âExpertâ advice is good for filling column inches and boosting social media profiles â but much of it is altogether less useful when it comes to getting new gardeners growing. Whatever happened to simplicity, to straightforwardness, to easiness â especially in our gardens and greenhouses? Amid springâs usual gardening febrility, thereâs a noticeable explosion of […]
I regret to say that I only have a modest, unheated Hartley greenhouse, although I fantasise about bigger and better on an almost daily basis. However, my greenhouse serves me well in every season, despite its size, because it captures precocious warmth and sunlight. The air inside is often degrees warmer in winter and early […]
To paraphrase the 18th-century essayist, Alexander Pope, âhope springs eternal in the gardenerâs breast.â Certainly true of this one and others like me across the Front Range, as we keep a watchful eye on the weather, and a hopeful one on our tomato seedlings. Is there anything more redolent of hopeful visions of summer bounty […]
This is a dicey moment in the year for greenhouse plants. Ideally, I would leave my slightly tender ones that have been overwintering in my miniature greenhouse in there a little longer. The temperature is still low, particularly at night, and there is a good chance of a frost still. But this is boom time […]
A month or two ago, I was watching an English whodunnit and was impressed by the country gardens where the story took place, so I decided that this year I would expand my English country-style flower garden. I purchased seeds for hollyhocks, cleome, rudbeckia, coreopsis, primrose, and columbine and planted them in my basement germination […]
The protected environment inside a greenhouse is not just good for the plants. Jean Vernon has a few unwelcome guests to evict. Itâs spring and nature is stirring. The birds are nesting, the bees are emerging, and the garden is surging into growth. Thereâs that earthy smell in the greenhouse with seeds sprouting, cuttings rooting […]
Ipomoea purpurea is another of those greenhouse flowers that annoyingly bloom from early morning to wither and fade after lunch. No problem if youâre retired or at leisure but if away during the working week you can only appreciate their full splendour at the weekend. And, as their common name Morning Glory suggests, only if […]
From now on the weather should begin to warm as spring progresses (note the use of the word âshouldââŚ. you never know these days!). Sow broad beans, spinach, cabbage, calabrese, kohlrabi, cauliflower, lettuce, peas for pods and shoots onions, salad onions, turnip, radish, beetroot, leeks, leaf beet and chard in the greenhouse. From the middle […]
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The Annaâs hummingbirds have been in my Pacific Northwest garden all winter. But this month the rufous hummingbirds return. And all kinds of hummingbirds are returning to gardens all over the U.S. So Iâm talking with my friend Ciscoe Morris, author, garden expert, and media personality about what plants we can purchase from the nursery […]
As fuel prices and the cost of living escalate, greenhouse gardeners â who can grow their own food by plugging into free, infinitely renewable energy â are ahead of the game. Our greenhouses did us proud during the worst, dragging stay-at-home spells of the coronavirus pandemic. They helped restore our spirits, let alone our sanity. […]
I like a touch of wilderness in my gardens and I often try to analyse why, after all Iâm not a country lass by definition. I always tell people that I was born under the gas tower in Southall – not literally you understand. I have to stop trotting this out though for Southallâs gas […]
