It is the first time for years I have not been working away from home at this time of year or sneaking time to ‘garden in the gaps’ between work commitments and I’m loving it! Just great to enjoy the garden, and take my time – which is what gardening is all about! By the […]
The media buzz about bee conservation is having a real effect, but virtual gardening only goes so far – and there are more immediate ways of boosting bee populations. During the last year I seem to have spent a lot of time tapping my computer keyboard to help improve the lot of bees, large and […]
With a greenhouse or conservatory it is easy to enjoy fresh flowers every day of the year. However this can mean keeping a large number of very different plants as each will only bloom over a limited period. Very few plants can be persuaded into flower every week of the year and even fewer in […]
The greenhouse is filling up alarmingly, and this is before I’ve started on the potting on. Sown seeds are a small, highly folded piece of paper and potting on is the unfolding of it. The volume doubles, then doubles again, then again. Pots balance upon pots, everything is crammed in and teetering, fighting for space, […]
The greenhouse is bursting with germinating seeds, flourishing seedlings and rooting cuttings. The aroma of spring is saturating every breathful of air and it smells fantastic. Rich, warm and vibrant, spiced with plenty of freshly made oxygen from the thriving plants. Spring is such an animated season in the greenhouse. Every new plant emerging from […]
Even mild winters seem interminably long, so it is great when the first flowers and fresh new shoots appear. For some reason it reminds me of the nonsense rhyme which starts ‘Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies iz’..? When the soil warms up in early spring it is time […]
Instead of giving any more time to the myths about sowing in peat-free composts, put them to the test. You’ll find they do the job as well as peat – without the ecological price-tag. Of all the myths that abound in gardening, the most pernicious are surely those that circle our inevitable but painfully slow […]
Since I last wrote here my seed sowing has switched from smugly-ahead-of-time to oh-my-what-have-I-been-doing-with-my-time. Outdoors was so cold and slow back then, all of four weeks ago, and sowing time seemed endless. What happened? Now it’s all green shoots, pink blossom and blue skies and I have moved from leisured to frenzied. I am getting […]
Hartley BeanFeast March 2014 It’s no secret that I’m addicted to bees. I just can’t help talking about nature’s little heroes, or more accurately heroines, at every opportunity. Last week I met a small boy who started asking me very grown-up questions about bees and it made me realise how much bees are taken for […]
Any greenhouse, conservatory or sunny windowsill will be graced by the tropical beauty and perfection of a pot of Jacobean lilies. The flowers are relatively huge reaching saucer or side-plate size and a foot or so high, in richest crimson lightly marked with gold, these first appear in early summer then again through summer. Sprekelia […]
I want to say: ‘It’s February, and it feels like spring is coming!’ but that would be a big, fat lie. Perhaps because we haven’t really had a proper chill all winter, perhaps because the weather is so relentlessly grey and dull, but I can’t quite get past that sense that winter might still come […]
If we made more of our gardens’ huge potential as the first line in flood defence, fewer of us might need to resort to sandbags next time round. With thousands of homes flooded and their gardens submerged, there’s a hollow, ringing futility to recent gardening advice along the lines of ‘use a board to get […]
