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 […]
I was trudging home from the drugstore on a sidewalk damp with melting snow under the weight of a February sky, and there they were: snowdrops. The flowers, not quite open, dangled from their delicate stalks above the gray mulch like little freshwater pearls. No long-stemmed rose in a floristās shop can outshine a snowdrop. […]
Whether you are vegan looking for homegrown plant protein, or want to get the kids interested in plants ā Peanuts may be the answer Iāve always been fascinated by peanuts. And Iāve tried a few times to grow my own. The trouble has been getting viable seed, or basically peanuts that havenāt been roasted, irradiated […]
After twenty years or so of giving talks and lectures about greenhouses and plants, I have found that there are a few questions that potential owners often ask. Probably the most common question is, āHow large a greenhouse should I buy?ā If the questioner is an experienced gardener, my answer is, āBuy the largest greenhouse […]
One of the first tasks of my greenhouse year is to start waking up those plants that have been tucked away in them all winter. Mine being an unheated greenhouse, my overwintering is only of plants that have some level of hardiness already, plants such as pelargoniums, aeoniums and other succulents that would even survive […]
A few weeks ago, Debra Prinzing and I met up when we were both speaking at the Good Earth Home and Garden Show in Eugene, Oregon. Debraās the founder of SlowFlowers.com and producer and host of the Slow Flowers weekly podcast, whose main message is to buy your flowers locally and sustainably. But this time […]
Our new Bespoke Magnum Opus reception is ready to welcome visitors to our UK factory.
Few flowers are so brilliant as greenhouse or floristās Azaleas. Coming in a profusion of varieties these are especially welcome bursts of colour throughout late winter. Such vivid blooms come in whites through velvety pinks to extreme reds on neat compact, usually, evergreen plants. Of course just as with their outdoor cousins our indoor Azaleas […]
From early February onwards, itās time to sprout (or āchitā) new potatoes. Put them in a tray or egg box with the āroseā end, upwards (where all the buds or āeyeāsā are clustered), at about 7C (45F). After four to five weeks the shoots should be about 5cm (2ā) long and they will be ready […]
Keeping honeybees to save the bees just wonāt cut it and hereās why, says Jean Vernon. Bees, as we know, are in deep trouble. Dubbed the modern coalmine canary; their spiraling demise has scientists, naturalists and environmentalists running scared. Become a beekeeper?? The knee jerk reaction by many well-meaning bee supporters has been to take […]
Itās time for some citizen gardening: instead of glib media soundbites about using peat-free compost, letās crowd-source the low-down on what actually works. This spring needs a gardening health warning: there may be ill-judged and unwise information ahead, and we need to be on the lookout for it. Big, positive things will be happening in […]
This winter, we have decided to move the nectarine into the glasshouse ready for spring and summer. This is perhaps not as major an undertaking as it sounds, as the nectarine is a dwarf called āNectarellaā which only grows to 1.5m in height (and can easily be kept even smaller than that). It has also […]
