I’ve got two daughters, Frances and Zoe, and Frances used to spend many a happy hour trying to do tricks with her Paul Daniels’ magic set. She’d arrive, complete with cape, top hat and wand, and then she’d entertain us with varying degrees of success whilst we tried to take it seriously. That was the […]
Aphids beware: the earth-friendly greenhouse gardener has a secret weapon, and it’s homing in on you. Don’t dwell on this for too long – it needs your quick-fire answer: which greenhouse gardening ally found in nature… is an acrobat, entertainer and plant pollinator, doesn’t bite or sting (although it fakes the latter), rids plants of […]
Growing dahlias with relative ease is one of the joys of having a glasshouse. Not that it is impossible to grow them without one – you can stick the tubers straight into the ground if you like – but starting them in the greenhouse gives them the best possible head start, and means that the […]
Some plants, and oddly rather many glasshouse plants, have somewhat misleading common names. This gem has perversely come to be known as Cineraria though it is not a Cineraria but a Senecio. Cinerarias are so named for their soft white downy leaves like cineres the Latin for ashes. Some Senecios also have white or grey […]
Have you noticed that produce has become more expensive in supermarkets lately? One reason is the cost of transporting fruits and vegetables from the southern hemisphere, another is unfavorable recent weather in California, a major supplier of produce, and a third is a decreased number of migrant workers available for harvests. If you’re a greenhouse […]
There’s a lot of unnecessary myth and magic about making garden compost says Jean Vernon First let’s unravel the confusion between the compost that you buy in bags for container plants and growing seeds. This, the trade, is called growing medium and is basically specially formulated to a precise recipe with a variety of ingredients, […]
I once received a breezy Christmas letter with the advice— “Everyone should take their family to the Galapagos.” I fell out laughing. Really? Everyone? What would the Galapagos look like then? And yet, when I walk into the garden of Marietta and Ernie O’Byrne, I understand that letter writer’s impulse. Everyone should see this acre-and-a […]
Plastic-free gardening is an admirable aim, but before we rush headlong down any of the alternative routes, we need to check for pitfalls. As much as gardening is about going forward – at full throttle at this time of year – sometimes it’s also about stepping back. As we champ at the bit to launch […]
There’s one plant I really look forward to in May and that’s the tall, statuesque allium, because they provide strong verticals, round or drumstick heads and vibrant colour. They’re versatile too, because these tall early-summer alliums look equally at home in the vegetable garden, or the flower border, and you can create your own river […]
A conservatory or greenhouse can be a heavenly – and heavily – scented environment when crammed full with perfumed flowers like jasmine, citrus, and countless other plants that hold fragrance in their petals and foliage. Pot pourri is an amalgam of plant parts preserved by drying and blending that will conserve the scent of garden […]
One of the greenhouse crops that I have never quite cracked is aubergines. Perhaps they just need more than I’ve got: time to get them going early enough; patience and light to nurse them through late spring indoors; and then heat in the summer. Obviously with the eternal optimism of the gardener I am fairly […]
