It is the time for making new year’s resolutions and if I stick to mine there will be some big changes in the greenhouse in the coming year. We are planning on giving up our allotment, a slightly backwards kind of resolution I’ll admit, when everyone else is taking healthy things up, and it hardly […]
This time of year is all about anticipation. As we shop and wrap, we’re building up to a single magic moment when all will be revealed. We’re re-creating the delightful agony we remember from childhood, when we waited day after day for that special moment when we could find out if our presents lived up […]
If you own a greenhouse, where do you keep your tools and supplies, such as trowels, rakes, scoops, shears, pots, potting soil, fertilizers, pesticides, cleaning gear, and other necessities? All these things collectively take up a lot of space, especially in a small greenhouse. Clutter inside a greenhouse competes with and detracts from the plants, […]
One of the earliest flowers I ever encountered was the magnolia. I spent my childhood in Ealing in West London, then known as the Queen of the Suburbs. It was full of Victorian villas and practically every front garden had a tall magnolia with tulip-shaped, pale-pink flowers in spring. These rose into the air to […]
Jean Vernon extols the virtues of the winter evergreens holly and ivy explores some of the myths and legends that relate to some of these seasonal plants. Despite the cold, wet and frosty weather that accompanies winter, there are many beautiful plants that perform during this time to provide essential colour and interest in the […]
I confess—I’m a poinsettia composter. I tried growing them on after the holidays with my other houseplants, and the results were leggy and dismal. Now I’m talking with Kym Pokorny, a gardener, a 20-year veteran garden writer, and communications specialist at Oregon State University Extension Service. She’s always been interested in this iconic holiday plant. […]
Weave magic with willow, for seasonal cheer without an entwined ecological cost. Bar a few rare leaps, my heart is apt to sink at this time of year. Often, it quietly howls, when bemusement turns to anger, then despair. I know it doesn’t sound like I’m brimful of seasonal spirit – winter solstice or Christmas; […]
These days, more than ever, words matter. And in the realm of this column I got to wondering about the meaning of conservatory, which is more complex, it turns out, than the one for greenhouse. The latter is pretty much self-explanatory, a house where green things grow. But on turning to my copy of the […]
For a frost free greenhouse African Corn Lilies are one of the easier tender spring flowers to grow for cutting though left they make a grand display over many weeks. Ixias have been popular in the U.S.A. and other countries since these were first introduced from South Africa a couple of centuries ago yet have […]
The winter months, when apart from popping into the garden to enjoy the winter flowers and harvest vegetables are one time of year when you really appreciate the pleasures of having a greenhouse to potter in. It’s not the busiest period of the year but you can still weed the benches, continue to sow ‘Cut […]
I recently cooked a Thai dinner with ingredients from my greenhouse, including kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lemongrass, Thai basil, and Thai hot peppers. Here are tips on growing each. Kaffir lime is a small tree with serrated leaves that are chopped or sliced into tiny slivers. To harvest these leaves for Asian meals, buy a […]
It is just about time for the dahlias that I planted in pots in the greenhouse in spring to come in for the winter, or else to be prepared for a winter outside. The latter is a bit of a risky game, particularly if we have a winter like last year’s. It chilled many dahlia […]
