Chris Palmer
“Could I have a bag of kwin-oh-ah please?”
The shop assistant looked puzzled.
When I repeated my request, and received the same blank look, a woman behind me said, “I think he means quinoa.”
That’s the last time I shop for my health-conscious daughter, I decided, as I fled the shop with an expensive bag of what looked like bird food.
Never been caught out? You’re lucky.
It wasn’t the first time either. Thirty years or so earlier I asked my children if they wanted to watch see-same street. It’s still a family joke – Dad and Sesame Street!
Well, how was I meant to know?
Realising what you have presumed for many years to be correct is, in fact, wholly wrong can be a humbling experience. It’s like a reverse eureka moment and can occur in many areas of life, including gardening. For example, my parents loved to grow geraniums and propagated them with great success. I have done the same for many years. It was only recently I discovered they are in fact pelagoniums not geraniums.
In a similar fashion, for many years I used all-purpose fertiliser on all my bedding plants, shrubs and vegetable plants. It seemed to make sense and was easy to buy and use. It proved to be a misleading simplification. If I had thought about it properly, I would have realised that what is useful for one plant is not necessarily useful for another. After all, one doesn’t go into a restaurant and order an all-purpose meal. People have different dietary needs, preferences and tolerances. The same applies to the nutrients that each individual plant needs.
The importance of using the correct fertiliser struck me forcibly when talking to a keen allotment holder several years ago. It was late summer. My sweet peas had gone over. I fed them but the flowering had stopped.
“Why are your sweet peas so full of fantastic blooms for weeks on end?” I asked her. “Mine stopped flowering weeks ago.”
“What are you feeding them with?”
“All-purpose fertiliser.”
“You’re feeding the leaves, not the flowers. It’s a common mistake. Next year, as the flowers start to form, feed them with a tomato fertiliser.”
It worked!
The advice she gave me for sweet peas may not, however, be the best for every flowering plant. There are lots of other factors – type of plant, your soil and the growth stage. I hope this isn’t giving you a headache!
My general point is that all-purpose fertiliser isn’t necessarily what every plant needs.
“Good things come to those who wait.”
“Patience is a virtue.”
“All in good time.”
Can you remember as a child those annoying phrases used by parents and grandparents? It seems so straightforward to adults but to a child waiting even one day, let alone a week, can feel challenging. I must have said similar things to my children when they couldn’t wait for our annual trip to Arran, or when the days before their birthdays or Christmas seemed to drag on forever. Not that they took any notice.
Maybe one of the gifts of gardening is patience.
I ordered some new dahlia bulbs, one of which was Blue Wish. When it arrived in early March, I stored it in new compost and kept it in the garage for a couple of months. I transferred it to a larger garden pot in May when the risk of frost had passed and made sure that I kept it moist.
Although shoots appeared quickly, progress was slow. The description of this variety claimed it would grow to about four feet. In three months it grew no more than a foot, and there were no signs of buds. Was it the wrong compost? Had I neglected it during that very hot and dry spell? I asked myself all the routine questions that seemed to apply when a new plant does not appear to be flourishing. Every day I examined it for growth but there appeared to be none.
We went away on holiday so it received no attention for over a week. On our return a spectacular growth spurt had occurred. A flower bud was about to open, and two warm days later a stunning, erect and proud flower emerged – layered petals that opened white with soft purple tips before maturing into a uniform shade of lilac.
It was worth the wait. I never gave up on it. It provided lasting colour well into the autumn. It was also a durable cut flower. I strongly recommend Blue Wish.
As I get older, I want time to slow down and not accelerate, but sometimes it feels the opposite. Summer goes too quickly. As we gardeners start the process of putting the garden to bed and planning for next year, it’s time to reflect on what sort of year it has been.
There were doom-laden news stories of drought and climate change. Here in Ayrshire, to me, it felt like a good summer. Lots of sunny weather but rarely uncomfortably hot. Plants in pots had to be watered, sometimes every other day, and the garden as a whole needed regular watering. More than a normal year. Fruit matured early. Apple trees in particular appear to have flourished. I have a friend with a garden on the sea front in Ayr. He has a mature Discovery apple tree. It is a very reliable early season dessert apple producing fruit with a classic bright crimson appearance. He had a huge crop this year and has been making generous quantities of his own juice, which is delicious. Discovery is probably one of the best varieties for Scotland. If you have room for a tree and want a reliable cropper, look out for it in February and buy it as a bare-rooted plant.
I hope your gardening year has been rewarding and enjoyable. Reflect on your successes and failures and try something new next year.
Best wishes for 2027.
