These stately palms have long been seen in many fin de siècle drawing rooms, as backdrops on film sets and at all sorts of large events, indeed as often as simply decorating conservatories and greenhouses. Discovered on Lord Howe Island off the coast of New South Wales this Australian palm, Howeria, rapidly became incredibly popular […]
If you missed sowing broad beans in autumn, sow some now under glass for an early summer harvest, 5-8cm apart and 2.5cm deep in deep trays of multipurpose compost or singly in small pots. Put them in a cool frost-free greenhouse, and harden them off before planting outdoors in early spring. Use the hardy varieties […]
It is the time for making new year’s resolutions and if I stick to mine there will be some big changes in the greenhouse in the coming year. We are planning on giving up our allotment, a slightly backwards kind of resolution I’ll admit, when everyone else is taking healthy things up, and it hardly […]
One of the earliest flowers I ever encountered was the magnolia. I spent my childhood in Ealing in West London, then known as the Queen of the Suburbs. It was full of Victorian villas and practically every front garden had a tall magnolia with tulip-shaped, pale-pink flowers in spring. These rose into the air to […]
Jean Vernon extols the virtues of the winter evergreens holly and ivy explores some of the myths and legends that relate to some of these seasonal plants. Despite the cold, wet and frosty weather that accompanies winter, there are many beautiful plants that perform during this time to provide essential colour and interest in the […]
Weave magic with willow, for seasonal cheer without an entwined ecological cost. Bar a few rare leaps, my heart is apt to sink at this time of year. Often, it quietly howls, when bemusement turns to anger, then despair. I know it doesn’t sound like I’m brimful of seasonal spirit – winter solstice or Christmas; […]
For a frost free greenhouse African Corn Lilies are one of the easier tender spring flowers to grow for cutting though left they make a grand display over many weeks. Ixias have been popular in the U.S.A. and other countries since these were first introduced from South Africa a couple of centuries ago yet have […]
The winter months, when apart from popping into the garden to enjoy the winter flowers and harvest vegetables are one time of year when you really appreciate the pleasures of having a greenhouse to potter in. It’s not the busiest period of the year but you can still weed the benches, continue to sow ‘Cut […]
It is just about time for the dahlias that I planted in pots in the greenhouse in spring to come in for the winter, or else to be prepared for a winter outside. The latter is a bit of a risky game, particularly if we have a winter like last year’s. It chilled many dahlia […]
As the seasonal tide of merchandise threatens to engulf us, have we reached a tipping point? It’s time to start saying no to stuff. It didn’t make much of a thud, it didn’t shatter into a thousand gratifying pieces, and it hasn’t done anything for my faith in gardening being a force for good in […]
One of the first things I did when I moved to Cold Aston, some fourteen years ago, was to plant five fruit trees. I chose three apples and two pears, but I’ve had far more success with apples than pears. You see, apples cope well with my chilly conditions and we’ve been eating ‘Pitmaston Pine-apple’ […]
Until plastic started washing up on our beaches and hitting the television screens with heart wrenching scenes of wildlife entangled in rubbish, plastic was fantastic. In many ways it still is fantastic, it’s not really the plastic that’s the problem, its what we do with it and how we dispose of it. For such a […]
