Search - Articles

.It's far more relaxing, and you can do it in the comfort of your own home. What exclusive new varieties will I discover for patio pots, what will tempt my appetite in the kitchen garden, and which plants will steal the show next summer?Well, I'll just

hedgehog makes it into my garden at night, and they love to feed on slugs.However, gardeners who treasure their hostas (and other plants) know all too well just how much damage slugs and snails can do at night. I'm keen to garden without resorting

or outside, but require support and need their side shoots pinching out regularly.Plant growth and habit is only one characteristic, as fruit quantity, size, colour, quality and flavour are far more important. Now we get down to the nitty-gritty of choosing

are small onions that can be planted straight out on the plot during March or April. The sets slowly swell into large onions, ready to harvest in late summer. Onion sets are convenient, as they don't take up valuable greenhouse space at a time when it's at a

surround my beds with timber edges so the soil surface can be raised by the action of digging and adding organic matter. These raised beds drain more quickly after heavy rain and keep plant roots above the water-saturated ground below. Raised beds also warm

by planting an earlier ripening 'Opal' and later ripening 'Marjorie's Seedling', so I'd hoped to be enjoying plums from mid-July until September. My 'Opal' was planted about five years ago, but fruit has been non-existent until this year. Having waited

providing the lushness and softer colours we prefer.However, as with so many plants, I just had to buy one fatsia and find a home for it, so it's rather crammed into an 'oddments' corner alongside Sophora 'Sun King', Choisya 'Aztec Pearl' and Photinia

few bits to friends, too. If I wanted more I could save some of the ripe seed capsules and sow them to raise new plants, but I think one clump is enough.Apparently you can find it growing wild in parts of southern England, especially on lime-rich soils

terracotta pot for about six years now. Like any permanent planting I used John Innes No.3 loam-based potting compost, as trees need compost with real guts. Even so you'll need to feed them - my acer gets a weekly liquid feed through summer along with all

of the house. The wall faced north, so they didn't receive any direct sun at all.Survivors are valuable garden plants, and always worth recommending to others, so when I come across sites with similar challenges, then Anemone japonica (which we now need to call