Garden journal

Visit gardens to enjoy the blaze of autumnal colours, and start preparing your spring bedding plants

The latest garden products and horticultural advice

HOME TO ROOST

Put up this colourful coconut birdhouse in autumn, when birds seek places to shelter and feed, often returning to nest in spring. Made in Bangladesh, sales help to fund a project creating jobs for disadvantaged women. £14.99 at Sourced by Oxfam from October.

CROP COMPANIONS

WHAT:

WHY: To ensure that you will enjoy sweet, ripe berries picked from your blackberry bushes, deter pests that may hinder their growth by companion planting with hyssop. A shrubby plant relished by bees and butterflies due to the amount of pollen produced, hyssop will ward off foliage and fruit predators, such as beetles, while its intense blue flowers can be used as a salad garnish, too.

PLANTING: Plant hyssop seeds 30cm apart in a warm, sunny spot, about eight weeks before the last frosts. It benefits from being cut back hard in spring or summer as it can become woody. Flowers from June to October.

GARDEN TREASURES RHS WISLEY

Wisley’s National Collection of heather, with over 900 cultivars on show, puts on a colourful display for autumn in its new home of Howard’s Field. On Seven Acres, sweet gum, swamp cypress and dawn redwood provide a fiery backdrop to 650 asters in the Equinox Borders, before the vibrant stems of cornus and salix are revealed around the lake in late autumn. Inspiration for providing yearround interest in flowering borders can be found among the grasses and ornamental seedheads of the Glasshouse Borders, while myriad tones can be found throughout wooded areas such as Jubilee Arboretum. Open daily for pre-booked appointments. Adult £14.95, child £7.45. (Tel: 01483 224234; rhs.org.uk/gardens/wisley)

POTTED HISTORY: CUCUMBER STRAIGHTENERS

Victorians were not ones to suffer a crooked cucumber. So intolerable did the 19th-century gardening set find a wayward, curving cucurbit, that it led to the invention of – arguably – the most superfluous tool ever. The cucumber straightener was the brainchild of the great railway engineer George Stephenson; a keen hobbyist horticulturist, in the

1840s he ordered elongated blown-glass cylinders to be made at his Newcastle steam engine factory, which could be used to encourage perfectly straight cucumiform fruits – ideal for the iconic, dainty cucumber sandwiches favoured by Queen Victoria. Along with the loosening of corsets, came the loosening of attitudes to fruit perfection, plus it was discovered that hanging cucumbers vertically produces a relatively straight fruit.

So, while the appetite for aesthetically pleasing produce persists in supermarkets today, a bendy cucumber is the sign of a wholesome, home-grown crop.

CARVING A FUTURE Using traditional woodwork techniques, Matt Walker designs and hand-makes beautiful pieces of furniture for the garden and home from his workshop in Worcestershire. The custommade Peggy planter, crafted from strong and durable English sweet chestnut, with a steel frame, makes a stunning addition to a terrace, and can be combined with the steam-bent Peggy screen, available in three lengths. Aiming to be as sustainable as possible, Matt sources his wood from small mills, uses natural organic oils and stains, and recycles waste. Priced from £625 for the planter, or from £750 for the mini screen and planter, Maker & Wright.

ON THE BOOKSHELF We have all learned to slow down and notice nature a little more during lockdown, and while the city isn’t the first place most people go for plant life, a new book created in collaboration with the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, reveals the hidden wonders of urban plants. Containing beautiful botanical illustrations, reproduced from a rare 18th-century book, Flora Londinensis, in Kew’s library, The Botanical City, by Hélèna Dove and Harry Adès (Hoxton Mini Press, £25), imparts ancient wisdom and folklore about urban plants and fungi, recipes and craft ideas, and tips for growing and harvesting in the city.

COPPER TOP Believed to help to deter slugs and snails by preserving a magnetic barrier in the soil, copper tools are also long-lasting, hardwearing and do not corrode easily, aging with a lovely bronze patina. Handmade in Hungary by artisan coppersmiths, the new rosy gold hand tools available from The Future Kept are both beautiful and practical, priced from £34.