The time to finally give up on the greenhouse vegetables is coming, but for me it’s not here quite yet. The temperature has dropped and when I pop down the garden each morning it is now with a cardigan on, but I am still picking tomatoes and aubergines regularly, for now. Although it hasn’t been […]
Golden leaves are beginning to cloak the upper slopes of the Rockies, and with the aspens turning so turns the season. As the British poet, Philip Larkin, would have it, “Autumn has caught us in our summer wear.” Just like it’s caught generations of gardeners before us. Turning to my treasured 240-year-old edition of the […]
Filling the garden with great plants can be a costly affair, but it doesn’t need to be. There are lots of fabulous garden plants that can be grown from seed, and not just the usual annuals. Pollinator plants There’s a group of plants that are called biennials. It just means that as opposed to annuals, […]
If you were a greenhouse gardener one hundred and fifty years ago you could have been growing twenty seven different species of the beautiful Spider flower. Listed in Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary as Cleome with another eight registered under the apparently near synonymous Gynandropsis there were three dozen or more available. Seventy five years ago Roy […]
Early in the month, especially if it is warm and sunny, sow trays, pots or old growing bags with ‘cut and come again crops’ to harvest through autumn and into winter, think land cress, oriental salads, like pak choi, mizuna and mibuna greens plus lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, chicory and radish. You can also use what’s […]
In American yards, the default way of covering the soil is grass. You’ll see yards with no trees, no shrubs, no flowers, but there’s nearly always at least a little patch of grass. Very often the grass makes no sense. On city streets with tiny front gardens, shaded by trees and buildings, I’ll often see […]
“Roses don’t like to live in pots. They all want their feet in the ground.” I thought that old rose adage was true—until I met author, photographer, and blogger, Anne Reeves. Her home garden in the Seattle area is overflowing with roses in containers. And many have been thriving for years in their pots—so I […]
It’s been quite a while since ladies fell onto their fainting couches or fumbled behind the fernery with their dashing callers – a hot date back in the day. But once the happy couple settled into domestic propriety, the fragile young girls became women of some substance, with children to raise and a home and […]
Growing plants and having a nice garden is within reach for everyone says Jean Vernon. You don’t need to be an expert gardener to have a nice garden. In fact the best way to learn is to have a go. But there are some simple basic things about plants and gardens that it is helpful […]
I have never been a great collector of things or of plants – some people have the attention to detail and the tenacity and some do not, and I fall squarely into the latter category. But it struck me recently that I have made a collection of pelargoniums. To proper plant aficionados that may seem […]
You need a warm greenhouse or conservatory to grow Wax plants successfully. Not surprisingly as these originate in the tropical Far East. The first, Hoya carnosa, was introduced to the UK from Java in 1802 and proved an immediate success. In the next fifty years another two dozen species were collected but none ever challenged […]
As I walk my neighborhood in summer, I wonder: Why don’t I see more lilies? They have so much to offer a garden—color, elegance, fragrance. And yet mine is the only yard on my block with visible lilies, and I’m too sun-deprived to have many. Maybe people think that because lilies are elegant, they must […]
