Monty is already thinking about next year which means now is the time for him to start collecting seed. He collects seed from astrantia and silene and stores them in brown paper bags. He bought the silene from the Malvern Show in May which started the planting off and now he can keep it going by growing it from seed. The astrantia will germinate very fast, so Monty will be able to store young plants over winter rather than the seeds, which means he can plant them out a little bit earlier and get mature plants a bit quicker. He therefore plans to sow some now and some next spring. Monty points out that if you're sowing seed from a hybrid like the astrantia called 'White Giant', It could actually be quite different from the parent, and that could be seen as a disaster or an opportunity. But if you really want to replicate the parent plant it's easier to do it with a cutting, particularly if it's a flowering shrub like the lavenders in Monty's garden, so he takes cuttings from lavender, looking for semi-ripe material and not flowering material.
Monty goes into the potting shed at Longmeadow carrying purple sweet peas which are a similar colour to the penstemons. One of the special things about penstemons at this time of year is they give you a huge range of colour. He shows how to take cuttings by looking for new material but leaving en...
Monty is in the White Garden, also known as the Writing Garden where he wants to plant autumn bulbs. He has a bag of corms of colchicums which flower September time. Monty advises to wash your hands after handling colchicums. Colchicums require a lot of sun so it is important where they are plant...
Monty is in his orchard picking up apples that have fallen on to the ground and consequently are bruised, therefore impossible to store. Apples don't ripen all at once on a tree, but when ripe fruit starts to fall it's a sure sign that the process has begun. Monty advises to check regularly and t...
