Hartley Magazine

All the latest news, hints, tips and advice from our experts

Share your eco-gardening tips with us & win!

This competition is now closed. Thank you to all who entered. The winners were: Terry Wells, Jon Knight, Rebecca Evans, David Morris & Wendy Collard. We have five copies of John Walker’s latest book Digging Deep in the Garden: Book one (RRP £4.99) to give away, plus five £25 National Garden Gift Vouchers to be […]

PR: Companion Planting & One Very Special New Introduction

It’s going to be quite a year for the ladies at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with show gardens designed by Anne-Marie Powell, Jekka McVicar, Rosy Hardy and for Hartley Botanic’s 1st ever show garden it’s Catherine MacDonald who will be at the helm. Hartley Botanic MD Johnny Mobasher has long been a fan of […]

Ten ways to deal with pests without pesticides

You don’t need pesticides to keep your garden and greenhouse healthy, says Jean Vernon. Here are ten great ways to deal with garden pests without using poisons. Last month I outlined ten reasons not to use pesticides in your greenhouse and garden. So I thought it would be useful to provide ten ways to deal […]

The Hartley Botanic guide to breeding butterflies

The life cycle of a butterfly can be seen as very simple compared with other forms of wildlife. For a butterfly, life starts with the caterpillar, continuing with the pupa stage and ending with the last stage – the actual butterfly. Depending on the species, breeding can be particularly hard, so it is important to know […]

How to help butterflies in your garden

For those that want to help the plight of the UK’s butterfly population, you can support many species of butterfly by encouraging them into your garden. If you want to do so, it’s important to know what kind of plants attract butterflies into certain areas. Adult butterflies will take and feed on nectar from a […]

Do pesticides affect butterflies?

There has been a long standing and increasingly one-sided debate over whether certain pesticides harm both butterfly and bee populations around the world. Since 1975, UK butterflies have faced long-term decline, with up to 70 per cent of species declining in occurrence, and 57 per cent declining in abundance. That said however, not all butterfly […]

Announcing our Children’s Butterfly Colouring Competition!

This competition has now closed. Thank you to all who entered. Entries can be viewed here. As part of our butterfly and wildlife awareness campaign, we are announcing the launch of our Butterfly colouring in competition! Starting on March 3, and ending at midnight on 3rd May 2016 , all you have to do to […]