Tag: patio gardening

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Grow your own figs and grapes

Holidaymakers buying plants or collecting plant material as holiday souvenirs often bring home more than they bargained for and unwittingly transport pests, diseases, or invasive species into the UK; causing lasting, and sometimes irreversible, problems for themselves and UK horticulture as a whole.

Instead, make your holiday excitement last all summer, every year, with UK grown plants that will flourish inside your conservatory or glasshouse, at your garden or allotment. 

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Brilliant plants for bees and butterflies!

The furry bees, colourful butterflies, mysterious moths, darting hoverflies, and other pollinating insects that visit my garden are just as fascinating as the plants I grow.  The sound of bees buzzing and the sight of butterflies fluttering relaxes and inspires me.  I want to help you find the best pollen and nectar-rich plants to attract insects and bring your garden to life!

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Peat free Compost Trial: Growing Broad Beans

Dalefoot Composts have produced the top performing peat free composts in all of the Compost Trials that I’ve run over the past seven years.  Rather than just continually highlighting every year that Dalefoot Composts are the best peat free composts to use, I designed this Compost Trial to demonstrate methods you could use to get the best results from one of their products, namely Dalefoot Double Strength Wool Compost.

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Every year I run Compost Trials to discover the best quality peat-free composts on the market.  Dalefoot Composts have produced the top performing composts in all of my Trials, over the past seven years.

One of my favourite products is Dalefoot’s Double Strength Wool Compost, a nutrient rich, organic compost, comprised of natural materials, including bracken and Herdwick sheep’s wool. 

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November Gardening Tips & Ideas

November is an exciting month, full of opportunities in the garden.  Take time out to enjoy the fleetingly beautiful glory of the moment, as leaves of burnished gold and crimson light up the landscape.  At this time of year, it’s important to plan ahead and to plant trees and bee friendly flowers, for future generations to enjoy.

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Jackie Currie and her National Collection of Allium Species and Cultivars

Garden designer Jackie Currie, runs Euphorbia Design with her business partner, Lorraine Cooke.  Together they design and revitalise gardens in the Surrey area.  Jackie enjoys growing many plants, but her real passion is for Alliums.  She’s utterly devoted to this genus of plants, so much so, that Jackie’s garden and allotments are packed full and beautifully planted with thousands of Alliums. 

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It’s so wonderful to see how plants and gardens can bring people together.  Garden designer, David Neale designed and built the Silent Pool Gin Garden, for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019.  This urban garden celebrates the transformative power of plants, demonstrating how even a small, awkwardly shaped garden, in the centre of town, can be an oasis of calm; a place where city dwellers can relax and unwind. 

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The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019

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. 

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The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019

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. 

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RHS Chelsea Plant of the Year Competition 2019

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show Plant Of The Year Award was first presented in 2010 to promote and celebrate the continuing work of breeders and nurseries in producing improved new plants.  The RHS Chelsea Plant Of The Year Award celebrates and recognises the exciting and diverse range of new plants which are launched at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, every year.

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New David Austin English Roses for 2019

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. 

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I love to visit the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, for me this is the most prestigious and exciting event of the horticultural calendar!  I enjoy seeing Chelsea’s show gardens of every size and style, I am always interested to discover the latest gardening products, and I really look forward to finding new favourite plants, whilst being reminded of old favourites.  I so enjoy visiting Chelsea’s Grand Pavilion, which is filled with over one hundred exhibits created by expert growers, from nurseries that seem to specialise in growing almost every kind of plant.

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It’s so important to appreciate, look after and cherish every square inch of earth, every inch of our planet.  For those living in town centres or cities, or areas where outdoor space is at a premium, it can sometimes be hard to find inspiration of how to green up and make the most of the limited areas of ground, roof, or wall space that are available. 

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The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018

The highlight of the horticultural calendar, The Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show is the world’s most prestigious flower show!  Over the past three weeks, award winning garden designers from all over the world, 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 solidly to transform the Royal Hospital’s grounds at Chelsea into an oasis of gardening ideas and inspiration!

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I love to visit the Grand Pavilion at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show!  This vast arena, which extends to almost three acres in size, is filled with super exhibits created by around one hundred specialist nurseries during the week of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.  It’s such a joy to visit!  If you’re looking for some new plants, and you don’t have a particular variety or species in mind, visiting specialist nurseries, or enjoying a day out at a specialist plant fair, or a flower show, such as the RHS Chelsea Flower Show or the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, can help to connect you with your new favourite plant or plants!

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Daisy Roots is a small, independent nursery, run by Anne Godfrey in Hertfordshire.  Anne Godfrey specialises in growing drought tolerant, hardy perennials and ornamental grasses, which Anne propagates herself from seeds and cuttings, at her nursery in Hertford.  All of the plants sold by Daisy Roots are hardy, healthy, and drought resistant.

Last year, I celebrated Daisy Roots Gold Medal win at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2017, where I loved the beautiful irises, Verbascums, Anthemis, Aquilegias, and ornamental grasses that made up the nursery’s Gold Medal winning display! 

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I have been waiting for this moment for some time now!  I spoke to David Neale in 2015 about his ambition and aspiration to design and build a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, so I was really excited when David told me that he would be building a show garden for the 2018 RHS Chelsea Flower Show!  I have now visited David at the Chelsea Flower Show, I am so happy to tell you, that the Silent Pool Gin Garden was awarded a Silver-Gilt Medal by the RHS judges at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018! 

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New David Austin Roses!

At this time of year, I love to see the new rose buds developing on my favourite roses, as they burst into life and produce the first flowers of the year.  At the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, I am always filled with excitement, as I meet the new introductions from David Austin Roses for the first time! 

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Access Garden Products Classic Growhouses

I used to have a large glasshouse.  I felt so fortunate to be able to enjoy the use of my glasshouse, every day I appreciated the exciting range of crops I could grow inside, and the extended growing season and more bountiful harvest that my glasshouse helped to provide me with.  I was so grateful, excited, and so inspired by the vast array of glorious fruit and vegetables that I grew inside my glasshouse. 

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Inside the Floral Marquee at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2017, I met Jackie Currie, a passionate Allium expert and Garden Designer, from Surrey.  The RHS judges presented Jackie with a Silver-Gilt Medal, for her first ever exhibit at Hampton Court, which featured a selection of Alliums, from Jackie Currie’s National Collection of Alliums.

Beth: Congratulations on your beautiful Allium exhibit and your success here at Hampton Court, Jackie!