This week’s gardening tips: Christmas tree and fall foliage edition

Make sure the Christmas tree you choose is fresh. Needles should be bright green and should not fall excessively if the tree is shaken. Branches and needles also should be pliable.

Most Christmas trees are harvested well in advance of being sold and have become somewhat dehydrated (trees that are harvested at local tree farms are the exception). To rehydrate your tree, leave it in the big bucket of water outside for a few days after you bring it home. Make sure the tree is in a shady location, and replenish the water as necessary (they can drink a lot the first few days). You can even spray it with water once or twice, as long as it is dry when you bring it indoors.

Once inside, place the tree immediately into a stand with a generous water reservoir. Check the tree stand every day without fail, and add more water as necessary. Tree preservatives may be used, but are not nearly as important as simply keeping the reservoir full.

For the freshest tree, take the family out to one of the area Christmas tree farms and cut your own. To locate a Christmas tree farm close to you, click here.

Late November is usually peak season for the leaves of our deciduous trees and shrubs to show their best color. Although we will never achieve the spectacular displays common in the New England, it looks like we may see some decent color this year (recent dry weather helped). Plant scientist do not fully understand all of the complicated interactions involving pigments, sunlight, moisture, temperature and day length that combine to create a spectacular display of color. Fortunately, we don’t have to understand all that goes on both inside and outside a plant to appreciate the colorful leaves that result.

Some of the trees that are most reliable about producing fall color locally include green ash, sweet gum, crape myrtle, ginkgo, Southern sugar maple, Shumard oak, red maple, Japanese maple, flowering pear and Chinese pistachio. Shrubs such as sumac, Virginia willow and deciduous viburnums also have good fall color.

Do not rake up and throw away leaves that fall from your deciduous trees over the next few weeks. Use fallen leaves as mulch around shrubs, flowers and vegetables. Pile up the fallen leaves and allow them to decay into valuable compost. Adding compost or other forms of organic matter is a key part of bed preparation. Why throw away perfectly good organic matter generated by your landscape and then go and spend money buying mulch or organic matter?

All About Growing Carrots

Types to Try

Nantes are fast and easy to grow, and adapt to a range of climates and soils.
Chantenay carrots develop stocky roots that become sweeter as the soil cools in the fall.
Miniature carrots have small, shallow roots that are often quite sweet. They’re good for heavy clay soil.
Imperator carrots are long and need deep, sandy soil to thrive.
Danvers carrots make great juice, and the sturdy roots store well, too.

For more details, see our chart with descriptions of each type, cultural tips and varieties.
When to Plant

In the spring, sow carrot seeds in fertile, well-worked soil about two weeks before your last frost date. In cool climates, continue planting every three weeks until midsummer.

In summer, begin sowing seeds for fall and winter carrots 10 to 12 weeks before your average first fall frost. (To find your frost dates, click here and search for “frost dates.”) Many gardeners plant carrots after their spring peas are finished.
How to Plant

Prepare the planting bed by loosening the soil to at least 12 inches deep. Thoroughly mix in a 1-inch layer of mature compost or a half-inch layer of vermicompost (carrots love what earthworms leave behind).

Sow your seeds about a quarter inch deep and 2 inches apart, in rows spaced at least 10 inches apart; carrots do well in double or triple rows. Thin seedlings to 4 to 6 inches apart, depending on the variety’s mature size.
Harvesting and Storage

Pull or dig spring-sown carrots when roots reach mature size and show rich color. Taste improves as carrots mature, but do not leave mature carrots in warm soil any longer than necessary (many critters like carrots). Summer-sown carrots that mature in cool fall soil can be left in the ground longer, but should be dug before the ground freezes to preserve their quality. Remove tops to prevent moisture loss, rinse clean, and store in a refrigerator or cold root cellar. Most varieties keep for several months in the fridge. Carrots also may be canned, pickled, dried or frozen.
Saving Seeds

Carrots are biennial and therefore won’t flower and make seed until their second year. In cold climates, open-pollinated carrots kept in cold storage through winter can be replanted in early spring for seed production purposes. When the seed clusters have ripened to brown, collect them in a paper bag. Then allow them to dry for another week indoors before crushing the clusters and gathering the seeds. Discard the smallest seeds. Store the largest seeds in a cool, dry place for up to three years.
Pest and Disease Prevention Tips

Aster leafhoppers look like one-eighth-inch green slivers, which hop about when the foliage is disturbed. Leafhopper feeding causes light damage, but leafhoppers can spread aster yellows, a disease caused by a tumor-forming bacterium sometimes present in otherwise healthy soils. Trying to eliminate it would be unwise because of its close family ties with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia that benefit legumes. Instead, grow carrots in compost-enriched soil far from grapes and nut or fruit trees, which often host the parasitic bacteria. Use row covers to exclude the leafhoppers.
Row covers also protect a crop from carrot rust flies and carrot weevils, which make grooves and tunnels in carrots as they feed.
Hairy or misshapen roots can be caused by excessive nitrogen or aster yellows disease.

Gardening Against the Odds 2013: Butterfly Garden scoops top award

A Cheltenham garden offering a safe haven to those “looking to escape the world and those looking to re-enter it” has been named the winner of this year’s Telegraph Gardening Against the Odds awards.

The four-acre Butterfly Garden at Dundry Nurseries offers education, recreation and therapy for people of all ages and disablements. It was set up in 2002 by Chris Evans, the third generation of his family to run the garden centre. “I got the cake with this business,” he said, “but it’s the Butterfly Garden that’s the icing.”

Six young autistic students were the first to benefit from gardening therapy at the nursery and since then up to 30 students a day come through its gates, some referred by local authorities. They include people with Down’s Syndrome, cerebral palsy, trauma, mental health problems and refugees with disabilities.

Judges of the awards marked out the work of the Butterfly Garden as “an act of giving”. Telegraph gardening writer Tim Richardson described Mr Evans as, “Particularly impressive – a social entrepreneur who sees a need and creates from scratch.”

Two joint runners-up this year both demonstrated the power of gardening in inhospitable environments.  The first was HMP Parc in Bridgend, Wales, a private G4S-run prison, where a wildflower meadow and extensive vegetable beds within the walls are tended by inmates. Many achieve qualifications in horticulture which open up job opportunities on their release. Awards judge Craig Sams, the former Soil Association chairman and founder of Green & Black’s, said the prison “deserves recognition and repeating on a wider scale”.

Broadwater Farm, a name which resonates with its violent past when riots ripped through its community in 1985, was announced as the second runner-up. The Tottenham residents have turned the concrete around their community centre into a vibrant garden which helps disadvantaged youngsters and recovering addicts. Judges described it as, “a positive outlook for a troubled estate”.

This is the fourth Gardening Against the Odds awards, which is run in partnership with the Conservation Foundation. The awards were set up as a tribute to Elspeth Thompson, The Telegraph gardening writer who died at the age of 48. Judges include the Duchess of Northumberland, the botanist David Bellamy, the actress Susan Hampshire and “guerrilla gardener” Richard Reynolds.

The judges’ votes have been cast and the results of this year’s Gardening Against the Odds awards are in, with moving stories of gardeners who have battled odds of physical and mental disability and environment challenges.

How to choose trees for a small garden

While oak trees, beech and horse chestnuts are glorious they are far too big for even spacious gardens, and if you are confined to a more modest domestic plot you should choose a tree that is not only small but also has year-round interest.

You are looking for spring blossom, attractive summer foliage, autumn berries and colour plus interesting bark.

Not every tree can deliver in all those categories but many are spot on over most of the seasons.

Positioning of trees is also crucial. Obviously, don’t plant a tree so close to your home that its roots will cause problems when it’s mature and its canopy will cut out your daylight.

Instead, plant your tree so that it becomes a focal point in the garden, drawing your eye to it and away from less salubrious areas, such as the compost heap or greenhouse.

Evergreen trees create a good backdrop to other planting in summer and are excellent in winter when there is very little colour in the garden.

You could try a kohuhu tree (Pittosporum tenuifolium) perhaps, which has glossy leaves, small honey-scented purple flowers in spring and is fairly compact – although it may grow to 20ft (6metres) once mature.

Not every tree can deliver in all those categories but many are spot on over most of the seasons

Another excellent evergreen is the magnolia tree Magnolia grandiflora, which is known for its fragrant waxy cream flowers and large dark green glossy leaves.

It is good for growing against a border because it spreads itself out wide, but you would need to keep it in check: Magnolia grandifloras can grow to 40ft (12m) high.

Deciduous trees are better if you want autumn colour. Almost any Japanese maple will provide you with fiery reds and oranges, but the Acer griseum goes one better and has bronze-brown bark that looks like it is peeling off – hence its common name the paperbark maple.

Silver birch trees are used by garden designers specifically because of their white trunks, which stand out particularly well in winter.

Betula jacquemontii is one of the most popular varieties, because of its extra-white bark, but it can grow to more than 40ft.

If that is going to cause problems, it is possible to buy silver birches that have had their main leader cut out so that other branches grow to produce smaller multi-stemmed trees.

And for those of you who love spring blossom you can’t get much better than the flowering cherry tree Prunus serrulata ‘Mount Fuji’.

It is a frothy pale pink bouquet in spring but also has a shiny bronze trunk for winter interest and its leaves turn yellow and red in autumn – so it works all year round.

But if you are a practical type your best bet is to plant a fruit tree. Apple, pear, plum, cherry – they all have lovely spring blossom as well as autumn colour and you have the added bonus of free fruit.

Coppicing: ancient techniques provide a cutting edge

When I start coppicing trees and shrubs, despite the fact that I have piles of recently felled limbs all around me I still feel I am being creative. A large hazel or sweet chestnut tree that you cut off just above the ground in winter will immediately open up the ground around it, letting in light and allowing new plants to colonise the soil around. In spring, abundant primroses, anemones and bluebells will suddenly appear as if from nowhere and the pulling power seemingly explodes for birds and insects. Nearby trees take advantage of the higher light levels and will often start shooting into the space too. The tree or bush that you have harvested will quickly reshoot the following spring as you have left 10-15 centimetres (4in-6in) of stump above the ground, preserving some starch reserves. The large root system will partially die back to compensate for the lack of branches above, but by the end of the following year it will have generated a mass of new shoots (and roots), often above head height.

Nearly all broadleaved trees will coppice, but the most vigorous are ash, hazel, oak, sweet chestnut and lime; the weakest ones are beech, wild cherry and poplar. Conifers, in the main, will not grow back, with the notable exception of yew. Apart from creating a dynamic corner of your garden, allowing you to play with the newly opened up space, there are many reasons to do this.

Traditionally, coppicing was a thriving industry (starting in Neolithic times) producing slim poles for fencing, charcoal, thatching rods, walking sticks, stakes for hedge laying, firewood and much, much more. Coppicing fell out of fashion here later in the 20th century because of labour costs and cheaper imports. But for a gardener wanting some firewood or beanpoles, the intermittent labour needed during a time of year when the mower is idle is a perfect fit. Besides, it can be a positive reason to escape in-laws outstaying their welcome at Christmas.