Hartley Magazine

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

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Bouquets that Give Twice ā€“ Riz Reyesā€™ innovative floral arrangements live on for years

Recycle. Reuse. Repurpose. Itā€™s a popular mantra, but would it work for that most ephemeral ofĀ endeavorsā€”a bouquet of flowers? Northwest horticulturalist Riz Reyes thinks so. He adds succulents and other structural perennials like tillandsia (air plants) to his floral designs. When the flowers fade, the cuttings can be rooted in a well-draining medium. Air plants […]

Violet Capital of the World

For nearly one hundred years–between the 1880ā€™s and the 1960ā€™s a stretch of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York was known as the ā€œViolet Capital of the World.ā€ Herb Saltford recounted that it was his grandfather, William Saltford– head gardener at several estates in England before the family moved to Hyde Park, New York– […]

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Itā€™s That Wonderful Time of Year

Snow covers the garden, and spring is nowhere in sight, so itā€™s time for that perennial pleasureā€”perusing the stack of seed catalogs thatā€™s been piling up since November. Interesting trends in vegetable gardening emerge in this yearā€™s catalogs. If you plan to grow tomatoes, 2015 promises intriguing choices; breeders have been busy creating new combinations […]

Written in United Kingdom

Welcome to wormposting

There is an easier middle way between the effort of traditional composting and the specialised requirements of a wormery: invite the worms into your regular bin, and let them do the work. Of all the ongoing experiments and trials in my garden, the longest-running, most revealing and ultimately most fruitful are those around compost-making. Iā€™m […]

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Unusual Edibles to Start in your Greenhouse Right Now

February is the time to give cool-season vegetables a jumpstart by sowing seeds in a greenhouse. You could also put seed trays under lights in a frost-free garage or a back porch, or even on a sunny windowsill thatā€™s not too warm. In addition to the traditional onesā€”cabbage, broccoli, peas, lettuce, and cauliflowerā€”itā€™s worth considering […]

The Founding Vegetable Gardener

  At a White House Dinner that gathered world leaders early in his tenure, President Kennedy quipped that those assembled represented the ā€œgreatest meeting of minds since Thomas Jefferson had dinner in the White House here by himself.ā€ Whatā€™s impressive about Thomas Jeffersonā€™s intelligence is that it wasnā€™t limited by matters political or philosophical. Jeffersonā€™s […]

The Ultimate Vegetable Space-Saverā€”Double-crop Tomatoes and Potatoes on One Plant

Grafted trees with more than one kind of fruit are a classic way to maximize yield in small backyards. Now, to celebrate the beginning of 2015, hereā€™s a different two-for-oneā€”supersweet cherry tomatoes grafted onto a rootstock that features a crop of potatoes. Itā€™s all one plant called Ketchup ā€˜nā€™ Friesā„¢ by TomTato.Ā® I talked with […]

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From Lace collars to muddy boots, greenhouses in history

Iā€™ve been running into a lot of glasshouses in my midwinter reading. I just finished reading up about Edward VII, son of Prince Albert, who dazzled the world with the Crystal Palace in London in 1851. Albert was a better exhibition organizer than he was a father, but the book reminded me what a remarkable […]