Gardening in Emsworth.

 I've become keen on ferns since I bought a collection of  5 hardy ferns for shady places.  They are planted under a big old apple tree surrounded by fences and sheds on three sides.  Just at the moment they are unfurling their leaves, known as 'fiddleheads' in New Zealand.   Each leaflet unfurls as well, beautiful to see.

 I think the drought in 2025 also caused me to dry up on blog writing! I only watered crops, like tomatoes which I grew in hanging baskets.  However, I was impressed by how quite a few plants in my garden thrived.  Here are some of them. Salvia Clotted Cream'.  A wonderful shrubby salvia which flowered for months on end.  Behind it are aka Hylotelephium   'Autumn Joy'(red), Geranium 'Rozanne'(blue) and Nicotiana 'Whispers' (shades of pink). Symphyotrichum ' Andenken an Alma Potschke'.  Last autumn this 100cm tall aster flowered particularly well. One of the most amazing successes last year was this half hardy annual,  Nicotiana 'Whispers Mixed'.  I followed the instructions on the seed packet, and the resulting plants flowered from summer to autumn.  Some of the plants survived the winter so now I'm waiting to see if they'll flower again and become a perennial. This photo was taken at a wildlife patch that Southbourne Environment...

I'm often asked if a plant is a weed.  The plant in the photo, commonly called Garlic Mustard or Jack by the Hedge ( Alliaria petiolata ) , is a spring flowering wildflower.  It's a biennial, flowering in it's second year, and it tends to grow in shady places at the edges of woods or by hedges. Whether it's a weed or not depends on whether it's growing where you want it or at least tolerate it in your garden. From a wildlife point of view it isn't a weed - it's a food plant for the orange tip butterfly, one of the earliest butterflies to emerge in the the spring.  The photo shows a male.  The females' wing tips look grey. Another butterfly which feeds on it is the green-veined white Read more about these butterflies by visiting https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies As you might guess from the name, humans eat it as well.  The leaves can be used in salads and for making pesto, or as flavouring for fish or meat.  I've never tried them but leav...

 My hellebores have been good this year, as usual.  I deadhead them to prevent them seeding everywhere.  The original two or three plants were given to me - I was invited to dig them up from a friend's garden.  I've a lot more than three now. The flower colours vary from almost white to dark maroon.  Two of my favourites are pictured.  I've tried some of the new cultivars, but none have been very successful.  They are going over now and it's time to deadhead them.  They seed freely if left.  I found another reason to it today.  Inside a few of the flowers were nurseries of greenfly!  The adults must have overwintered there.  The females can reproduce by parthenogenesis whereby the small babies pop out from their rear ends. Meanwhile the hellebore seeds are maturing inside the swelling ovaries in the centre of the flower.

 Winter flowering honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, is a largeish semi-evergreen shrub which  produces fragrant creamy white flowers in winter. Due to a misunderstanding, mine was trimmed into the standard ball shape this autumn, so I was surprised to find it flowering recently, not exactly profusely, but doing its best.  The right time to prune is after flowering so that the flower bearing branches have a chance to grow and buds develop.  I've always found the timing of pruning awkward.  As the flowers disappear the leaves grow vigorously and in abundance so it's hard to see the stems you should cut off near the ground at this time.  I resolve to prune it properly this spring and hope it will get its natural shape back.

 Garlic is one of the easier crops to grow.  To get the best chance of getting a good crop it needs to be planted in autumn, October or November, so that it gets a period of coldness.  It can be planted until February but a good crop is less likely. Site and soil: well worked and fertile soil, sunny open position How to plant: break the bulb into separate cloves and plant them 'as deep as you like and as early as you like' as I was advised many years ago when I first grew garlic.  Some people plant it with the top near the soil surface, as you do for onion sets, but I always planted mine deeper 2 -5 cm below the surface. Cultivation: weed when necessary. Garlic is prone to rust (a fungal infection of the leaves) but ignore it as it does not harm the bulbs. If a flower starts to develop, pinch it out. Harvest: when the tops dry and shrivel in summer, lift the garlic and let it dry in the sun before storing it in a dry place. These photos show elephant garlic, ...