As autumn’s whisper reverberates through our landscape, many plants are now fading, as they respond to the changing season and become rapidly aged by the ever lengthening nights’ embrace. This is a season of salvage, protection, and celebration; it’s time to bring tender plants inside our homes, conservatories, and glasshouses, and to gather in our harvest.
Would you like some free plants? If you’ve got a gloriously healthy evergreen shrub or a magnificent tree growing in your garden, then why not take semi-ripe cuttings to increase your stock and share the joy of these beautiful plants with your neighbours, friends, and family?
Ivy (also known by its botanical name of Hedera)Many plants can be propagated using semi-ripe cuttings, including ivy (Hedera).
I first grew Chinese Kale ‘Kailaan’ (also known as Gai lan or ‘Kai laan’) in about 2006; I was really impressed by this vegetable’s speedy growth and the bounteous harvest my plants produced. ‘Kai lan’ leaves, flower buds, and stems are all edible, but it’s the stems that provide the main harvest. Try it raw, stir-fried, steamed, or boiled; ‘Kai lan’ is a little like broccoli.
Over the past year, I’ve watched in despair as algae has wrapped its ever extending arms around my pond; I feel like algae is threatening to suffocate my pond at any moment. The other ponds I’ve created in the past have never really suffered with algae to the same extent that my current pond has.
Since I first told you about my Vegepod much has changed. Back in 2018, my Vegepod was set up in an area of my garden that enjoyed partial shade, but after trialling the Vegepod in this fairly beneficial position (vegetables thrive when they’re grown in sunny and partially shaded sites), I decided to move my Vegepod to a more shaded area of my garden, to see what I could grow successfully inside my Vegepod with more challenging growing conditions.
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.
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.
Twine is an essential product for gardeners. This small, but vital product helps us to support, tie in, and train our plants. Garden twine assists us as we hang up bunches of herbs, garlic, and onions, for storing and drying. Twine enables us to mark out rows, and carry out all manner of garden tasks. Whether you enjoy growing vegetables, fruit, herbs, or cut flowers, if you’re fond of tending herbaceous borders, or you enjoy taking part in any other form of gardening activity; twine is a universally useful product!
Autumn is such a magical season. Each year, I’m utterly enchanted by autumn; I watch in delight, as the leaves on trees and shrubs turn from green to gold, burnished amber, and a stunning array of fiery autumnal hues. Autumn leaves twirl and dance, as they make their descent, gliding and tumbling through the air, whispering softly as they flutter, before gently landing on the ground below.
Garden Designer, Andrew Duff, sculptor David Harber, and Estate Agents Savills have worked together to produce a Show Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019. This garden was created with a shared desire to demonstrate how to add useful and effective, natural beauty to improve urban areas by creating sustainable woodland gardens. The Savills and David Harber Garden comes complete with all the features that we look for in a beautiful garden, including: a pond, specimen trees, plants, and sculpture.
Every year, many of my readers have got in touch to ask me for my recommendations for a strong and effective, comfortable and lasting, spade or fork. I love to help out. I relish that wonderful feeling when I’ve tried and tested a product and have found the item to be incredibly useful and effective. Knowing that I can help other gardeners with my recommendations is a wonderful feeling.
This year, Burgon & Ball have launched a new range of gardening tools, which have been especially designed to help gardeners tend to their container plants. These Burgon & Ball, container gardening tools, are endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society. All the tools in this range, come with a ten year guarantee.
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.
Last year, HRH the Duchess of Cambridge began a collaboration with Chartered Landscape Architects and Designers, Andrée Davies and Adam White, (from Davies White Ltd), to work on a design for the RHS Back to Nature Garden; a Feature Garden, that was especially designed, for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019.
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.
I adored the dreamy quintessential country cottage garden that Mark Gregory designed and built for the Yorkshire Tourist Board, at last year’s Chelsea Flower Show. I was utterly charmed both by Mark’s design and the quality of the construction of this idyllic garden.
I wasn’t the only one to fall in love with Mark’s 2018 Chelsea garden: the RHS judges presented the Welcome to Yorkshire Garden with a Gold Medal and the Best Construction Award; while the public voted the Yorkshire Garden as the winner of the People’s Choice Award.
April is a magical time in the garden. This month offers us so many wonderful opportunities. There are so many seeds you can sow now, so whether you favour growing vegetables, herbs, fruit, or flowers, don’t miss this chance to grow the plants that hold a special place in your heart.
Viola tricolorViola tricolor, often known as ‘Heart’s Ease’ is a dainty, yet easy to grow plant, which produces edible and very pretty, purple, yellow, and white flowers that have an attractive painterly quality.
