It’s the most wonderful time of the year at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

The Magic Lantern Show will be open on many evenings in December and we cannot wait to see them lit up. The characters should look luminous when lit up against a dark background. Click here for further details.

As for work in the Gardens, it continues around the giant grasshoppers, fairies and pandas.

We are still lifting more and more leaves, our compost bays are full. Hopefully we will soon be taking possession of a new leaf suction machine. This will lift the leaves from paths, grass and beds; chop them up and deposit them in the trailer, making life a little easier. The leaves will also compost down faster as the cut edges allow microbes and fungi to attack the leaves quickly. We will be concentrating on removing leaves from low growing ground cover and in particular silver foliaged plants. Wet leaves can cause the foliage to rot, so if nothing else make sure these plants are leaf free.

Watch out for overflows and filters in ponds getting blocked by falling leaves – keep them clear for a stress free time with your ponds.

Check your winter protection around tender plants and water taps, redo as necessary, also check newly planted shrubs in case they have suffered through frost lifting them from the ground.

The second part of the herbaceous border is being cleared out; several existing plants have been split and potted up ready for re use elsewhere. Wonderful new plants for free. This area will be left fallow, over the summer and sprayed as soon as any weed appears so that the soil will be clear. When we were planting the first portion up, there was still weed root visible so we will monitor the situation as to whether we leave the second portion fallow for one year or two. The newly planted bed will be easier to weed whatever happens as the new plants are weed free and they are in distinct, discreet areas.

The very wet area of the Grass Garden is being cleared out, and the construction of more drains continues and hopefully the area will become drier. It won’t be completely dry, but many choice plants can be grown in soil that is wet, or example Rheums, Rodgersias and Astilbes.

There is an area of the American Bank that is being tidied up. An awful lot of Gaultheria shallon is being removed to allow existing shrubs to shine. The grass to the rear of the bed is being removed so that some extra American plants can be added, perhaps some ‘Sumachs’ for even more autumn colour.

That is all for now from the gardeners at Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Happy Christmas and see you in the New Year.

 

 

 

 

 

This month we are looking forward to a firework display on Saturday 5 November – the only time that the fantastic colours of our trees will be outshone.

The Gardens look particularly lovely at the moment, with many trees and shrubs changing colour. You can see yellow, orange, red and purple all around. The maples have changed particularly quickly this year, and the carpets of fallen leaves look highly decorative.

The gardeners will mainly be clearing leaves from paths and readying the Gardens for the winter.

Clearing leaves is a very time consuming but vital job and we are looking for ways to make this job easier, by investigating the purchase of a leaf suction machine that will pump leaves straight into the trailer. The large fan, which picks up the leaves, will also shred them, helping them break down to compost faster.

Gardeners and volunteers will be busy lifting tender plants and placing them in a frost-free area in the Nursery. Salvias, fuchsias, mimulus, cannas and bananas are being lifted and re-potted, and in some cases, cuttings taken. When these plants are lifted it is important to put them in a fairly light, free draining material, as dense compost could get too wet and cause rotting. We are taking a lot of salvia cuttings as they are going to take centre stage in the Trials Garden next year as the Dahlias are going to the Loudon Terrace.

Dahlias will be left in the ground until the first frost has blackened their stems and then they will be brought inside, and put in trays of open free draining compost for winter storage.

We are also getting ready to protect our tree ferns, by enclosing the top metre within a hessian duvet stuffed with straw.

The emptied section of the Herbaceous Border has been replanted, with the plants that were brought in March. Having spent the last six months being cared for in the Nursery, they have made significant growth and are filling up the border nicely. Go and have a look before they shut down for the winter. The other section of the border will now be emptied, hopefully by the students from Birmingham Metropolitan College.

We are still planting tulip bulbs – believe it or not, they actually benefit from the cold weather as there is less chance of Tulip Fire; a fungus that can completely spoil the flowers.

The old butterfly border is being revamped, as it has become very wet, and so we are changing the planting to suit the new conditions. Many plants that enjoy the presence of water at their roots will be going back into this area when the bed has been cleared.

More butterfly-friendly plants will be put around the Grass Garden. These plants usually have single flowers so that there is plenty of nectar to attract and feed the butterflies.

Wayne will also bring in forced Christmas flowering hyacinths and daffodils from a shaded cold frame into one of the glasshouses to trick them into an early spring.

If you visit the glasshouses this month, you’ll find refreshed floral displays in the Mediterranean House, ready for Christmas. Wayne will be removing the chrysanthemums when they finish flowering and will be replacing them with poinsettia. There will be space, however, to add the Christmas flowering lily of the valley, hyacinths and daffodils in December.

We are often asked “what is your favourite plant” each season. At the moment, we’re loving the changing display of leaf colour. The Spindle (euonymus) and Smoke (Cotinus) bushes are performing incredibly well – the reds of the foliage look stunning. See them around the bandstand and in the Grass Garden.

Finally, we’re preparing for our new winter attraction, the Magical Lantern Festival, which will enable everyone to see the Garden under a new light – please come along.

Now that we have passed the autumn equinox, the glasshouse team will reduce watering and stop feeding the plants in the glasshouses. Plant growth will slow down, and with lower temperatures, they won’t need so much food and water.

The Mediterranean House will have its floral display changed this month. The summer display of Begonias, Petunias and Cannas will be swapped for Plectranthus (Coleus), Chrysanthemums and Veltheimias.

Although it is only autumn, the indoor team are already thinking of spring blooms. Daffodils, tulips and Christmas flowering hyacinths will be planted in pots in the nursery this month to provide an early spring display in the Mediterranean House. These will be placed in a cool, dark cold frame outside to encourage a good root system before being brought into a bright and warm greenhouse in December, January and February for an early spring.

We have left removing our summer bedding until much later this year as the Begonias have been so stunning, but all good things must come to an end, so the bedding will be coming out and the new winter bedding put in ready for the new bulbs to be planted. Expect a vibrant display of tulips on the Terrace in late spring!

We shall start to rake up leaves in earnest as they fall and put them in the compost bays, and last year’s composted leaves will be spread on our precious bulbs in the Winter Border. Other compost made from grass cuttings, the old bedding and general green waste will also be distributed around the Garden, adding vital nutrients and humus back into the soil.

Lawn areas will be edged and tidied, and areas of grass that need reseeding will be seeded – we will have to fence these areas off to allow the grass to re-grow so please be aware of the fences.

The bed beneath the old yew at the rear of the Lawn Aviary will come to life with plants that can tolerate shade and drier conditions – many of them evergreen. We have already planted 250 early flowering Narcissus ‘Tamara’ for a bright start to the year! All the plants are available for purchase in the ‘Shop in the Gardens’.

Part of the Grass Garden is being replanted with shrubs that give a good autumn display that will complement the many grasses in the area.

A further area of the Grass Garden is going to be cut down in readiness for replanting. Existing plants that we want to keep will be un touched, plants that are to come out will be cut down to make it easier to work the area.

Rhododendrons in the Rhododendron Walk are having their lower branches removed so that fungal spores which may arrive in the Gardens by various means will not be splashed up onto the lower leaves where they will thrive and cause problems.

Plants to look out for at the Gardens this month are the Liquidamber and Liriodendron trees changing colour and the Fothergilla major on the American Bank turning bright yellow. The grasses in the Grass Garden are also looking very stately.

Gardener Chris’s favourite plant for October has to be Nerine bowdenii, with its spider-like flowers in light pink, which have a scent reminiscent of her old Sindy doll!

Its name comes from the water nymph of Greek legend, Nerine, and bowdenii after Athelstan Boden-Cornish, who is credited with introducing the plant into British garden in 1902.

Nerine gives a spectacular floral display of pink, lily-like blooms with recurved petals in autumn, which can be seen in a swathe of pink on Paxton’s Prospect.  The flowers are produced after the leaves have died back which gives the unusual architectural look of the stems coming erect from the ground.  They are found in mountain screes of South Africa, but in Europe they benefit from being at the base of a south-facing wall, in fertile free draining compost, keeping the bulbs warm and dry in summer while dormant. Bulbs are fully hardy, but early frost can kill off flowers.

However, there are many Nerines that are not fully hardy and need a cool glasshouse to survive. This year they can be seen in our new Alpine House in the Alpine Yard. These Nerines have flowers in many colours but not yellow, they also appear to sparkle in the light, and new cultivars will be arranged in the glasshouse to show off their full potential.

 

Now that September is upon us, you will start to see the summer bedding replaced with winter bedding on your next visit. It is always sad to see the summer colour disappearing, but it will soon be replaced with sensational autumn colour!

We will be seeing a change on the Loudon Terrace as the large box spirals are exchanged for smaller ones. The existing spirals will be transplanted to the bandstand bed where they can make a bold statement for much longer – September is a good time of year to carry this job out as the soil is still warm enough to encourage root growth and there will be enough moisture around to stop the plants drying out.

The new Alpine House is up and running with a changing display of flowering cyclamen and nerines – if you pop in regularly, you’ll see the changes.

Hedge cutting seems never ending but will finally be finished this month – it always takes longer than expected!

Bare treated areas such as the Herbaceous Border will be replanted, and a huge array of plants have been gathered and nurtured in the nursery. As the final application of weed killer takes effect, the bed will be dug over and compost applied before the plants are placed in situ – we’re hoping for some damp weather when this has been carried out to help the plants settle in. The bare area beneath an old established yew tree to the rear of the aviary and the grass garden will also be planted up.

Now is also a good time to treat Japanese Knotweed. We have left ours growing all year as the stems need to be strong enough to be injected. Industry experience shows that injecting the stems in September is a very efficient means of getting the trans located weed killer to the roots where it is more effective than a foliar spray at killing the whole plant. Of course, this needs to be carried out by a certified professional.

Now is a good time to take cuttings off your favourite tender plants. Pelargoniums (geranium), Fuchsia, Plectranthus (Coleus)and Salvia are examples of plants which would not usually survive the British winters if left outside. Take cuttings from healthy, non-flowering stems around 10cm long, cutting the bottom just below a node. The node is where the leaf joins the stem and is the area with the highest concentration of naturally occurring rooting hormones called auxins.

After, remove all of the lower leaves to prevent rotting, these can be potted into a free draining compost mix such as 75% multipurpose compost and 25% sand or grit or perlite. Water well and place in a warm shady place, watering only when the compost is dry.

By taking cuttings of these now, they will have rooted well and a few weeks after being potted up separately, they will have made a decent size plant to overwinter in a cool, but frost free place during the winter.

An area of the main lawn is being re-graded, soiled and reseeded as September is an ideal time to do this work. This needed doing as a large stump left over from felling a tree was causing problems for the mowers. The stump has finally started to rot away and was easily removed. Soil reclaimed from the Alpine Yard will be spread over the area and then grass seed sown. The area will be fenced off temporarily so the seed has chance to germinate, so if you see a fenced area, please help us to help the grass by avoiding them!

Wayne’s favourite plant for September is the Tapeinochilos ananassae, which can be found in the Tropical House. This is a relative of the spice ginger and its common name is Indonesian wax ginger. This name describes the beautiful, glossy, sealing wax-red, pineapple-like inflorescence, which contains many individual flowers.

Our final task of the month will be to clear away all of the fallen leaves, now that autumn is upon us. See you in September!

First and foremost, we’re delighted to reveal that we now have National Collection status for our Cyclamens. Our thanks to everyone involved, from trustee, to volunteer.

Alpine House, generously donated by Hartley Botanics, has arrived and been erected in the Alpine Yard – just in time to showcase these wonderful plants. We’ll now be busy filling up the beds with sand ready to plunge some pots in! Hopefully, there will be a colourful changing display of cyclamen and alpines available for all to enjoy throughout the year.

Both the indoor and outdoor teams will be busy selecting and ordering bulbs for next year’s spring bulb displays. Daffodils, tulips and hyacinths will be ordered in August and planted in pots and borders during October. The indoor team is busy filling cells trays with compost ready for our winter bedding plant delivery. 3500 small plug plants will be potted up this month and grown on in the nursery until planting out in late September. In addition, Butterfly House will be stocked with 100 pupae every week to keep it full of gorgeous butterflies until the first week of September.

Autumn appears to be coming quickly, with some leaves changing already. We’ll still be weeding the Gardens, and it seems as though there could soon be leaves everywhere, so we’ll be working to keep everywhere looking tidy.

You can expect to hear the sound of hedge cutters whenever you visit! Our beech hedges have kept us busy hedge cutting, and can be cut back twice a year: in midsummer and when dormant in the winter. If you have the time, conifer hedges should be cut back little and often as they rarely respond well to heavy pruning – especially if you go back into old wood. The exception to this rule is the Yew (Taxus).

We’re currently choosing next year’s bedding schemes and bulbs for planting in the autumn, which will make for a colourful spring display – giving us the chance to sit down and recharge our batteries!

At this time of year some of our favourite plants around the Gardens are the hydrangeas, in particular, the Hydrangea aspera, with its furry almost velvet-like leaves and huge number of flowers. Wayne’s favourite plant for the month are the bananas in the Tropical House (Musa x paradisiaca ‘Dwarf Cavendish’). These are named after William Cavendish, the 6^th Duke of Cavendish of Chatsworth House in 1834. Joseph Paxton, his Head Gardener cultivated them in the world’s biggest glasshouse at the time. Bananas have huge paddle-like leaves and pink flowers which turn into the fruits, which grow upwards, as if defying gravity!

The recent hot weather has slowed the growth of the lawns down, so we’re able to cut it less frequently and leave it slightly longer than normal – perfect to sit on when Peppa Pig visits on Wednesday 17 August! We’re also looking forward to the Teddy Bears’ Picnic on Wednesday 24 August – see you there!

We’re hoping for some better weather this month after the torrential downpours in June. At one point, when we were building the dwarf walls and paths for the new Alpine House, it looked as if we were building a swimming pool!

We are very excited about launching our Alpine House – it will be the new home for our cyclamen collection and alpine plants, and we are also hoping to hear this month that our cyclamen collection has been granted National Collection status.

As well as the regular routine maintenance, such as weeding and mowing, we will be checking borders and tubs carefully to ensure they are getting enough water.

Plants that are growing well need plenty of water – even when it has rained a lot – so it’s always a good idea to check hanging baskets because they lose a lot of water through evaporation in the wind. Because they are positioned close to a wall or fence, they are in a rain shadow, which means it is difficult for rain to reach the soil.

There’s plenty to keep the team occupied, of course, this month. The smaller section of the herbaceous border that was cleared last autumn is receiving regular sprays with weed killer to remove the build up of pernicious weeds in the ground.

And the new plants, all a range of blue, purple and white flowers, are in the nursery, being cut back and potted up as required, to produce healthy sizeable plants for planting out in the autumn.

You can easily tell if potted plants need repotting by looking at the underside of the pot: if roots are visible or plenty of roots can be seen, repot into a pot one size larger or a pot that is large enough to put your fingers in around the edge, this enables new compost to be pushed down the side between the plant and the pot. This also ensures you leave no air pockets without soil.

We’ll also be repotting pots of bulbs that have become congested in a gravel rich compost to ensure free draining. And, we will start to take cuttings of tender perennials to replace old plants in the gardens, because older plants can become woody and stop flowering so well.

You’ll notice that bedding plants will have put on a lot of growth and flowers, so it’s important to dead head them so that more flowers are produced instead of seed pods. Once seed pods are produced, the plant thinks its job is over and it stops flowering.

If you didn’t manage to cut back box and beech hedges last month, try to do so in July as this will provide a precise neat back drop to your flowers and shrubs.

And if you have a greenhouse, it’s a good idea to dampen down the floor with water to increase the humidity and discourage red spider mite, which can thrive in hot and dry conditions. Ensure that you keep feeding the plants weekly and deadheading them to encourage flowers during the summer.

Weeds flourish at this time of the year and reach flowering size in less time than it takes you to blink. Fortunately, our gardening team is assisted by our very keen and able volunteers: we would be knee deep in weeds without them.

And our thanks must also go to the students of Birmingham Metropolitan College for their most welcome help in planting out the bedding and weeding the herbaceous border.

We couldn’t do without our volunteers!

Meanwhile, the glasshouse team will be busy this month keeping the glasshouses tidy and the Butterfly House in tip-top condition in time for the summer holidays. They will also be putting out hundreds of new labels on the indoor plants so that all visitors can quickly identify their favourites!

Chris’s flower of the month for July is the month of the rose – and those growing at the gardens are looking amazing. Last year’s additions have increased in size tremendously and the amount of flower is staggering. Why not come and see how fantastic they look?

Wayne’s plant this month is the Heliconia rostrata, a highly exotic perennial from Peru and Argentina, which has huge paddle-like leaves and is similar to a banana plant. From these, striking pendant, zig-zag shaped, red and yellow flowers appear.

Heliconia must be grown in a tropical greenhouse or garden as they are huge plants and also need a minimum winter temperature of 15C. They also enjoy lots of water, fertiliser and a semi-shaded position. See ours flowering now in the Tropical House.

Enjoy your gardening!

We will finally finish the bedding out; it has taken longer than usual as the plants were slow to put on growth. Weather conditions have not been favourable with some very cold nights and low light levels. Each bed, after it has been emptied, has been turned over and fertilized, and the plants have been well watered on planting. The bedding should be watered as necessary as dry windy conditions can cause scorching of the leaves which does not look pretty.

You will also notice work starting in the Alpine Yard. The foundations and dwarf walls are being built in readiness for the erection of a new Alpine House, kindly donated by Hartley Botanics.

But, most of the month will be taken up by mowing and weeding.

All grass areas where bulbs have been growing can finally be mown. We have to wait until the foliage has turned brown and died down, putting as much nourishment back into the bulb as possible, ready for producing great flowers next spring. Existing congested clumps of snowdrops will be split before they die back completely, increasing the population of these wonderful spring flowers.

All our shrub and flower borders will be weeded as often as possible, we obviously want to remove weeds for the aesthetic look of the Gardens. But, it is important to try and remove as many weeds as possible before they flower and seed, helping to reduce the weed seeds around for next year. Weeds are great opportunists taking advantage of warmth and moisture to complete their life cycle in a few weeks.

Finally, one task that we all dislike but is vitally important is clearing up rubbish. Our rubbish is treated in several ways.

We recycle as much as possible in the recycling bins labelled for glass, plastic bottles and aluminium cans. But if the bins contain too much food waste and cardboard coffee cups the Council cannot recycle them so, please help us by putting the rubbish in the correct bins – it is horrible sorting mouldy food and coffee cups out of the bins on a Monday morning.

Other rubbish that cannot be composted is put in the skip which then gets taken to the tip.

Our team is enjoying seeing the reaction from visitors young and old who are enjoying the Butterfly House, which is now open for the season.

Our senior horticulturalist, Wayne, has worked very hard to fill the sanctuary with nectar plants, sugar water feeders and fruit that butterflies will love.

Now that it’s open, he can concentrate on adding more colourful pots in the Mediterranean House central beds. This year, he hopes to have six different Bougainvillea (red, orange, yellow, pink, white and purple) in flower by the end of the summer. This promises to look truly spectacular, so we hope you enjoy the display.

This month, the glasshouse team will also be finishing the gravelling of the central beds. In total, we’ll have used a staggering four tonnes – that’s a lots of work!

If you’re visiting the glasshouses this month, look out for Wayne’s standout plant: the Mexican flame vine (Pseudogynoxys chenopodiodes). This can be found in the Compositae Bed in the Subtropical House. This unusual daisy relative is a climbing plant and has red-orange flowers and evergreen leaves.

Chris’ favourite plants at the moment are the Azaleas in the Azalea Walk the colours and scents are glorious, even on a miserable day.

After a lot of hard work by many people here, the second phase of the Treetops Adventure Playground will open later this month, which is very exciting news for us and our younger visitors.

The new, tall towers and slides are ready for exploring and the cable bridge between the two towers looks very inviting – we hope you enjoy them!

May continues to be a very busy time for us at the Gardens. After clearing the duck pen of old vegetation, we are looking forward to welcoming our new ducklings and we’ll be sowing the wildflower area around that area to provide colour and interest. We’ll also tidy up lawns, cut the grass regularly and neaten the edges to keep them looking manicured.

This month, the box hedge will be clipped of its shaggy growth so that when the new summer bedding is planted towards the end of May the whole area will look precise and formal.

Visit the Gardens this month and you’ll see beautiful hanging baskets of bright yellow begonias gracing the Pavilion, and the black urns will be decked out with Calibrachoa ‘Can Can Primrose’. You’ll notice a theme of bright yellow and orange in the Terrace bedding – what a great way to brighten up the day!

The Bandstand will be set off with Begonia ‘Non Stop Orange’ and we’ll plants smaller growing begonias around the edge.

If you live in the English Midlands, we don’t recommend that you put out bedding plants until Whit week, when the chance of frost is reduced. You may have noticed that even the end of April was cold and snowy this year!

Weeding will be taking up quite a lot of our time, and our newly appointed horticultural apprentice Zac will discover just how fast everything grows.

The Scarecrow Garden has undergone a transformation, thanks to a lot of hard work by Wyl and Lucie. Lots of areas have changed there, so come and look as the plants grown from seed in the nursery are planted out and seeds are sown directly into the soil.

Incidentally, old wives’ tales suggest that you know when the soil is warm enough for sowing seed when you sit bare-bottomed on the soil and the earth feels warm, not cold and clammy. Please try this at home and not in the Gardens, though!

If you visit us in May, you mustn’t miss the magnificent magnolias in the Rock Garden and a special mention should be made of the Trilliums, Epimediums and Erythroniums that are also in the area.

The Rhododendron and Azalea Walks will be stunning with colour and scent this month but Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’ flowering with the Cistus and Teucrium fruticans on the terrace by the Pavilion will be a sight for sore eyes – a lovely mix of white, silver, dark and light blue.

Over the next few weeks, the glasshouses will be getting some TLC as Wayne and the team undertakes the back-breaking work of spreading four tonnes of new gravel on the centre beds of the Mediterranean House floor.

They’ll be changing the Mediterranean House floral display for the summer, planting gorgeous specimens such as Begonia ‘Dragon Wing Pink’, Petunia ‘Express Blue’ and Osteospermum ‘ Serenity Blue Eye’ to name just a few – expect a dramatic display again in a few weeks’ time!

We will also be busy setting up the Butterfly House ready for opening on Saturday, May 28. We hope to see as many of you there as possible.

If you’re visiting this month, look out for the fantastic Crinum pedunculatum in the subtropical house – it’s the largest bulbous plant in the world – and the spectacular giant prickly pear in the Arid House (Opuntia elatior).