Stop trying to control your garden, start letting nature take the lead, then sit back and watch the benefits to people, plants and planet. Fast-moving feathered flashes of black, white and red, amid a flurry of sawdust, to the tap-tap-tap of beak on wood: it isn’t what we usually wake up to here. Blue, great […]
A Hartley Botanic greenhouse is not only a joy to behold, it’s also a useful gardening tool because it creates an ambient environment that encourages plant growth. And if you live where I live, in the aptly named village of Cold Aston, it’s a necessity for it’s parky up here! My greenhouse began life with […]
The Queensland Umbrella tree, Schefflera is an evergreen greenhouse or conservatory shrub come small tree distantly related to ivy. Given good conditions a plant under cover may flower and berry though it’s for the somewhat hand shaped and handsome foliage this is cultivated. Originally from Australasia these distinctive ornamental shrubs have proved popular in subtropical […]
Now’s the time to repot or ‘top dress’ and spring clean houseplants. They can last for 2-3 years before repotting but it pays to check annually. Knock your plants from the pot, to see if they are ‘pot bound’ – soaking the root-ball for half an hour in tepid water makes it easier to remove […]
I like to think that there are very few real pests in the garden and the greenhouse. Most of the issues the gardener faces are ephemeral, a passing phase and more a meal for a larger predator than a real problem. That to me is the secret in pest control; find the creature that feeds […]
The strong urge to push on with the growing year only increases if you have a greenhouse at your disposal: surely – we think – I can get everything going nice and early and be ahead of the game? Be harvesting when everyone else is just planting out? Have ripe tomatoes in June? We might […]
Okay I admit of all glasshouse and conservatory plants Ficus benjamina might be considered one of the less flamboyant. Indeed this is just a foliage plant, mind you what lovely clean glossy foliage and on such delightfully neat shrubs. Tough and reliable benjaminas have long proved popular with gardeners and indoor decorators just because they […]
The Best Beloved has made a declaration. Apparently I have 91 named snowdrops that need planting and 30 of these are bedded into part of the vegetable bed, his vegetable bed, and “they will need planting first” he intones with great authority. I have acquired these treasures in the last few months, from various sources, […]
March is the month of seed sowing, especially in the vegetable garden. Start preparing your seedbeds beforehand by raking the ground to a rough level and covering it with clear or black polythene to warm the soil. Clear polythene is preferable, as it encourages weed seeds to germinate which can be hoed off beforehand, so […]
Consider the global air pollution crisis alongside the desperate need to conserve resources and there’s only one possible conclusion: it’s time to extinguish the tradition of the garden bonfire. As a boy, I was pretty whiffy. Out in the garden until dark, I would eventually come indoors, a noxious plume in my wake. A bath […]
If you have made good use of your greenhouse for starting off winter vegetables last spring and summer you will be feeling pretty smug about the so-called veg crisis right now. Even me saying ‘so called’ is pretty smug, but as all good gardeners know, this is not really a veg crisis at all but […]
“Why are you growing houseleeks in your greenhouse?” said a friend looking at some Echeverias I had around the base of a Bougainvillea. An easily made mistake for these are a fine example of parallel evolution. Houseleeks are temperate plants designed to survive conditions as harsh and impoverished as crevices of dirt on rock-piles or […]
