Red Mason Bees emerge from hibernation this month. These bees don’t sting. Male Red Mason Bees have white hairy faces, they awaken first, followed by the dark-faced females; both are ginger in colour. After mating, the female Red Mason Bee chooses a nest site, often a hole in a wall, a bee brick, old bramble stem, or nest box. The female works tirelessly gathering mud to construct a chamber in the back of a hollow stem or tube.
Welcome to the third part of my overview of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 (see part one here and part two here)……
Pieter and Ben, from Dutch Grown, have very kindly sent me a range of their bulbs to try out.
When these bulbs arrived, all of my containers were already allocated to specific trials, so I am incredibly grateful to my wonderful friends, Terry and Nicky, who were absolute superstars and saved the day by lending me a number of their pots.
Earlier this year, Greenhouse Sensation sent me a Quadgrow Self Watering Planter to try. If you’ve not seen a Quadgrow before, it’s a plastic container growing system (made from recycled plastic) that uses capillary action to provide plants with automatic watering. This clever design alters the way we irrigate plants. Instead of watering plants in the traditional sense (watering plants from above with a watering can), with the Quadgrow we deliver the water and nutrients right where they’re needed – at the plants’ roots.
Over the past few years, we’ve all become more aware of the dangers of our over use of plastic and the damage that this material can do to us, our environment, and to creatures of all shapes and sizes who live in the rivers, oceans, and in the landscape around us. For the most part, the horticultural sector has taken their time to address the horticultural industry’s use of plastic.
Welcome to the second part of my overview of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019. (If you missed the first part of my Chelsea overview, click here to see the first instalment.)
The Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show is the world’s most prestigious flower show. Held in the Royal Hospital’s grounds, at Chelsea, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a great place to find inspiration and ideas for your home and garden.
An asparagus bed is one of life’s luxuries; an area of ground dedicated solely to the production of one glorious vegetable! It may seem an extravagance, but I can assure you that an asparagus bed is 100% worth the investment, as freshly harvested asparagus is a true delicacy. Home-grown asparagus, cooked a short while after harvesting, is a vastly superior vegetable to shop-bought stuff, its sweet flavour is utterly delectable!
This weekend the annual Orchid Festival opened at Kew Gardens. This is the 24th Orchid Festival to be held inside the Princess of Wales Conservatory, at Kew. Each year the Orchid Festival has a different theme, this year, Kew’s Orchid Festival celebrates the colour and vibrancy of Colombia! Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet.
I love growing fruit, vegetables, and herbs. We’ve all got our favourite heritage tomatoes, but have you tried any new tomato varieties? Last year, I grew lots of new tomato varieties, as part of my quest to discover the most delicious and productive tomato cultivars available to gardeners!
The objectives of this Tomato Trial were to identify delicious, productive, disease resistant tomato varieties, and to discover whether any of the trialled tomato cultivars perform differently when planted in the ground or grown in a container.
I am a sentimental old soul, I treasure so many things that most folk would not think twice of throwing away. I also keep things, just in case they become useful one day. Yes, you could describe me as a hoarder!
I love our planet. I love fields, meadows, glades, forests, hills, marshlands, bogs, mountains, streams, rivers, and oceans. I love to see wildflowers growing in the wild.
The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show features an array of award winning specialist nurseries, this is a fabulous place to buy plants! Whether you’re looking for South African plants, hardy plants, drought tolerant plants, indoor plants, air plants, orchids, ferns, ivy, clematis, herbaceous perennials, bulbous plants, or succulents, you’re sure to find your favourite at this special show!
One of the gardens that I was most excited to visit at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2017, was the RHS Kitchen Garden.
The Royal Horticultural Society commissioned Garden Designer Juliet Sargeant to design this special Feature Garden, to demonstrate the many interesting methods that gardeners can use to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers. The RHS Kitchen Garden has been designed to showcase the extensive variety of beautiful, edible plants that are available for us to grow and eat.
City Living was designed by Kate Gould and built by Kate Gould Gardens. The RHS judges presented this Fresh Garden with a Gold Medal, and the prestigious title of Best Fresh Garden, at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2017!
Garden designer Kate Gould is passionate about greening up derelict, uncared for and unloved inner city spaces. Kate is so passionate about Greening Grey Britain, that she has self funded the entire build for this Fresh Garden, at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2017, to inform others as to how they can improve their city living.
Teacher Simon Pugh-Jones started the Writhlington Orchid Project over twenty-five years ago. This amazing project has given students at the Writhlington School the opportunity to learn more about the science of growing orchids, providing the students with hands on experience of maintaining, propagating and extending, the Writhlington Orchid Project’s orchid collection.
The students working on the Writhlington Orchid Project have been given some amazing opportunities, from experiencing the beautiful, natural habitats where the orchids they grow are found naturally in the wild, to setting up orchid labs in Rwanda, Laos, and Sikkim, where the students and staff, share and pass on their orchid expertise with schools in each locality through talks and workshops, to learning about orchid conservation, to creating award-winning exhibits and displays for RHS flower shows.
Every year at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, you’ll find a wealth of plant knowledge and expertise inside the Great Pavilion, where specialist nurseries, expert growers, and plants people, come together from all over the world, to showcase some of the special plants they grow and love.
Here’s a look at some of the nurseries and exhibits that were inside The Great Pavilion, at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2016…….
The garden is fascinating at this time of year. I love the wonderful sound of the birds singing, and I just relish the scents of honeysuckle, roses, and other flowers; even the scent of the grass is so relaxing.
If you get time to put your feet up it’s the ideal time to pre-order bulbs, corms, and tubers from specialist nurseries to plant this autumn.
