An inspiring new book on the wonder of woodchips is packed with must-try ideas that let you play a part in climate cooling ā even while heating your greenhouse. Gardening books abound, but every once in a while one appears thatās clearly been conceived in earth-friendly gardening heaven. These are the books you feel were […]
I love to garden throughout the year and kneeling down, with a trowel in my hand, seems to get me a direct line to God and Iām not too fussy about which one it is either. I can solve my problems, my friendsā problems and my familyās problems when Iām weeding. The only time my […]
The steppe-like conditions in my garden ā with no rain for the past few months but what seems like an eternity ā puts trees and much else in the garden at risk from what will probably be a brute of a winter, if one believes the old adage that many berries signal a lean, mean […]
Have You Checked Your Soil pH Lately? You probably donāt think much about it, but the pH of your soil ā its acidity or alkalinity ā can matter greatly to how well your plants grow. And what many gardeners donāt realize is that they can be inadvertently altering soil pH every time they water their […]
Jean Vernon explores the magic of the humble seed. Thereās magic in our gardens that is often undervalued. Itās something that gardeners, farmers and growers across the world are mesmerized by. That a tiny speck of seed can grow into a fully formed plant. It never fails to amaze me and is just one of […]
How do you turn a stranger into a friend? You reach out and create a relationship, of course. And if those strangers are tropical plants? Marianne Willburn, author of the book, Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, has light-heartedly and cleverly introduced tropicals by categorizing these plants into five recognizable relationship stagesāfrom summer flings […]
The greenhouse is emptying now, with all of the tender vegetables of summer and autumn well over. The inhabitants from here to spring will be a very different set of plants, not those that need as close to Mediterranean heat as we can give them in this country, as is the case with the aubergines, […]
Itās still not too late to sow batches of winter salads every week or two in an unheated greenhouse. Growing them in trays, pots, old growing bags or borders as ācut and come againā crops to harvest through autumn and into winter. Try hardy salads like land cress, radish, carrots for leaves, any of the […]
A glasshouse gem often seen on a kitchen window sill is the Hot-water plant with its long flowering display of pastel trumpet blooms. Related to Gloxinias several dozen species were introduced from Central America in the late 18C early 19C. These were tropical plants requiring hot house conditions and were soon hybridised to be more […]
