Winter is a great time plant new trees and hedges as long as the ground is not frozen. An advantage of winter planting is that you can buy young field-grown trees and hedging plants more cheaply than pot-grown specimens. As the name suggests field-grown trees are grown in open fields and lifted (dug up) just […]
Planting Tulips for spring flowers
October is the main month to plant dry bulbs to flower next spring and you will not go short of articles on this topic. So I will dwell in a bit more detail on one familiar bulb – the Tulip. Traditionally planted in rows or blocks of a single variety in bedding schemes in parks […]
When the summer veg is over
Many people grow summer vegetables in a small plot but may not make full use of the space through the autumn and winter. By the end of September even the last sowings of quick maturing salad crops such as radishes and salad leaves will be coming to an end. You can move onto winter hardy […]
Plant survival techniques
It seems that as we move into September and the start of autumn the weather is following a much more typical pattern so that plants as well as people know exactly where they are in the year! With the late spring frost and snow – remember that? – and two months of soaring temperatures here […]
The Seaside in your Garden
August is well and truly the holiday month and whether you have been away or are still looking forward to going, what could be nicer than having a sense of the seaside without leaving home? Creating a coastal feel to a corner of your garden is not difficult as long as you understand that you […]
What’s wrong with Rhododendrons?
Towards the end of May I spent two consecutive days garden visiting and there could hardly have been a greater contrast. Firstly I was one of thousands at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the following day I attended a preview of Leonardslee Gardens in West Sussex currently undergoing restoration. Apart from the weather – […]
The New Shrubbery
By using the term New Shrubbery I do not just mean adding in a few more shrubs but thinking about how much this useful and sometimes maligned group of plans can add to your garden. I often talk and write about Less Effort Gardening and the benefits of permanent planting to create a year […]
Maximising your veg harvest
Succession sowing and inter-cropping The month of May sees the height of sowing and planting for the summer vegetables and succession sowing and inter-cropping are two different ways to get the maximum vegetable harvest from your space and delivering a steady flow of produce to the kitchen through the summer. Succession sowing simply means that […]
Saving water and Garden irrigation
There are two strands to the use of water in the garden – and I am talking watering plants here, not choosing water features. These are reducing the need for watering and efficient irrigation in a domestic garden. Saving water Mulching is a good way of reducing water loss by evaporation from the soil surface. […]
How to buy plants
Spring is a good time to buy plants to fill up spaces in your ornamental borders to be sure of a wonderful display in the summer. But before you can plant, you need to buy and there are few things that a gardener likes more than the chance to acquire more plants. For herbaceous plants […]