Gardeners love a September day, when morning mist and heavy dew give way to warm afternoon sunshine. It’s more than that though: the garden is bathed in a crystal clear light that flatters colour and there’s a relaxed air. No need to rush, the garden’s winding down and so am I. I always liken early […]

I had rather a large birthday recently, the sort you want to keep a deep, dark secret! I’ve seen a variety of gardening styles and, although I’m not quite old enough to remember Dig for Victory, I do remember the self-sufficient gardens of the 1950s, the low-maintenance shrub gardens of the 1960s, the conifers of […]

Myth and magic are woven through gardening, like multicoloured ribbons round a maypole. Folklore is handed down through the generations. My grandmother told me, quite explicitly, that potatoes must be planted on Good Friday and that leeks must have their roots trimmed, having learnt it from her father, little knowing that her ideas went straight […]

The wonderful thing about having a Hartley greenhouse is it allows you to go forth and propagate! Propagation appeals to me on so many levels. The Yorkshire part of my heritage admires the fact that I can raise plants for virtually nothing. The Christian enjoys the fact that this quote about ‘going forth and propagating’ […]

The Best Beloved and I are like chalk and cheese and I often wonder if there’s a mischievous sprite up above joining people in matrimony who are entirely unsuited. I’m all hustle-bustle and I get everything done as soon as it occurs to me. My mouth operates at the same speed. He ( on the […]

There is nothing quite like a home-grown, sun-warmed tomato picked fresh from the greenhouse and a fair few of mine never reach the table when the grandchildren are sent out to hunter gather! We grow lots of different types from cherry, to plum, to beefsteak, to medium-sized and round and, although we major on reds, […]

As a young thing I used to wear incredibly short miniskirts, known as pelmets by friends and family. I trained as a teacher and when it came to getting a job I went for a fair few interviews. I emerged without one job offer, despite having done well on the course, mainly due to the […]

The great advantage in having a Hartley greenhouse is stealing a march on time. It may be a chilly outside, with a biting easterly wind, but it’s always toasty under glass so you can start to sow earlier in the year. If you can keep the temperatures at an ambient 10 -17C, with ventilators or […]

As a busy journalist you get to meet a lot of gardeners and garden lovers and sometimes they make an enormous impact on me, despite the fact that I may only spend a short time in their company. The late Felix Dennis, who passed away in 2014, was one such person. He had built up […]

I think I’m enormously lucky to be in the world of plants, because the people who grow them are always nurturing and kind. I made this discovery in my twenties when I joined the Hardy Plant Society – some forty odd years ago. They had a seed exchange ( and still do) and I wanted […]

Towards the middle of the month, you won’t be able to escape from the pumpkin! They’ll be festooned outside shops everywhere and, by the end of October, they’ll be blackened by candle soot and perched limply on walls, following the Halloween revels. We think of this festival as an American custom. However the tradition of making […]

One of the great things about owning a Hartley greenhouse is the sense of escape in a modern world fraught with difficulty. It’s like your own miniature TARDIS and when you walk down the garden path and through the door you’re lost in another world. It doesn’t matter about the vagaries of the British climate […]