I adore orchids and houseplants. I get so much enjoyment from being surrounded by foliage and flowers and I simply love growing orchids and houseplants. Since Brexit, the range of orchid nurseries open to UK customers has dramatically reduced. Thankfully, we still have a number of UK nurseries who are growing orchids in Britain. Love Orchids are a small family-run, British company, based in Southern England.
Yesterday afternoon when I logged onto Twitter, the first thing I saw was an open letter on the use of peat signed by some well-known professional horticulturists and illustrated with a picture of Peter Seabrook. Earlier this year, I responded to some of the claims Peter Seabrook made about peat in Hort Week; today I’m responding to the claims made by the following professional horticulturists in an open letter, which was published by Garden Trade News.
Welcome to my Autumn & Winter Snowdrop Gardens, Talks, Events, and Open Days Calendar! I want to help you discover the most beautiful and magnificent snowdrop gardens. These gardens open to allow visitors the chance to experience the joy of visiting their snowdrop collections. However, it’s not just garden openings in this calendar, you’ll also find details of snowdrop talks, lectures, webinars, virtual and online events, and any other lovely snowdrop events happening this autumn, winter, and spring!
I hold two National Collections of orchids – a National Collection of Miniature Aerangis and Angraecum Species and a National Collection of Miniature Phalaenopsis Species. I set up these collections to raise awareness of the dangers that these miniature orchid species (and other plants) are facing in the wild and to help conserve these fascinating plants.
I’m supporting Peat Free April – a campaign by garden writers, nature writers, and gardeners who want to ban the use of peat in horticulture and protect the planet’s peatlands and peat bogs.
We really need your help to push the government to protect peat bogs and peatlands, so please sign this petition to ask the government to ban the use of peat in horticulture.
Here’s my calendar with the dates and details of plant sales, festivals, and other super opportunities to buy wonderful, locally grown plants! Great quality, rare, hard to find, unusual, choice plants and old favourites can all be found at the specialist plant fairs, plant sales, plant and seed swaps, and other events that I have listed for you below.
Welcome to the Planting List for my Tall Orchidarium. This is a planting list with a difference! To find out more about a particular orchid, simply click on the orchid’s profile for more information, where you’ll also find links to every article about that particular orchid species on pumpkinbeth.com. Some individual orchids can be followed, as they grow from young seedlings to mature flowering plants.
I love snowdrops. If you wish to grow snowdrops in your garden, then I want to make your dreams come true and help you to find the best places to purchase these wonderful plants!
It’s important to buy quality snowdrops from reputable suppliers, firstly to ensure that you receive the snowdrop variety that you’ve purchased, and secondly to avoid purchasing bulbs that have been taken from the wild.
This is Deinostigma tamiana, a truly marvellous plant that thrives inside terrariums and bottle gardens. Deinostigma tamiana is a Gesneriad species from Vietnam. If you’ve not seen it before, yet Deinostigma tamiana looks somewhat familiar, it’s probably because these plants are related to African violets (Saintpaulias).
Growing Deinostigma tamianaDeinostigma tamiana is an easy going, adaptable plant that’s content growing in a range of terrarium environments.
Peatlands are extraordinary environments, which now cover just 2-3% of our planet’s surface. Home to a fascinating range of native plants and wildlife, peatlands form unique ecosystems that support incredible flora and fauna. Many of the plants, insects, birds, and wildlife that have evolved in these boggy, acidic areas can’t survive anywhere else.
Happy new year! Happy new plants! Here are the dates and details of plant sales, plant festivals, plant swaps, seed swaps, and other super opportunities to buy wonderful, locally grown plants at fantastic prices; as well as details of events where you can swap plants or seeds for free! Great quality, rare, hard to find, special, and unusual plants can be found at the specialist plant fairs and other events that I have listed for you below, in this, my 2020 Calendar of UK Specialist Plant Fairs, Festivals, Sales, and Swaps!
If your garden is indoors and you’ve no outside space it can be difficult to find specialist plant fairs that sell orchids, cacti, and other indoor plants. I’ve created this calendar to help you find these events, so you can turn your home into a plant filled oasis!
To see my 2022 calendar of Specialist Plant Fairs, Festivals, Sales, and Swaps, please click here.
Happy new year! Happy new plants! Here are the dates and details of plant sales, plant festivals, plant swaps, seed swaps, and other super opportunities to buy wonderful, locally grown plants at fantastic prices; as well as details of events where you can swap plants or seeds for free!
I always look forward to seeing Medwyn and Gwenda Wiliams, they’re such lovely people. So, it was wonderful to be with Medwyn and Gwenda, to celebrate their amazing 12th consecutive Gold Medal win, for their incredible display of vegetables, at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019!
It’s quite an amazing feat to produce full size vegetables at the end of May, when many growers haven’t yet sown most of their seeds and don’t dare to plant their tomatoes or anything tender outside, for fear of frost!
One of the loveliest things about the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is getting the chance to see amazing plants and having the opportunity to speak to plant experts. If you’re interested in Rhododendrons and Azaleas, David Millais is the man to talk to. David’s the Chairman of the Rhododendron, Camellia, and Magnolia Group, and the owner of Millais Nurseries in Churt, near Farnham, in Surrey.
A highlight of the horticultural calendar, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show runs from Tuesday 21st May 2019, to Saturday 25th May 2019.
In preparation for the show, over the past three weeks, award winning garden designers, together with their teams, made up of some of the best landscape architects, project managers, builders, technicians, horticulturalists, artists, and crafts people, have been working tirelessly to transform the Royal Hospital’s grounds at Chelsea, into a plant filled oasis.
I am always hoping to meet a new favourite plant at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, but as well as plants, I enjoy finding some of my favourite people at Chelsea. Jonathan Hogarth is one of my favourites; he’s utterly bonkers about Hostas! Jonathan holds a National Collection of Miniature Hostas, he also runs Hogarth Hostas – a specialist Hosta nursery.
May is a wonderful month, enhanced by the uplifting serene, perfect green of all the wonderful new leaves, as they open on trees and shrubs, and the expectation and hope of the arrival of rose and peony flowers. I love to see the first rose buds of the year developing on my favourite roses.
2019 Calendar of Specialist Plant Fairs, Festivals, Sales, and Swaps
Happy new year! Happy new plants! Here are the dates and details of plant sales, plant festivals, plant swaps, seed swaps, and other super opportunities to buy wonderful, locally grown plants at fantastic prices; as well as details of events where you can swap plants or seeds for free!
To head straight to my 2022 Snowdrop Events Calendar, please click here.
Welcome to my 2019 Snowdrop Gardens, Talks, Events, and Open Days Calendar! Here are the dates, and all the details of the openings of some of the most beautiful and magnificent snowdrop gardens across the UK, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, and Germany; these gardens are all opening especially, to allow visitors to experience the joy of seeing their snowdrop collections.
