If you need to be inspired by the power of composting all over again, just take a look at the figures; the quantity of āwasteā that an ordinary bin can divert from landfill is quite remarkable. I stopped, teetering on the binās rim, about to make a terrible, albeit colourful, mistake. The first post-Christmas hoovering […]
When everyone else is sowing sweet peas in their greenhouses and cold frames in autumn, I have learnt to hold my nerve and bide my time. I know that an autumn sowing is the accepted way, but it has never really worked for me. Perhaps because my greenhouse is not sited in the ideal sunny […]
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Okay of the many tender glasshouse plants Saintpaulias can be one of the trickiest. Yet almost everyone knew an aunt with a massive old African violet enduring on for years blooming almost perpetually. It will have been the original blueish violet flowered Saintpaulia ionantha, and it was probably set on a table in some north […]
Several times over the past few weeks, I have spotted a male Bull Finch among the leafless trees in my garden. It is a beautiful bird with grey, salmon pink and black markings but it can be a pest to gardeners. Normally bullfinches eat grass and weed seeds, but when supplies run low and temperatures […]
There are people who think that writers have an exciting life, full ofĀ jollies, junkets and japes. Nothing could be further from the truth. You see we writers write just to escape all that unnecessary razzmatazz. Itās so much easier living life on a written page, than doing it for real, so we hide away […]
2020 has been set as the target for completely peat-free gardening ā but we need clear directions if weāre to get there in time. There are four years to go. Sixteen of our increasingly blurring, juddery seasons left. And then we gardeners ā and the businesses that profit handsomely from us ā will together make […]
There is almost no month in the year when you canāt be sowing something in the greenhouse, if you really put your mind to it. As if to prove this I have found myself heading down the garden these last dreary days with a packet of onion seed, just like the monster veg growers. The […]
Hartley Botanic is pleased to announce its sponsorship of Perennialās special events programme for 2017. Perennialās special events offer exclusive access to some spectacular gardens across the country, many of which are not usually open to the public. From an exclusive tour and lunch at Belmond Le Manoir aux QuatāSaisons, which features a fabulous Hartley […]
Keep your planters close and your plants closer this winter, says Jean Vernon With the winter about to hit full force, Iāve been contemplating the fate of my many garden planters. The greenhouse is already packed out with overwintering plants and pots of my less than hardy garden beauties. From scented pellies and fabulous fuchsias, […]
Happier as warm greenhouse specimens than as houseplants are the gorgeously flamboyant Peacock and Zebra plants, the Calatheas, from Tropical America. Oh you can force some such as C. insignis or C. zebrina to live in a well lit house but most are much happier in a warmer more humid atmosphere, itās their tropical jungle […]
Winter is a great opportunity to check over hand tools, replacing broken handles and sharpening blades of hoes, shears, loppers and spades. Brush off any soil, clean off rust with wire wool, then use a fine file to flatten notches on the cutting edge. Ā Years ago when I worked on the local Parksā department, Fred, […]
