Hyacinths huge fat spikes of waxy perfumed blooms are way larger than nature provided and a triumph of both breeders’ and growers’ skill. Then to also persuade Hyacinths into bloom way out of their natural season is another achievement in itself. The original of our florists or Dutch Hyacinths were until the late 16thC little […]
Check your greenhouse heater to make sure that it works before the cold nights set in, have a roll of horticultural fleece on standby and pay attention to the weather forecast. It is worth investing in a back-up heater, too. There is nothing worse than being caught out by a sudden early frost Leave chillies […]
Embracing the alchemy of decay will enhance the life – plant, soil, wild and human – in your garden. It was a gamble, but it was also a back-saving, pragmatic experiment from which the wilder life in my garden and I are now reaping rich, dark rewards. Wood – as chips, mulch, paths, poles, stakes, twigs, […]
The Opus Grand Botanic
I’m not keen on plant names being changed generally, because it can be very confusing. I never look at cimificfugas, tall autumn bottlebrushes with divided rich-burgundy foliage, and think of them as being remotely the same as rather boring, berried woodland acteas. The fact that a botanist has peered into their DNA and found it […]
The time to finally give up on the greenhouse vegetables is coming, but for me it’s not here quite yet. The temperature has dropped and when I pop down the garden each morning it is now with a cardigan on, but I am still picking tomatoes and aubergines regularly, for now. Although it hasn’t been […]
Golden leaves are beginning to cloak the upper slopes of the Rockies, and with the aspens turning so turns the season. As the British poet, Philip Larkin, would have it, “Autumn has caught us in our summer wear.” Just like it’s caught generations of gardeners before us. Turning to my treasured 240-year-old edition of the […]
Autumn is nature’s planting season, but it’s not just the best time to position new plants, it’s also a great time to sow and grow biennials especially for pollinators Jean Vernon explores Filling the garden with great plants can be a costly affair, but it doesn’t need to be. There are lots of fabulous garden […]
If you were a greenhouse gardener one hundred and fifty years ago you could have been growing twenty seven different species of the beautiful Spider flower. Listed in Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary as Cleome with another eight registered under the apparently near synonymous Gynandropsis there were three dozen or more available. Seventy five years ago Roy […]
Early in the month, especially if it is warm and sunny, sow trays, pots or old growing bags with ‘cut and come again crops’ to harvest through autumn and into winter, think land cress, oriental salads, like pak choi, mizuna and mibuna greens plus lettuce, lamb’s lettuce, chicory and radish. You can also use what’s […]
In American yards, the default way of covering the soil is grass. You’ll see yards with no trees, no shrubs, no flowers, but there’s nearly always at least a little patch of grass. Very often the grass makes no sense. On city streets with tiny front gardens, shaded by trees and buildings, I’ll often see […]
When the climate crisis took hold, the effects on gardening were devastating. Thankfully, technological innovation is allowing us to get growing again. ‘Just imagine what this kind of weather did to greenhouses in the late 2020s,’ shouted Cally over the thunderous din. Unlike the group she was guiding, she didn’t flinch as 3in-wide hellstones – or hailstones, […]
