Close your eyes and imagine: earth-friendly gardens are part of an interconnecting web of life stretching far beyond their bounds. If there’s one thing we gardeners excel at, it’s this: life. Sowing it, growing it, giving it, enriching and encouraging it, living alongside and being part of it – life is what we’re about. Being […]
Have you ever considered growing vegetables under lights during winter? It’s an excellent way to extend your current growing season or to get an early start on next spring. But before you decide to invest in creating a winter growing system under lights, some basic information about plants and light will help. Plants depend on […]
Are there plants that you can grow in your garden that will also feed the birds? Jean Vernon explores. Right now, the plants in your garden are approaching the end of their yearly cycle. For annual plants that means they have set and made seeds. Even the perennial plants will have seed heads and pods […]
At this time of year, as summer gives way to autumn, there are glimmers of bright red beginning to appear. The string of black bryony berries, winding their way over the hedges down the lane, are as gaudy as Edna Everage’s highly lacquered spectacles. Tamus communis, our only native member of the yam family, is […]
We are barely scratching the surface of autumn and yet it is time to start putting the greenhouse to some autumnal uses, to which end I have been sowing some flower seeds to give plants a head start on next year, namely: hollyhocks. I live in a street that is blessed by hollyhocks. During high […]
“This morning, when I went to look at my flowers…I saw again in my mind all the blossoms in the woods, the fields, the gardens, the orangeries and the green-houses; and I thought of all that we owe to world of marvels which the bees visit.”  Maurice Maeterlinck, 1909. Not just the bees, I hasten […]
An excellent greenhouse or conservatory foliage plant this much improved once rare variety has recently become more widely available. The original plain green Fatsia japonica has long been useful as a decorative foliage plant for shady cool positions and has proved just hardy enough to go outside in summer or even permanently in sheltered courtyards […]
September began with rainfall in many areas filling up our water butts with the most precious commodity in the world and a welcome relief to all gardeners. It is the time of year when you reap the reward for your labours, with tomatoes, aubergines and peppers ripening rapidly. Begin removing individual leaves around aubergines, peppers […]
