replace with some new mulch before the end
of February to help seal in some of the winter moisture.
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