Winter 2019 – See our recent press ads
A selection of our latest adverts as seen in leading publications such as English Garden, Fine Gardening, Mountain Living & many more. If you would like to request a brochure please click here.
Archives for 2020
Just Say No to Flower Foam—Debra Prinzing tells why
A few weeks ago, Debra Prinzing and I met up when we were both speaking at the Good Earth Home and Garden Show in Eugene, Oregon. Debra’s the founder of SlowFlowers.com and producer and host of the Slow Flowers weekly podcast, whose main message is to buy your flowers locally and sustainably. But this time […]
Welcome to our new UK factory reception
Our new Bespoke Magnum Opus reception is ready to welcome visitors to our UK factory.
As bright as an Azalea
Few flowers are so brilliant as greenhouse or florist’s Azaleas. Coming in a profusion of varieties these are especially welcome bursts of colour throughout late winter. Such vivid blooms come in whites through velvety pinks to extreme reds on neat compact, usually, evergreen plants. Of course just as with their outdoor cousins our indoor Azaleas […]
Sowing indoors to beat the weather.
From early February onwards, it’s time to sprout (or ‘chit’) new potatoes. Put them in a tray or egg box with the ‘rose’ end, upwards (where all the buds or ‘eye’s’ are clustered), at about 7C (45F). After four to five weeks the shoots should be about 5cm (2”) long and they will be ready […]
Why keeping honeybees won’t save the bees
Keeping honeybees to save the bees just won’t cut it and here’s why, says Jean Vernon. Bees, as we know, are in deep trouble. Dubbed the modern coalmine canary; their spiraling demise has scientists, naturalists and environmentalists running scared. Become a beekeeper?? The knee jerk reaction by many well-meaning bee supporters has been to take […]
Peat-free rising
It’s time for some citizen gardening: instead of glib media soundbites about using peat-free compost, let’s crowd-source the low-down on what actually works. This spring needs a gardening health warning: there may be ill-judged and unwise information ahead, and we need to be on the lookout for it. Big, positive things will be happening in […]
January nectarine
This winter, we have decided to move the nectarine into the glasshouse ready for spring and summer. This is perhaps not as major an undertaking as it sounds, as the nectarine is a dwarf called ‘Nectarella’ which only grows to 1.5m in height (and can easily be kept even smaller than that). It has also […]
Gardens for Moonlight and Memory
The first full moon of 2020 fell on January 10. It was quite spectacular, like every full moon in the Southwest, from low desert to high plains, foothills to mountain tops. Sitting in my sunroom cum conservatory, peering out into the garden on a mild winter night, I was enchanted by the ethereal glow the silvery light […]
An Annual Pleasure
The great advantage in having a Hartley greenhouse is stealing a march on time. It may be a chilly outside, with a biting easterly wind, but it’s always toasty under glass so you can start to sow earlier in the year. If you can keep the temperatures at an ambient 10 -17C, with ventilators or […]
Starting Out With Orchids
Orchids are probably the largest genus of flowering plants with nearly 30,000 species. Because these plants are fairly easy to hybridize there are somewhere around 100,000 hybrids. Orchids grow almost all over the world, yes, even in the arctic circle, but mostly they grow in tropical rain forests. That said, orchids can be found in […]
Design Your Garden to Save Time—and you’ll save resources
Water in the Western United States is a fast-diminishing resource. Just ask Cynthia Bee, Outreach Coordinator at the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District in Salt Lake City. Last summer, I got so excited when she shared the district’s new creative solutions for reducing water use through garden design. These tips can also save you other […]