Hartley Magazine

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

Getting ready for spring

Peppers, chillies and aubergines should be sown this month. Gardeners who find, that theirs haven’t ripened by late summer, usually sowed too late. The third week in February is ideal; mid-March is fine and the first week in April is the limit. They need light, warmth and constant temperatures for germination; if you can’t provide […]

Erythroniums – Spring’s Tiffany Lamps

If there’s one plant that makes April special in my garden it’s Erythronium californicum  ‘White Beauty’. The creamy flowers have six upturned petals that fly outwards to form a wide lily shape. Seen from above the petals display a cool hint of green as they meet the stem, catching the same glint of green found in the […]

Written in United States

In Praise of Paper Catalogs

Right now, my breakfast table is piled with gardening catalogs for my reading pleasure. And yet, I must ask—in this digital age, why do nursery folks continue to go to the time, trouble, and expense to put these colorful collections of plant offerings into my hands? “Our customers aren’t futurized,” one nursery employee wryly notes […]

GREENHOUSE & GLASSHOUSE TRENDS FOR 2019

BRITISH GREENHOUSE MANUFACTURER HARTLEY BOTANIC REVEALS THEIR PREDICTED GREENHOUSE OWNERSHIP TRENDS FOR 2019  – LESS GOOD LIFE, MORE GOOD LIVING – THE NEW, MULTIFUNCTIONAL ‘GLASS ROOMS’ FOR ENVIROMENTALLY CONSCIOUS YOUNG FAMILIES ENTERTAINING AL FRESCO AND ENJOYING VEG-BASED DIETS – Greenhouses are no longer the exclusive preserve of elderly men with pipes and wellies pottering with […]

New shoots on the high street

Ultra-local, infinitely renewable, and people- and planet-friendly, could gardening be the key to regenerating our town centres? If I owned a clutch of glitzy, can-only-get-there-by-car garden centres, I’d be worried. Not about tremors from our ongoing political crises. Not about the meteorological unknowns that climate breakdown is foisting upon us (bad weather means poor sales, […]

What can I grow in my winter greenhouse?

Jean Vernon explores some of the plants that you can nurture under glass through the depths of the British winter. One of the main reasons for having a greenhouse is to extend the season at both ends. This is especially important over winter and as the season progresses into spring. With the protection of a […]

Written in United States

Immigrant Gardeners and Tastes of Home

Some years ago I wrote a book titled The Art of the Kitchen Garden about the evolution of fruit and vegetable growing and cookery from the 15th to the 18th century. Greenhouses evolved in part, I learned, from the introduction in the 17th century to Europe of the exotic pineapple, which quickly went from oddity […]