Keep your planters close and your plants closer this winter, says Jean Vernon With the winter about to hit full force, I’ve been contemplating the fate of my many garden planters. The greenhouse is already packed out with overwintering plants and pots of my less than hardy garden beauties. From scented pellies and fabulous fuchsias, […]

Happier as warm greenhouse specimens than as houseplants are the gorgeously flamboyant Peacock and Zebra plants, the Calatheas, from Tropical America. Oh you can force some such as C. insignis or C. zebrina to live in a well lit house but most are much happier in a warmer more humid atmosphere, it’s their tropical jungle […]

Winter is a great opportunity to check over hand tools, replacing broken handles and sharpening blades of hoes, shears, loppers and spades. Brush off any soil, clean off rust with wire wool, then use a fine file to flatten notches on the cutting edge.  Years ago when I worked on the local Parks’ department, Fred, […]

The Best Beloved and I have been at Spring Cottage for eleven years, almost to the day, and I’ve had to learn to share and that’s not an easy thing for me. You see I am a twin and I had to share everything from a scooter, to a toy piano, to roller skates. It […]

Perhaps it’s the shorter hours of daylight making me appreciate the moments of sunshine that light up the garden and landscape in blasts of crisp autumn light. Or maybe it’s the fiery tones of the autumn leaves as they flutter ground wards in every breath of wind. But whatever it is, time spent outside in […]

The greenhouse is relatively bereft of promising young shoots now, in this chilly November. But the work it did in spring – sheltering promising young shoots from the vagaries – is still being felt in the kitchen, and will be for some time to come. I sowed three types of winter squash, ‘Uchiki Kuri’, the […]

For a wonderful display in your greenhouse or conservatory all winter through you just cannot beat Chinese Lanterns. These are long stems festooned with numerous orange ‘flowers’ and so called as they so closely resemble brilliantly coloured paper decorations. Also known as Bladder Cherries Physalis alkekengi really are most distinctive and have been grown since […]

Collecting leaves – the perfect job for a bright, sunny day. As the nights draw in, it is time to wrap up your pots and plants to protect them from frost and cold. Terracotta or glazed pots should be wrapped with several layers of ‘bubble wrap’ or hessian and raised from the ground on bricks […]

The concept of ‘beneficial insects’ overlooks the fact that in the greenhouse, some of our most important allies are of the eight-legged persuasion. They tend to startle rather than dazzle, and have us recoiling rather than rejoicing. They’re upstaged and outshone by their six-legged, airborne cousins, and they frequently make us jump out of our […]

Get to grips with plant labels now and be ready for your spring sowing spectacular says Jean Vernon Plant labels are the bane of my life, but maybe, just maybe I’ve found the solution We’ve all been there haven’t we?? You’ve taken the cuttings, sown the seeds, planted the plant and searched around for a […]

Some allotment friends were talking to me the other day about growing wedding flowers for a friend, in their greenhouse and on their plot. My first question was the date – around midsummer, they said. My second, rapidly, worriedly: have you already sown? No. I tried not to instil panic, but one thing I do […]