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 […]

When you are looking to buy a greenhouse you need to do your research very carefully, where better to see a glasshouse in the flesh than an RHS Flower Show, says Jean Vernon Buying a glasshouse is usually a once in a lifetime investment. It’s really important that you can see some of the options […]

Back in 2018, a few forward-looking people envisaged – though it was largely wishful thinking – a network of ‘pollinator pathways’. Today, we’re opening our first insect superhighway. Fenn was anxiously watching two screens at once. The one on his tablet showed footage streaming live from the Earth Court of Environmental Justice. The other was […]

Gardening makes me move about. It makes me stretch and lift and breathe fresh air and all of those other things that make me feel just that little bit healthier at the end of a day gardening than I do at the end of a day sat in front of the computer. But let’s face […]

The Lupin is a plant of my childhood and my suburban London garden, just like most people’s gardens in the 1950s, contained George Russell’s lupins. I can still remember packets of seeds with George Russell’s picture on the front. By then he was elderly, but he still had a wicked twinkle in his eye, and […]

Now your greenhouse tomatoes are growing steadily, it is important to remove the side shoots of ‘cordon’ varieties to form a single productive stem. You don’t need scissors or secateurs, just snap them off with your finger and thumb. Make sure your tomatoes are well watered, too, particularly if they are in growing bags where […]

Jean Vernon explains the June Drop phenomenon, what it means and what to do June can be a strange month in our gardens. While the garden is burgeoning with lush vegetation in the moist warm weather, something very strange is happening on our fruit trees. Particularly the apples. If you watch your apple trees carefully […]

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 […]

I’ve got two daughters, Frances and Zoe, and Frances used to spend many a happy hour trying to do tricks with her Paul Daniels’ magic set. She’d arrive, complete with cape, top hat and wand, and then she’d entertain us with varying degrees of success whilst we tried to take it seriously.  That was the […]

It’s not just garden plants and wildflowers that offer vital food sources for our wild bees. Many plants that some regard as weeds are also rich in pollen and nectar Plants and bees have evolved together over millennia, with their lives intertwined so intricately that one without the other will struggle to survive. We know […]

Aphids beware: the earth-friendly greenhouse gardener has a secret weapon, and it’s homing in on you. Don’t dwell on this for too long – it needs your quick-fire answer: which greenhouse gardening ally found in nature… is an acrobat, entertainer and plant pollinator, doesn’t bite or sting (although it fakes the latter), rids plants of […]