Roehampton Garden Society

Category Archives: Update2021

this post was linked to a 2021 update


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Modern gardens – a walk in the city

Buildings come and go – creating open spaces for modern gardens to add to the numerous historical ones….

City Garden Walks organise guided walks that will take you round some of these new ‘hidden’ spaces
Walks are offered on multiple dates through October. Cost is around £10.

Find out more and book ahead:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/modern-gardens-of-the-city-of-london-tickets-169179643869?

The City of London is almost 2000 years old and is constantly being updated – new roads, new buildings and new gardens. Each redevelopment creates an open space – which gives the opportunity for a new ‘garden’ to be created. Some follow traditional lines whilst others combine history, horticulture and sculpture. Join our guide for a pick-and-mix blend of the old and the new.

City Garden Walks


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What not to feed your hedgehog

You may, as I do, have childhood memories of leaving out a saucer of bread and milk for the hedgehogs and watching them visit in the early twilight.

We now know differently – bread and dairy products are very bad for them.

So – here’s the latest advice from SW Hedgehogs – who suggest dog or cat food – dry varieties are fine. Even commercial hedgehog food can contain some poor ingredients – so check carefully.

Fresh water is important for them – but make sure the dish isn’t too deep or easy to tip over- you can add stones to make things easier.

Hedgehogs are now considered endangered – so let’s try to help them…….


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Britain’s wildflower meadows

Meadows are one of the UK’s most species-rich and biodiverse habitats, supporting nearly 800 types of flowers and plants, along with 400 species of pollinators and other insects.
Today, surviving fragments of flower-rich meadows and pastures only account for 1% of UK land as we have lost an alarming 7.5 million acres since the 1930s.
Our renewed interest in planting meadows is reflected in a new exhibition at the Garden Museum in Lambeth, featuring stunning wildflower photos from Hugo Rittson-Thomas’s new book ‘Wildflowers for the Queen’.

There is an admission charge, and you must now book to go into the museum.

Find out more from the Garden Museum: https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/hugorittsonthomas/


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Time to take semi-ripe cuttings

If you’d like some extra plants, or want to insure against losing a precious shrub to the frost, growing a cutting or two can help. At this time of year many plants have developed short new growths that have part ripened in the late summer.

Putney Cuttings
  • Try cutting the stem at about 10cm, just below a leaf. Many gardeners like to use a full shoot of about that length, peeling gently from the main stem to create a ‘heel’, (useful for ceanothus and berberis).
  • Plant the lower 4-5 cm into a general peat-free potting compost with a good addition of light grit or other drainage material such as perlite. You can experiement with a rooting powder, but these aren’t often necessary.
  • Moisten well – but cuttings don’t need much watering and can be prone to moulds and rot if kept too wet.
  • Cuttings can often work in outdoor beds or cold frames – frost free. If you protect them under glass they will need to be hardened off before planting out.

Suitable for climbers such as Solanum and Trachelospermum, evergreen shrubs, groundcover plants, herbs and hedging – even some trees!

Read some detailed advice from the RHS here


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Wildlife Gardening Forum

If you haven’t come across this organisation – who run an active website with lots of useful information on it, the Wildlife Gardening Forum is a national charity, committed to protecting garden wildlife and promoting sustainability ingardening. There is an active Facebook group, which now has over 80,000 members! They offer a quarterly newsletter which you can sign up for on their website at www.wlgf.org.

If you want to stay up to date with wildlife and gardening their latest newsletter makes interesting reading:

Wildlife-Gardening-Forum-Newsletter-August-21


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An invitation from Putney Community Gardeners..

Join us from 3pm-7pm on Saturday 4th of September 2021 for the Putney Community Gardens Summer Party!

The main site will be the Orchard on the corner of Carslake Road & Tildesley Road

Delicious food and drinks
Please bring your own plate/bowl/cup/cutlery so you can enjoy it

Join us for:
Tour of our sites
Face Painting, craft and gardening activities
Treasure Hunt
Local Tree Walk
Music
Info stalls
Merriment!


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How dirt may make you happy

It’s long been recognised that gardening can make you feel happier and more relaxed, but it may de due to more than just enjoying the open air. Neuroscientists are interested in the anti-depressant effect of soil microbes on the brain. Mycobacterium vaccae, found in soil, is thought to improve serotonin levels.

The study was reported by the BBC here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6509781.stm

It’s early days for this interesting research, but here’s an article on why dirt may make you happy!

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/antidepressant-microbes-soil.htm

Scientists among you may be interested in the original research, published in Neuroscience here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452207001510

submitted by Kim Williams


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A tale of giant gooseberries

The north of England is host to a number of Gooseberry Societies where the annual contest for the ‘heaviest’ gooseberry is hotly contested. Bryan Nellist of the Egton Bridge Gooseberry Society won their competition this year by a fraction of a gram at 26 drams 18 grains. The variety grown was ‘Belmarsh’, a white gooseberry.

The current world record was set in 2019 by Graeme Watson of the same society at 36drams 12.5 grains for a yellow gooseberry – variety ‘Millennium’ .

Egton Bridge (near Whitby) was delighted that the show could go ahead this year after last year’s Covid cancellation was the first in a 220 year history. The Gooseberry Society competition still strictly abides by the hand written rules from 1823.

Sadly, on the other side of the Pennines, Terry Price of the Goostrey Gooseberry Society in Cheshire, found that his prize bushes had been poisoned ahead of the competitions. He suspects by a rival grower!

Sources: The Guardian ; Guiness Book of Records.


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Plants and Plant Lore at the Weed Walk and Talk

Who would have thought there were so many weeds on our Allotments?!!

Some of us were lucky enough to accompany Roy Vickery, Associate Scientific Officer to the Natural History Museum, on a walk along a path on plot 2. Roy worked as a botanist at the Natural History Museum for over 40 years and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of plant folklore. His eagle eyes swooped down and plucked specimens from the path and borders and he held his audience with tales of yesteryear. Knowledge he has collected by word of mouth, spanning back to the beginning of the last century. Some tales of country superstition, others of medical uses of common plants, but all fascinating and delivered with an obvious love of subject and dry sense of humour.
We felt privileged to have learnt so much from an hour in the company of a very knowledgeable and interesting man. Thank you, Roy.

Contributed by Shan Karwatowska


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Urgent: action needed to counter tomato blight

Growing tomatoes this year? It’s that time of year, when rain and warmth together mean tomato blight can flourish. Many allotmenteers may be affected – particularly on outdoor grown plants.

There is no recommended remedy available at present, unfortunately, but in the early stages, removing affected leaves and fruit may slow things down. Once the stems are affected you must harvest any fruit you can and pull up and destroy the plant.

What to Do

  • Please check tomatoes now – early signs can be brown spots on leaves and fruit.
  • If blight is established, pull up the plant and bag it. Clean your hands and tools – not in the water tanks, please! You can keep any green tomatoes and eat any unaffected ripe ones.
  • Don’t put affected fruit and plants in your compost bin – the temperature is unlikely to be high enough to kill the spores and blight will come back next year. You can put them in green waste collection for the council as their facility runs at higher temperatures.
  • To avoid spreading blight, be careful when watering tomatoes. Don’t splash water up the stems or on to lower leaves as the soil may contain blight spores.

Watch Monty deal with his tomato blight problem here: https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/solve-problems/tomato-blight/

Here’s advice from the RHS also: https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=217 .

Let’s see if we can stop it spreading now ……….

If anyone has treatment recommendations to share, please do contact us by email.