March usually says ‘Farewell’ to winter and ‘Hello’ to spring, a transition that seems to herald a month of erratic weather. I start sowing outdoors after warming the soil then add a few ‘back ups’’ under glass to fill the gaps if germination is erratic. In northern or cooler locations, you can also start sowing […]
We can’t buy our way out of the plastic problem – but we can reuse, recycle and share our way toward a more sustainable gardening world. Is gardening’s contribution to our global plastic pollution crisis sorted? Have we – gardeners and the businesses that profit handsomely from us – collectively fixed it? Is concern over […]
A thing the gardening life teaches you is that you’re never too old to learn. Each new climate zone I’ve gardened in has been an upward curve on the horticulture and landscape grid – and kept my synapses snapping. Figuring out how my first greenhouse worked in balmy Norfolk, England, prepared me for coping with […]
Many gardeners, stuck inside, are itchy to go shopping. Emails and catalogs arrive daily, the weather’s still too bad to do much outdoors, and nearly a year into the pandemic, you have online ordering developed to a fine art. You’re ordering plants anyway, so why not add a tool or two? It’s worthwhile, though, to […]
The cold start to the year has left the greenhouse relatively empty of new inhabitants, as it should be, really, at this time of year. It has been very chilly, a proper winter, and there has even been snow on the roof of the greenhouse some days, but this is all to the good for […]
It’s the most exciting time of all in the garden, because everything’s responding to longer days and warmer temperatures. My Hartley greenhouse is a hive of activity because it’s full of seeds about to spring into life. It may be unheated, but it warms up brilliantly well on spring-like days and that encourages earlier germination. […]
As I was moving an orange tree in my greenhouse a few weeks ago, whiteflies started flying around my head. These are one of the most common greenhouse insect pests. How do you know if you have them? Just hang a yellow sticky trap near one of your larger plants and then shake the plant. […]
Jean Vernon offers her seasonal thoughts on ways to use the garden to survive the ongoing pandemic The garden was a saviour to so many of us last year. It wasn’t just the place to connect with nature, for many of us it was a place to escape from the house, move away from the […]
It might be cold right now, but this is the time of year when gardening fever hits. You want to plant something—NOW. And what better way to satisfy your cravings than to grow something to eat, protected from inclement temperatures and rough weather? Niki Jabbour knows all about that. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, […]
With a warm glasshouse you can grow this succulent salad crop year round. Originally from India long ago this self seeding annual is now found wild, worldwide. Introduced to England in 1582 it was in Maine, in quantity, by 1605. And by 1819 it had spread across the entire Americas in such local abundance it […]
It’s a real joy to have a greenhouse where you can potter when the rain, snow and waterlogged ground make gardening outdoors impossible. Thankfully, there’s plenty to keep you busy in there and hey, it’s not long now until spring. If you lifted and stored your dahlias over winter, encourage them back into growth by […]
The other day I had the rare privilege of being the first human to hike down a woodland trail after a snowfall. It was just me and (to judge by the tracks) foxes, raccoons, deer, rabbits, squirrels, voles, wild turkeys and coyotes. Then I noticed something else against the pristine white: a scattering of seeds, […]
