Ideally you need a warm sunny greenhouse for Plumeria to thrive for if you keep these happy they’ll reward you with months of the most delicious blooms each so heavily perfumed you almost want to eat them (please don’t, they’re likely poisonous). Their common name Frangipani was taken from an Italian Renaissance nobleman who blended […]
Aubergines and tomatoes that have finished cropping, as some of mine have, can be composted, creating more space in the greenhouse border and between pots on the bench, admitting more sunlight and improving air circulation around the plants that remain. Early in the month, remove individual leaves around aubergines, peppers and cucumbers and continue feeding […]
One of the glorious things about gardening is that you’re always thinking ahead, so I’m dreaming about the glories of next year just as the garden begins to fade. I’m planning to grow sweet peas again, because they are the ultimate cut and come again flower. Just a few stems on the kitchen table fragrance […]
Let locally adapted self-seeders run wild, and watch your garden come alive. It’s been a wild summer in my garden – in every sense. Diminished gardening time has meant that many plants and projects have run away from me, unleashed and untamed, egged on by peaks of heat and unseasonal lashings of rain. Stuff has […]
The sun is still high and the greenhouse lush and jungly, but it is time to start looking ahead to winter, and to what I will be eating from the garden then. The greenhouse must be pressed into service for nurturing young plants again, if I can only find some space… Happily with the weather […]
Jean Vernon explains the whys and wherefores of deadheading your garden plants It’s a term bandied about a lot in summer – deadheading. But what does it actually mean and why do we need to do it? Deadheading is all about keeping your summer plants flowering, more specifically your annual plants but not always. It’s […]
A classic greenhouse and conservatory flowering shrub Nerium oleander has adorned gardens in its native Mediterranean since Classical times. First noted as ‘introduced’ here in the sixteenth century Neriums became popular in early glasshouses for their very long flowering period. More so when they found Oleanders will force out of season. Thus Neriums soon became […]
Blossom End Rot, where the end of tomatoes becomes circular, black and flattened, occurs in peppers and aubergines, squashes and watermelons but is most often seen in tomatoes. It is caused by lack of calcium in the fruits. Plants in soil, growing bags and potting composts rarely lack a supply of calcium but what they […]
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 […]
As global heating escalates, we can’t go on gardening as usual. It’s time for disruptive gardeners’ questions – and for some serious answers from our ‘experts’. ‘Thought I’d never make it!’ A middle-aged, tanned and fragrant woman slid in through the back door. ‘What’s going on out the front?’ She dabbed sweat from her forehead. ‘We’re […]
Every day now we are reaping the rewards of the greenhouse and having fresh and green summer veg for our lunch. The harvesting itself is not necessarily from the greenhouse right now – though there is a little of that as the pots of strawberries that we put in there to protect them from the […]
It’s time to fall in love with snails. Jean Vernon unravels some of the myths and magic regarding these creatures Snails? What good are they? I hear you ask? Well you might be very surprised what different roles these unassuming characters play not just in your garden but in the greater environment too. Food stuff […]
