In recent times the modern planting style has been airy and light, dare I say as frothy as badly drawn beer. It’s led to an explosion of umbels, a term short for umbellifers, in show gardens and gardens alike. These plants have an arrangement of tiny, nectar-rich flowers arranged in a variety of ways. The […]
At the start of the New Year gardeners and greenhouse owners keep a close eye on nature’s clock. As the sun rises and sets to create a few extra minutes of daylight each and every day, so the sun returns to our gardens and gradually warms the soil. Every extra moment of daylight is a […]
A sanctuary under glass, your greenhouse offers an escape from the winter weather – and the world. The rising clatter is intense, drowning out every other sound, a roaring mix of what a raging waterfall and what – I imagine – an avalanche sound like. The latter’s a decent guess; the greenhouse roof is being […]
It may be the depths of winter but it will not be very long at all until it is time to start sowing Brussels sprouts. This is how the year turns and surprises us: come February, just a few short weeks away, it will be time to sow. I realise I must get my early-sowing […]
Amongst the benefits a glasshouse offers can be year round flowers for cutting. Cut flowers are more expensive to purchase than most fruits and vegetables so really deserve some attention. And one of the best cut flowers for sheer endurance once cut is the Chincherinchee. Ornithogalum thyrsoides is a bulbous plant of the Lily family […]
‘If the soil sticks to your shoes it is too wet’ but if conditions allow, now’s a good time to lightly fork over your flower borders, avoiding the crowns of perennials and emerging bulbs mixing in a layer of leaf mould or compost you go. This will improve the soil and relive compaction at the […]
I am reaching the very end of the tomato crop that I grew in the glasshouse and polytunnel this summer, the last few that I picked green when the weather started to turn cold, and then left to ripen in a paper bag in a draw. I have checked them whenever I have remembered and […]
With just two years left until the 2020 target for all gardening to be peat-free, it’s now obvious that ‘the market’ should never have been trusted to lead the way. Let’s hit pause on pantomime season, and jog our memories. This is from Richard Benyon, the then Natural Environment Minister, in December 2010: ‘The horticultural […]
At the back end of the year the plants that draw my eye at Spring Cottage, more than any other, are the grasses because low winter sunlight shows them off really well once most of the garden has faded. Some form beaded, gossamer veils and others are like strong punctation marks. Others swirl and curl, […]
As many of you may know I live in the wonderfully named village of Cold Aston, up above Bourton on the Water, and it lives up to its name wonderfully well because it’s chilly throughout the year. Many gardeners get my village mixed up with Cold Aston near Bath, the home of Derry Watkin’s Special […]
You need a greenhouse to crop Feijoas though not to grow these as ornamental evergreen shrubs. For these are fairly hardy, tougher than thought. I’ve had a couple surviving outdoors here in Norfolk for twenty plus years which have never fruited. First introduced from S. America in 1898 these are found in Botanic gardens though […]
I know that autumn is looming. The French partridges have started sunning themselves on my low stone walls and they’re so tame and plump, having been reared in cages for dare I say the shooting season, that they only fly off when I’m feet away. They’re the Liz Taylors of the game birds, with exotic […]
