If you cultivate an enlightened attitude to wild plants instead of trying to eradicate them, your garden can share in their success. Put ‘kill dandelions’ into a search engine and up flash nigh on half a million ‘hits’. A good chunk of these include advice on exterminating dandelions using chemical weedkillers (especially the worldwide pollutant […]
Make Your Own Bumble Bee Nest with our DIY Guide Over recent decades numbers of bumblebees have begun to decline, one of the main causes of this being the changes in agricultural practises that have removed the numbers of flowering plants, giving bumblebees little to feed on. One of the main ways we can try […]
Without a greenhouse you can easily produce a near miraculous wonder crop. Indian cress grows luxuriantly from late spring till the autumn frosts almost anywhere, however under cover you will enjoy it for much much longer and without the weather damaging the flowers or pretty foliage. If this were a new discovery you would be […]
This year’s garlic suffered from leek rust due to the damp spring and the crop is poor. The orange pustules over the leaves appeared early and became so bad that the foliage died before the ‘bulb’ had time to develop. I was growing a variety, that’s normally at home in mid France, just to see […]
Hartley Botanic Inspires Children to Build Their Own Greenhouses at Primary School It is not every day that a greenhouse manufacturer gets to help out and inspire school children, but last month, that’s exactly what Hartley Botanic did. After receiving a request for brochures from Mr Lane, a KS2 teacher at Edwards Hall Primary School […]
Our Hampton Court Flower Show List Every year we get asked about the amazing flowers we have on display with our greenhouses at the biggest flower shows around the country. This week we are at Hampton Court so we thought we would share with you just what flowers we are using to get that award […]
A little while ago I wrote here about my hopes and plans for a cut flower border at the allotment. We were putting in the new polytunnel, and there was a bit of a lost space in front of it. I wanted that space – right at the front of the plot, on the path […]
“A Buzzing Hotel that helps the environment” Here at Hartley Botanic, we know how important it is to look after the animals and insects that are found within our gardens. Working in conjunction with John Walker the expert in earth-friendly gardening we developed this fun guide to help you create the most important hotel for […]
Back in the 21st century, food security was taken out of our hands, and all but destroyed. But our keepers haven’t just saved seeds and knowledge – they’ve saved hope. As he peered over the edge, Noah’s long golden curls floated on a warm, skyward breeze smelling all at once of cabbages, beans and onions. […]
OK, it’s bees again, but not just honeybees, this time it’s bumblebees and solitary bees too. Without these little heroines (sorry chaps but it really is the girls that do that work), we would have a real dearth of food on our plates and the classic quote, always attributed to Einstein, but in my opinion […]
Unless you’re growing plants for their ornamental seed heads or want to save seed for the following year, ‘deadheading’ by removing the fading flower heads, extends the flowering season. It stops them from wasting energy producing unwanted seeds and prevents those that self seed freely, like ‘Lady’s Mantle’ or ‘Love in a mist’ from becoming […]
Whereas many greenhouse plants are essentially decorative or useful basils may be both. Crucial fresh as an essential culinary herb a pot or several of basil can also be rather attractive especially the small leaved sorts. Indeed pots of manicured small leaved basil can substitute for box topiary during the summer. To be fair though […]
