With gorgeous sky blue flowers all of summer the Blue Spider-wort is an ideal plant for a cool greenhouse. True it’s a tad lax and can flop if not supported and the waist high stems of lanceolate leaves are not exactly stunning. However continuous displays of gentian blue flowers redeems all. As these lovely blooms […]
As often found in an alpine house as a greenhouse many Bellflowers, Campanulas, are rock garden and border plants. However some low growing and prostrate species are delightful under cover for filling in around the base of taller plants with their verdant foliage and masses of cool blue flowers. Campanula is an interesting, floriferous and […]
Lobelia is a world-wide genus of uncommonly good glasshouse flowers, indeed almost every member of this large genus has attractive blooms, often coming in masses, usually in a shade of blue. Lobelia has shrubby, evergreen and herbaceous members, annuals, biennials and perennials, there are even a few hardy sorts for the outdoor garden. However the […]
Some plants, and oddly rather many glasshouse plants, have somewhat misleading common names. This gem has perversely come to be known as Cineraria though it is not a Cineraria but a Senecio. Cinerarias are so named for their soft white downy leaves like cineres the Latin for ashes. Some Senecios also have white or grey […]
The glasshouse flower if you need bloom almost any month of the year the Poppy Anemones should be more commonly grown as these are also so useful for cut flowers. Anemone coronaria is the original wild species native to the Mediterranean region and this makes it more tender than most other species many of which […]
I have written before of the tremendous value in our greenhouses from the Begonia tribe though I was mostly talking about their huge range of floral varieties. Now I am waxing even more enthusiastically about the foliage varieties of Begonia particularly B. Rex-cultorum. Rex is a term not often employed in botanical Latin and as […]
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 […]
Amongst the benefits a glasshouse offers can be year round flowers for cutting. Cut flowers are more expensive to purchase than most fruits and vegetables so really deserve some attention. And one of the best cut flowers for sheer endurance once cut is the Chincherinchee. Ornithogalum thyrsoides is a bulbous plant of the Lily family […]
Suitable for the less attentive greenhouse gardener and amongst the toughest houseplants you can find are the many members of the Commelinaceae family mostly hailing from South America. Indeed you may once already have grown the trailing Wandering Jew as this is one of those rugged plants entrusted to children. However that is but one […]
You need a greenhouse to crop Feijoas though not to grow these as ornamental evergreen shrubs. For these are fairly hardy, tougher than thought. I’ve had a couple surviving outdoors here in Norfolk for twenty plus years which have never fruited. First introduced from S. America in 1898 these are found in Botanic gardens though […]
Often your glasshouse or conservatory collection will have a theme be it edible, scented or just all orange flowers. I have had several queries recently on plants typical of when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. An interesting question as if you want actual survivors from that period then the selection is rather limited and of course contains […]
I can’t think of another glasshouse plant that suffered from such perverse name changes as this, one of the oldest of all our houseplants now known as the Jade plant. A tender succulent from Natal in South Africa this became popular way before the Victorian era. Probably because it’s remarkably tough and undemanding as a […]
