The Nature Garden: gardening, wildlife and nature notes · The Weekending Show

Ripening

·40 min·2 clips

Some wading birds start winter in late June and fly from Arctic Canada to South Africa.

1. The Nature Garden: gardening, wildlife and nature notes focuses on ripening crops, late-summer bird movement, and a tribute to Dr Angus Lunn in Northumberland. 2. Carl Steinson presents the show with the week-ending team from Lionheart Radio, alongside gardener Tom Pattinson, birder Tom Cadwallander, and Steve Lowe. 3. The episode asks what to do when summer is turning into autumn in the garden and on the coast. 4. Tom Pattinson says some plants have finished their growth period while others are just coming into it, and he checks flowers, vegetables, fruit, and greenhouse work. 5. He explains sweet peas grown individually on canes about two meters tall, which he ties in rather than letting them cling to netting. 6. He says the method produces straight stems and long florets, and that he can extend flowering by releasing the ties and layering the plants onto new canes. 7. Pattinson says the layered sweet peas can keep flowering until cold weather arrives around October. 8. He warns that if sweet peas are left too long they start making pods of peas, which stops new flowers from forming. 9. He also says bedding plants and containers should have spent flower heads removed so more buds open. 10. Pattinson advises planning for autumn and next spring by watching for polyanthus, primroses, wallflowers, and bulbs at garden centres and nurseries. 11. Tom Cadwallander says he gave a packed presentation at Lesbury Village Hall about winter birds on the Northumberland coast. 12. He says the first week of August can already be the start of autumn for some wading birds. 13. Cadwallander names sandering, turnstones, red knot, and bar-tailed godwit as birds that arrive from Arctic Canada, Greenland, Finland, Alaska, and Svalbard. 14. He says some of these birds use the Northumberland coast as a staging post before continuing to South Africa, Tasmania, or New Zealand. 15. Cadwallander explains that red knot are named Calidris canuta and were once thought able to stop the tide. 16. He says purple sandpipers are arriving later than usual and connects that shift to short-stopping and climate change. 17. Steve Lowe remembers Dr Angus Lunn as a major influence from the late 1970s when he joined Northumberland Wildlife Trust. 18. Lowe says Lunn mapped Kielder by hand, studied quaternary geology, and helped define peatland sites, ancient woodland criteria, and the “New Naturalist’s Guide to Northumberland.” 19. The tone is practical and reflective, with clear instruction in the gardening sections and measured observation in the wildlife section. 20. Listeners who want seasonal gardening advice and Northumberland bird records will get the most from this episode; listeners wanting a single narrative arc may skip it.

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