Hartley Magazine

All the latest news, hints, tips and advice from our experts

Uncommon Holiday Presents for Gardeners—and a bonus for you!

Every year, as a professional garden writer, I am given products from manufacturers and businesses who want me to test them. And I do. Anything I receive gets a serious workout in my own garden. Now in this season of gifting, I’d like to pass along my recommendations for several that have been outstanding. Rain […]

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Those impossible looking big, beautiful blooms

If you have a heated greenhouse, you have a big advantage in growing amaryllis, those bulbs with huge, dramatic flowers that are such popular holiday gifts. Pretty much anybody with a bright window can get an amaryllis bulb to bloom, but to keep the plant alive and get it to flower again next year requires […]

Feed the Soil and You Feed the Plants – Joe Lamp’l Depends on an Unseen World Underfoot

“I’m telling you, I have full heads of broccoli and cabbage only seven weeks from seedlings in a six-pack—huge!” Joe Lamp’l is pleased. In a phone interview, the executive producer and host of the TV show “Growing a Greener World” is sharing with me the delight all gardeners feel about a horticultural achievement. The secret […]

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Jacqueline van der Kloet — A Way with Bulbs

Although her first love was painting, Jacqueline van der Kloet seems to have made her peace with the medium her parents thought more practical—garden design. Her remarkable gardens both private and public throughout Europe, and in recent years, several highly visible U.S. gardens, including Millenium Park in Chicago and Battery Park in NYC, are testaments […]

Lemons, Key Limes and Kumquats – winter treats in a greenhouse

One of the delights of a greenhouse is the opportunity to grow citrus fruits in pots. You’re never going to rival the Florida citrus industry, but imagine the joy of cooking with a Meyer lemon you grew yourself. And you can feel a little bit like Louis XIV, who ordered up the orangerie at Versailles […]

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New Plant Introductions for 2015—time to start next year’s wish list

As the gardening season goes into fall, I’m already looking forward to 2015. That’s because I just attended the Far West Show, a national nursery and greenhouse trade show in Portland, Oregon. It features the New Varieties Showcase—the hottest wholesale introductions in ornamentals—and I wanted all fifty-two of the selections.   So gardeners, here’s the […]

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Blowing in the Wind

Windswept at the Berkshire Botanical Garden On the grounds of one of the oldest botanic gardens in the country, an exhibit that interacts with breezes large and small welcomes garden visitors this summer. Windswept is as multifaceted as the garden itself, which is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on fifteen cultivated acres and includes three greenhouses. […]

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The Future is Green

THE FUTURE IS GREEN in Pittsburgh’s famous glasshouse I saw one of the world’s great greenhouses last month when I visited Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh. One of the largest conservatories in the world, with soaring, lacelike Edwardian architecture framing the glass overhead, it has 17 separate indoor garden spaces – pools, gorgeous […]