Now that greenhouse tomatoes are growing well, remove the side shoots of ‘cordon’ varieties, as they appear, using your finger and thumb, this will create a single productive stem. Keep the compost constantly moist, particularly if you are using growing bags, as the compost dries out rapidly; twice a day is ideal, depending on the […]
With spring in the air it’s a wonderful time to be outdoors. A few days of sunshine reminds us that the hills and vales, the meadows, woodlands, parks and especially our gardens are precious habitats for wildlife. Whether it’s the birds singing in the hedgerow, the bumblebees nesting in the compost heap or the frogs […]
Today Hartley Botanic received a very special RHS medal for their first ever show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Winning any medal is great, but the garden designed by Catherine MacDonald was deemed to be special enough for silver gilt, just one notch down from a gold! The garden features Opus, a newly […]
It’s an important summer season for Hartley Botanic! They have been regular exhibitors at the most important flower show in the world, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, for decades, but 2016 will be their very 1st foray onto Main Avenue with a full show garden. The garden has been designed by the very talented Catherine […]
Perhaps my favourite greenhouse job of the year is releasing the contents of my mini greenhouse into the wider garden. Fly, my pretties, fly! The mini greenhouse receives a tiny bit of heat through the winter, just a low constant from a propagating mat, and this allows me to overwinter some of my favourite plants: […]
I’ve always been interested in bees and thirty years ago I took part in a red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) study in an attempt to map their presence. I was a lot younger then and I sprinted over walls and chased up and down dale trying to find their nests in rural Northamptonshire, with limited success. […]
I recently wrote that for a glasshouse watercress was the most nutritious crop you could grow, and that still stands. However the huge productive capacity under cover can be more efficiently harnessed to produce even more healthy nutrition. And a very succulent, delicious and tasty increase this is; from growing baby salad leaves. You see […]
Dear Weather, please can you consider the date and change from your April angst to something more akin to the month of May flowers. Thank you. The soil is still cold from rainfall and frosty nights, so greenhouse sowings in pots and modules, over the previous weeks will be well rewarded. Outdoors, once the soil […]
Catherine MacDonald, garden designer, tells her Chelsea 2016 story. Having been involved with many show gardens & trade stand gardens over the years this is her first solo design working with Hartley Botanic.
The peat-free message is finally being broadcast far and wide – but it’s gardeners and growers, rather than the gardening media, who are doing the telling.
I’ve been on a bit of a healthy eating binge these last few weeks. It probably started after a pretty nasty illness I picked up on my travels, which left me particularly under the weather. Having wasted away for a few weeks (! Yes really), and then left craving for sugar and sweet things, I […]
It’s going to be quite a year for the ladies at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show with show gardens designed by Anne-Marie Powell, Jekka McVicar, Rosy Hardy and for Hartley Botanic’s 1st ever show garden it’s Catherine MacDonald who will be at the helm. Hartley Botanic MD Johnny Mobasher has long been a fan of […]
