Here’s an example: ‘Never water plants in sunshine because you’ll scorch the leaves.’ Utter nonsense. Here’s another: ‘Plant garlic among your brassicas to scare away aphids and cabbage-white butterflies.’ Try it if you wish, but it doesn’t work. Nor do marigolds. The truth is that aphid infestations vary enormously from week to week and garden to garden. You never know whether or when one will turn up. Some years, I find very little greenfly activity; at other times, it arrives when I least expect it. Last year, blackfly attacked a mass of thistles that I had forgotten to pull out, but ignored my roses almost completely. And, for the record, caper spurges—Euphorbia lathyris— do not repel moles.
‘Finish planting tulip bulbs before the end of November.’ Well, mine never go in before January, because otherwise I find that winter wet will rot them off. ‘Always split herbaceous plants immediately after they have flowered.’ Not so—I find they all do best in October, because the soil is still warm and moist enough to get them established. ‘Wash out your empty flowerpots—clay or plastic—so that you do not transmit disease.’ This can only be true if the previous occupant of the pot succumbed to a soil-borne fungal infection, but, if that’s the case, it’s best to throw away the pot.
Esta historia es de la edición August 09, 2023 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August 09, 2023 de Country Life UK.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning