There’s an Instagram-fueled boom in houseplants today, which means I’ve come back into fashion for a while. This tends to happen to me every few decades if I just keep doing what I’ve always done. I come from gardening people, who tend also to be houseplant people. Even in the middle of winter, we’ve always […]
Exciting new plant introductions come on the market every year. And yet, how do we, as home gardeners, know what’s real and what’s fakery, put up by fraudsters who will prey on our desire to grow the latest offering? Wouldn’t that purple-leaf tropical vine look great in the greenhouse? How about a pink-flowering weeping willow? […]
I usually write ‘you need a warm greenhouse for such or such a plant’. Annoyingly in this genus the species you really want, well they really need a hot tall palm house to succeed. Amongst the most impressive displays coming from the tropics the majority of Heliconias are awkwardly a bit on the large size […]
Early October is the time to check your glasshouse, so it is ready when temperatures drop. Pick the last of your last tomatoes, sweet peppers and chillies, and ripen them on a sunny windowsill or in a paper bag with a ripe banana or pear (the already ripe fruit will produce ethylene will ripen your […]
Towards the middle of the month, you won’t be able to escape from the pumpkin! They’ll be festooned outside shops everywhere and, by the end of October, they’ll be blackened by candle soot and perched limply on walls, following the Halloween revels. We think of this festival as an American custom. However the tradition of making […]
