Hartley Magazine

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

Is My Evergreen Dying? — Arborist Kevin Narbonne explains what to look for

On certain nights in January this year, more than ninety percent of the U.S. shivered with temperatures under 30 degrees F. Especially vulnerable were those plants with evergreen foliage. So what’s a gardener to do? If you couldn’t trundle susceptible plants into a greenhouse or other shelter when the cold hit, how do you help […]

Midcentury Modern Plants and Gardens

The Mid-Century Modern Landscape is the title of my recent book. It’s rather misleading because it’s about gardens: I’m old school and I think of landscape as the natural surroundings in which we build or shape our dreams: The Parthenon is set in a dramatic landscape; my greenhouse is part of my garden. Oh, well, […]

Written in United Kingdom

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2017: A time lapse

Time lapse video of our RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2017: View a time lapse of our Hartley Botanic RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2017, professionally built glasshouses and greenhouses demonstrating the build quality and the care that goes into all our show stands. See us at RHS Chelsea, RHS Chatsworth, RHS Hampton Court and RHS Tatton […]

Brown seeds falling from a tree
Written in United Kingdom

Don’t stop the rot

Death fuels new life in the garden, so we should delight in the signs of decay. Rot… death… decay… decomposition… mouldering… disintegration. What sort of gardener has these kinds of images racing preternaturally through their everyday thoughts? Those like me, I guess (c’mon, there must be more of you out there). While everyone else is […]

Written in United Kingdom

The Friendship Plant or Queen’s Tears

The Friendship Plant is a very tough house plant, and an even better choice for the glasshouse. Attractive clumps of foliage erupt nodding spike after spike of pink bracts, each cascading green petals with a bright blue edge and golden anthers. These continue to appear over a long period. It will withstand neglect, and resists […]

Written in United Kingdom

Seasonal tips – chitting and chopping.

If you are growing C. orientalis and C.tangutica; Clematis texensis, Clematis viticella and their cultivars and the large flowered hybrids like ‘Hagley Hybrid’ and ‘Perle d’Azure’, now’s the time to prune. This group flowers in summer and autumn on the current year’s stems, so select the strongest pair of buds near the base, and cut […]