Hartley Magazine

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

Written in United Kingdom

Extending the flowering season and other seasonal suggestions.

Remove dead or fading flowers from ornamental plants to encourage a longer flowering season. Most can be removed by snapping them off between your finger and thumb or removing them with scissors. It is a particularly useful exercise with roses, because you can wrap your hand right round the petals, gathering them all before they […]

Written in United Kingdom

How to Grow Penstemons

Your greenhouse can revolutionise your garden, because it’s possible to grow a whole range of slightly tender plants, because you can raise them from cuttings. Many of these slightly tender plants come into their own from late-summer onwards, so they extend the season right up until winter beckons. This helps late-flowering pollinators (and gardeners)  to […]

A Plant’s Not Dead Until It’s Warm and Dead—John Fischer shares his observations

We gardeners all rely on the common wisdom passed along through books, magazines, blogs, or the neighbor down the street. However, John Fischer, a retired meteorologist, Master Gardener, and garden writer, offers this—make your own observations. Throughout his career as a television meteorologist, John always tied together the weather and gardening. When horticulture questions arose, […]