A Parrot plant will be the most fascinating display in your greenhouse or conservatory. It will, if grown well be most impressive and flamboyant. Even grown badly it will still be curious and interesting. For this is one of those quirks of nature. Each waxy almost plastic bloom is gorgeous with a firm body of […]
Your greenhouse can become a powerhouse for winter crops – and that’s with the lights out and the heating off. The lights flickered, hesitated, flickered some more, and then finally went out here over Christmas. Our ‘big’ power cut lasted the best part of a single daytime’s feebly lit hours. Compared to others, we got […]
My under-cover empire is expanding. At the end of the garden I have the rickety greenhouse bought from a neighbour for £100. On my deck just outside the back door I have my beautiful and not even vaguely rickety Hartley Botanic mini greenhouse. And soon, within the next few weeks (energy and enthusiasm willing) I […]
January might seem a funny time to be writing about ladybirds, but the gardeners’ best friends are very much alive and well in a garden and greenhouse near you, right now. On the odd sunny day that entices you out into the garden, you won’t be far from a ladybug, a small red beetle with […]
Any cool greenhouse or conservatory will be enhanced with a pot or two of Sarracenia Pitcher plants. Exotic and strange looking, the fantastically wrought tubular vases of their leaves out perform most flowers with striations, netting and mottling in purples, reds, greens and yellows. Added to their striking coloration these lidded pitchers appear almost alien […]
As I write, tall trees are swaying alarmingly, bent into contorted shapes by the gale force winds that are ripping through the garden, grey clouds dull the sky above and lashing rain rushes in fast flowing rivulets down the windows. Yet another day of ‘hard core’ weather that sums up the winter so far! The […]
Ask not what your garden can do for you; the question is what you, as an earth-friendly gardener, could be doing for the planet. What can I do? The thought tugs at my conscience each time I slide open the doors of my greenhouse or gaze out across my garden. It tugs when I’m buying […]
In the colder months, birds bring color and motion to gardens at rest, whether you watch them from a kitchen window or enjoy their antics through the glass of a cozy greenhouse. When I have questions about feeding my winged denizens, I turn to Dan Gleason, owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Eugene. Dan taught […]
