One of the most effective ways to generate a multitude of plants is to grow your own from cuttings that will get a good start in the greenhouse. This month, I’m talking with Nancy Connolly Blum, a professional landscape gardener and former owner of the Sawmill Ballroom Lavender Farm in Oregon. Here are the propagation […]
Now that it’s spring in New England, it’s time for planting in the garden the vegetables and flowers that I started weeks ago in the greenhouse. But to do this, I have a special concern. Compared with inland temperatures, my garden in spring is significantly cooler due to winds that blow directly across the still […]
Three days from now it’ll be Earth Day 2024, and thoughts turn to the climate, which of late can be described–at best–as uneven; right now, snow is forecast for tomorrow, but on Earth Day, the sun will shine, and the snow will water the garden as it melts. My one lonely daffodil will be pleased. […]
I picked up a copy of The Times the other day to be met by a headline declaring that the wet weather we’ve been having is affecting our mental health. Yes, we are all feeling under the weather Mr Times, but we’ll all recover once the sun shines again. And so will my garden. It’s […]
Although greenhouse tomatoes have so far seldom been devastated by Blight to anywhere near the same extent as outdoor crops this seems worryingly on the increase. To say little of wilts, rots and the dreaded Mosaic virus. (Interestingly though Mosaic virus infections have decreased with the decline in smoking ie handling tobacco was the source). […]
Sow celeriac, spinach and turnip in modules early in the month. Use peat free seed or finely sieved multipurpose compost; larger seeds like peas and beans can be sown in straight multipurpose compost. Sow half-hardy annuals including climbers for ornamental outdoor displays. Like all greenhouse grown plants, they need ‘hardening off’ ready for transplanting once […]
I have some small lettuce seedlings that I started in the greenhouse and it is time to plant them out and get some summer salads going. The weather has been so very wet here in the southwest of England this spring that the garden is well behind, and the only work that has really occurred […]
Ideally, plants in gardens and greenhouses are designed in layers. And the most neglected layer is right at the bottom—the groundcovers. Using living plant material instead of just mulch makes for easier maintenance, and less weeding. This is true in garden beds and in containers, where shallow-rooted groundcovers do not compete with their deeper-rooted companions. […]
In an increasingly chaotic, frenetic world, we need to find a still centre – and for greenhouse gardeners, there’s one safe zone where we can be sure of feeling grounded. It’s all a bit too much, isn’t it? Too volatile, too costly, too unpredictable, too unsettling, and without a doubt, at times, too downright nasty. […]
In the last nor’easter gale here in Rhode Island, wind gusts reached 60 to 70 mph. Usually, the greenhouse, which is in the lee of my studio, is not affected by northerly winds. But one sunny day this spring I opened the greenhouse windows to lower the interior temperature, which had reached 90°F (32° C). […]
Give your greenhouse an amazing splash of colour through late summer and autumn from sowing the dwarf Pomegranate right now. This natural bonsai is a perfect miniature of the exotic Pomegranate tree only attaining a few inches of height in a year, possibly a metre or more in a decade. Yet despite the tiny growth […]
Anyone that follows my features in the Hartley magazine, knows that I don’t usually encourage new gardeners to grow tomatoes. And that’s because they are precocious little madams that demand constant attention and care. Now I don’t mind mollycoddling plants to ensure that they perform to their full potential, but there are a few booby […]
