The news is full of stories of invading ladybirds riddled with sexually transmitted disease, spiders with venomous bites and robotic bees. Is it time we just managed without insects asks Jean Vernon? What is the point of insects? What do they do? They bite or sting. They spread diseases. They eat our food. Can’t we […]
Close the loop: a modest, well-mannered shredder can convert tough green ‘waste’ into mulching magic, and let you keep all of your garden’s fertility on site. I’ve just been absorbed in a day of magical, hands-on fun in balmy autumn sunshine. Serenaded by a gentle clatter of falling oak leaves, and by the sudden, startling […]
Because the temperature in my greenhouse can reach 140oF on a sunny summer day, most of my greenhouse plants spend the summer on my patio. Come fall, however, these plants must be moved back into the greenhouse. For them, it’s rather like returning to an indoor home after enjoying summer at the cooler, breezier beach. […]
Stained glass windows have been around a good deal longer than Glasshouses, yet it would seem that the two have something to offer each other. Wafting around the National Botanic Garden of Ireland in September I was fulfilling a bucket list item; I’d long known about but never visited the graceful Curvilinear Range and its […]
We have an evictee from the greenhouse. This is chilli ‘Lemon Drop’, who was sown too late to ever really amount to anything, and so – fair enough – went on to do little. You can see that chillies are now starting to form, but this is not exactly a bumper crop. However it could […]
Recently, while walking through the aisles of the Independent Garden Center trade show in Chicago, I discovered a product I’d never seen before—containerized hedges. A row of neatly sheared plants outlined the booth. Clearly, they were field-grown and root pruned, their branches naturally intermingling. It was a living privacy wall you could buy. It would […]
There’s no question about it. I have too many hellebores in my garden. I know this is true because the famous nurseryman, Bob Brown, once came to my garden and exclaimed in basso profundo “too many hellebores Val.” The late Christopher Lloyd, of Great Dixter, went even further and called people like me helle-bores. Fortunately […]
A Michigan cottage I often visited as a child had an old deer head over the door known as George. He’d been there for decades and his antlers were used as a hat rack. But he had an ancient, moth-eaten dignity about him, and I always think of George when I see a grand staghorn […]
A tub of Coral Drops can add one of the very brightest splashes of colour to your greenhouse or conservatory from late summer till early winter. Very easy to bring into flower and then continuing over weeks even months this was introduced from Mexico in 1850 and soon became popular in great gardens. Then as […]
Sow sweet peas indoors from October to November. Soften the seed coat, by putting the seeds on a layer of kitchen towel on a dinner plate, put another layer on top. Dampen the towel, drain off excess water and sow as soon as they begin to swell or sprout, usually after about 48 hours. Those […]
