At the beginning of May I was extremely lucky to be invited to see the gardens at Worcester College in Oxford’s city centre. It was a perfect May afternoon and the stone walls were dripping with wisteria, so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The lawns were like green velvet and I’m sure that […]
The greenhouse has been pressed into unexpected service this week, as the annual houseplant holiday has hit a bit of a snag. Every winter my houseplants struggle with the low light and the dry centrally heated air, and by late spring they are look wan and drawn. And so every summer, when the weather turns […]
This spring and summer, turn your attention to the bumblebees and let’s help save all the bees, says Jean Vernon. You may have heard that insects are in severe decline. But you may not realise the wider implications of this. We don’t all like insects, we call them bugs and creepy crawlies often without understanding […]
A feature of this spring has been high temperatures during the day which have dropped considerably at night and drought conditions; it’s been something of a challenge but an opportunity for new learnings. When it happens again, I will definitely start sowing crops in modules in the greenhouse much earlier, once it becomes apparent that […]
Of the many greenhouse and conservatory plants few tick all boxes. That eternal quest for all-the-year-round interest in foliage, compact, neat with long lasting flowers good for cutting, lots of colour, scented in whole or part, possibly also edible, and of course, easy. Few indeed, however the Peruvian Lily does, moreover in myriad varieties only […]
One of the secrets to success with plants is simple—look at the conditions where the plant has evolved in the world and then duplicate those as close as you can. This is true of both species and the cultivars and hybrids that are derived from them. By knowing whether they grew in damp or dry […]
In and out, back and forth, to and fro: this is the season of ever-watchful gardeners and peripatetic plants. Blessed as I am to be able to work from home, these days more and more of my time is devoted to commuting – although I’m not to-ing and fro-ing for work, but for the love […]
It has been a glorious spring, with cloudless sunny day after sunny day. The lovely Tomasz Schafernaker, the BBC weatherman and self-taught artist, announced each sparkling day with a twinkle in his eye. Well, for the first two weeks anyway. And then he began to look a bit more apologetic, shifty even, about the lack […]
For some strange reason we have been programmed to loathe stinging nettles, but these plants play a vital role in nature, says Jean Vernon. If your earliest memories of nettles is falling into the nettle patch or being chased around the playground by nettle wielding classmates, you won’t have a good relationship with these incredible […]
RHS Chelsea Flower Show Tradestand no. 142 Hartley Botanic’s 2025 RHS Chelsea Flower Show Tradestand ‘Your Space, Your Story’ 20th to 24th May 2025 Celebrating Hartley Botanic’s Values – English Built, English Grown The 2025 stand at RHS Chelsea Flower Show will showcase the craftsmanship of Hartley Botanic’s Greenhouses, handmade in England to nurture English-grown […]
It has continued to be a cold spring, this year. Warm days followed by clear nights mean that temperatures plummeted as any heat absorbed from the sunshine radiated from the ground overnight. Thank goodness we can get ahead in the greenhouse. Most of my dahlias are overwintered under a heavy mulch in the garden but […]
Spring burst upon the scene this month, and was I ever glad to see it, as was just about everyone else I know in my part of the southwest, i.e. from the Rockies south thru the Sangre de Cristo mountains to Albuquerque. We had the errant snowfall…like it lost its way then dropped a desultory […]
