Sowing salads

April has been cool so far and some of us could do with some rain – though I am not asking for any, quite yet. But once the overnight frosts thaw and the mist clears, we have had some lovely days. The sun has surprising strength and now we seem to have passed the cold…

Doubly sweet: Sweet Williams and sweetcorn

As spring slowly moves into summer – or it should be – a new range of flowers starts to dominate our gardens. Many of these are biennials and include lots of old-fashioned, cottage style flowers that are reminders of times past. Wallflowers, foxgloves, forget-me-nots and, best of all, sweet Williams. Sweet Williams are hardy beinnials,…

Magnolias for Easter

Magnolias are the most beautiful of all flowering trees. They also have the largest flowers of any hardy trees. Although there are species that bloom throughout summer we tend to plant the spring-flowering kinds. By far the most popular is the pink and white M. x soulangeana (below). It is a good choice for most…

The decline of peat

I bought some bags of compost the other day, not from a garden centre but the local agricultural supplier where I had to pick up layer’s pellets for work. It was out of desperation since garden centres are not open and I can’t face squashing my eggs and strawberries buying compost in supermarkets. Here in…

Bedding plants – making gardens colourful

Back in the 70s and 80s we had very different tastes in bedding plants and our buying habits were different too. The range of plants was smaller and, dare I say it, more traditional, with a distinctly Victorian feel about it. Scarlet salvias, white alyssum and blue lobelia were still de rigeur and French marigolds,…

Happy Easter

This is a strange Easter. Quite apart from the other changes to our usual routine we cannot get to garden centres. Easter weekend is the start of the garden year for many gardeners, though the more dedicated will know that the gardening year starts a lot earlier. It is all about the planning. I started…

Spring pot plants

In these difficult times we are not able to get out and indulge in some of our favourite pastimes – buying plants and enjoying a coffee at our favourite garden centre, but just because we can’t leave home we can still work in the garden. Spring is often a tricky time in the garden –…