I have always believed that you should only write or talk about what you know
Plants make the perfect gift at Christmas – low-carbon, no calories and beautiful. Traditional choices are poinsettias, azaleas and cyclamen. But orchids are a practical and exciting alternative and they are wonderful and thoughtful gifts. Who wouldn’t want to receive a beautiful orchid? Although they are wonderfully exotic in appearance, most orchids are not difficult…
It is hardly a shock, but it looks as though winter is here. We have been very lucky with the temperatures until this week, and now the cold is starting to bite. With lower temperatures, what should we be doing in the garden? 1 Time for digging Winter is the perfect time to get the…
Winter is impossible to ignore and we can’t fight it. So why not embrace it and plant something that’ll look good and cheer us up, just when we need colour and fragrance. It is surprising how many plants are looking great right now and here are just a few of the plants that are making…
We have ‘enjoyed’ an exceptionally mild autumn and I have been slow in protecting some of my tender plants. A few were lifted and prepared for winter a while ago but the mild weather in recent weeks has made me complacent. There were dahlias in flower, though looking tatty, and it can be confusing to…
Hedges have a multitude of uses in the garden. They can define boundaries, offer protection to other plants and divide the garden into sections. They take a lot longer to achieve an effect than a fence or a wall but they are much cheaper and you don’t need brick-laying skills! They do need maintenance –…
As autumn merges into winter, the question in the garden is whether to tidy up borders now or to leave them till spring. There are benefits on both sides. Those who argue that they should be left, enjoy the dead seed heads of summer flowers and remind us that nature drops leaves over the borders…
The hot, dry summer was a challenge for gardeners and gardens and one of the saddest sights was our brown lawns. We tend to panic unnecessarily about the turf and, unless you need to care for a bowling green, we can allow the grass to take its chances. It will green up in autumn when…
As we enter autumn, it is time to think about planting. In recent years we have tended to forget that autumn is the perfect time for planting and we buy and plant shrubs all year round. But, as we found this summer, it can be difficult to keep newly planted shrubs watered so they get…
If you are lucky enough to have an apple tree in the garden you will know that apple season is with us. Of all the fruit we can grow in our gardens, apples are the easiest and best value. It is true that they are an investment, costing a lot more than a packet of…
There are various ways we can keep the colours of summer in our homes over winter. Simply drying flowers is the easiest but not all flowers can be cut, hung up and dried. There are alternatives of course and with some ingenuity a large range of blooms can be preserved. I hate plastic plants and…