Succulent plants are ideal for first-time gardeners and suited to growing outdoors in mild, low-rainfall, frost-free climates, or in cold, damp regions, in conservatories or just a sunny window. Succulents are those fleshy-leaved plants that thrive in well-drained soil in hot, dry, steppe to desert-like climates. They are not frost-hardy, like plenty of sun, and […]
It’s a new year, with a new gardening season on the way. That doesn’t just mean trying new plants; it means trying to remember all the things I vowed last summer I’d never do again. When you’re dreaming up the garden inside a well-heated conservatory or cozy living room in January, it can be easy […]
I talked with Michele Keith about her greenhouse in Wyoming. Michele’s property, which is close to the eastern edge of Yellowstone, is 6,000 feet above sea level and in hardiness zone 4, so it gets very cold in winter. She had 36” of snowfall a week or so before our talk. But cold is not […]
Some favored container plants luxuriate outside all summer, and when the weather shifts, they’re hustled into the greenhouse, frost-free porch, sunroom, or even a windowsill. These summer/winter dancers are mostly perennials or small shrubs— tender for whatever zone you’re in. What makes them worth the trouble? Outside or indoors, the best ones are easy care. […]
I’ve not grown potatoes in my garden for a while. I’d been keeping my precious veg space for crops that I considered to use the space better. But over this autumn and winter for some reason I’ve struggled to find organic potatoes locally and when I have they have been tasteless. Coupled with some scary […]
If you need to be inspired by the power of composting all over again, just take a look at the figures; the quantity of ‘waste’ that an ordinary bin can divert from landfill is quite remarkable. I stopped, teetering on the bin’s rim, about to make a terrible, albeit colourful, mistake. The first post-Christmas hoovering […]
When everyone else is sowing sweet peas in their greenhouses and cold frames in autumn, I have learnt to hold my nerve and bide my time. I know that an autumn sowing is the accepted way, but it has never really worked for me. Perhaps because my greenhouse is not sited in the ideal sunny […]
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Bananas are native to Southeast Asia, so growing them in northern climates is a challenge. When I first tried growing bananas in my Rhode Island greenhouse, I kept the greenhouse warm all winter, knowing that bananas prefer temperatures over 77o F (26oC) year round. After three or four seasons and a lot of money spent […]
Okay of the many tender glasshouse plants Saintpaulias can be one of the trickiest. Yet almost everyone knew an aunt with a massive old African violet enduring on for years blooming almost perpetually. It will have been the original blueish violet flowered Saintpaulia ionantha, and it was probably set on a table in some north […]
Several times over the past few weeks, I have spotted a male Bull Finch among the leafless trees in my garden. It is a beautiful bird with grey, salmon pink and black markings but it can be a pest to gardeners. Normally bullfinches eat grass and weed seeds, but when supplies run low and temperatures […]
