The Flowering Maple was once also popular as a houseplant but now sadly has fallen from favour. Our homes were colder and damper then than most are now and this tender shrub likes it cool definitely not hot and dry. Generally though this is an easy to care for and potentially flowering 365 days a […]
Don’t let the dreaded tomato blight reduce your harvest to mush; Jean Vernon has some timely advice. Anyone who grows tomatoes has probably experienced the highs and lows of the fantabulous greenhouse crop. Let’s be honest, tomatoes are fairly high maintenance. We spend time and effort sowing, growing, repotting, tying in, pinching out and feeding. […]
The weather has been strange this spring, with low temperatures and chilling winds, punctuated by hot days. Gardeners are used to erratic conditions, for sure, but this spring has been very odd. One interesting feature is that drought and dry cold wind have meant the best slug free hostas in the garden for years and […]
Jean Vernon explains how going low-mow is good for your garden’s biodiversity and especially your garden pollinators If you’ve seen the call for no-mow May you might be wondering what it’s all about?? So, let me explain. No-mow May is a bandwagon that anyone with a garden can jump on. It’s a call to let […]
Plants will salve the wounds humans have inflicted on the landscape – but a little citizen rewilding can speed the process… and sow joy. It’s taken two decades for me to fully realise it: I’m gardening – in the foothills of Eryri in North Wales – in a land of industrial, human-made scars. A buzzard’s […]
There’s only one thing I’d like more than my Hartley greenhouse – and that’s another one! And this year my need has been even greater following a dry winter and cool spring – for nothing has grown quite as well as it should. We’re approaching summer, but I still have a traffic jam worthy of […]
It is basil time in the greenhouse. The greenhouse is slowly emptying of seedlings as the weather warms up and I start to feel that it is safe enough to plant some things out, and so that makes room for those plants that will always need the little extra warmth. Basil is one of these […]
Not introduced into our greenhouses and conservatories till 1818 when it was brought from the Cape of Good Hope now known as South Africa. Leadwort, Plumbago, soon became very popular with Victorian gardeners. A lax climbing shrub this can bloom non-stop from the end of winter right through until winter returns again. Without doubt this […]
Early May is the time to sow outdoor cucumbers, marrow, squashes, pumpkins (vertically on edge, not laid flat like a surf board) French and Runner beans and Sweetcorn in gentle heat around 20C in peat substitute seed compost or multipurpose compost individually in 7.5cm pots, ready for planting out once the danger of frost has […]
‘Expert’ advice is good for filling column inches and boosting social media profiles – but much of it is altogether less useful when it comes to getting new gardeners growing. Whatever happened to simplicity, to straightforwardness, to easiness – especially in our gardens and greenhouses? Amid spring’s usual gardening febrility, there’s 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 […]
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 […]
