I’m actually writing this on January 19th, a significant day in the gardening calendar. It’s the day when our part of the earth begins to warm up again. Scientists tell us that from that day onwards the ground starts to get warmer, due to the sun getting closer to our part of the Northern hemisphere. […]
There is a greenhouse dahlia trick that I am keen to try out this year, and that is taking cuttings to increase flowering. We all normally buy our dahlias as tubers, and quite right too: good, chunky tubers are very easy to grow, you just pop them into the ground or a pot and as […]
Helping pollinators is a bit of a buzz phrase at the moment, but even in the midst of winter you can find ways to use your greenhouse to help them. You might think that in the middle of winter there wasn’t much you can do to help pollinators, but you would be wrong. Our greenhouses […]
Surprisingly there are several tropical root-crop plants well suited to frost free or better warm glasshouses. Probably the best value are Colocasias as many of the same family are already valued glasshouse specimens. Sold in Ethnic shops and some supermarkets these are known as Cocoyams in Africa, Taro in the Far East, Dasheen or Eddoes […]
With the sudden popularity of gardening, particularly vegetable growing, it is important to put in your seed order early – I am sure that many of you have already done so. The sudden increase in demand last year meant that popular varieties sold out quickly and there was a long waiting time on the websites […]
Even in my greenhouse, I sometimes find that it can be tricky to get peppers and chillis to ripen over the summer. I know that some people don’t have this problem, but this is what I have found. Perhaps our greenhouse doesn’t receive as much sun as others, and perhaps we haven’t got our peppers […]
… green gardening Christmas – and a more climate crisis-aware gardening world in 2021. Change arrives at a snail’s pace in the wonderful world of gardening – even when our fragile natural world is undergoing its own profound and irreversible change. But if ever an entwined community of folk needed to change, it’s this one […]
There’s a very good reason why winter evergreens were so important in festive celebrations. They represented eternal life As winter sets in our gardens rely on the structure and skeleton of trees, shrubs and winter evergreens. While the wonder of the autumnal hues is spectacular there is something very graceful about the winter garden. I […]
When I started gardening, in the 1960s, the first thing I did was a parks and gardens inspired rose border containing twelve leggy hybrid teas of different colours. These unhealthy beasts lost most of their foliage by midsummer and they all flowered at slightly different times and at slightly different heights. However, my biggest crime […]
The Romans were recorded as the first to create greenhouses, specifically growing cucumbers for Emperor Tiberius. There are early Korean records of greenhouses being used to grow flowers and force vegetables by 1438, and the Chinese grew mandarin trees indoors – the first ‘greene’ houses. In 1663, the Orangery was opened at Versailles. The Victorian […]
Some interesting and useful glasshouse plants can be grown without ever finding any seeds first. Although most plants grow from seed using these can give variable results. When we want exactly the same characteristics as the parent we use vegetative propagation. That is we grow on a small bit of the original and not a […]
Damp, still air in the greenhouse causes grey mould, particularly on damp leaves or soft tissue like cyclamen flowers. It is less of a problem with good air circulation, so open greenhouse slightly vents on mild sunny days, shutting them before temperatures drop, early in the afternoon and avoid chilling draughts, (the lack of frost […]
