Chinese Astilbe – Top Choice for Drier Gardens
Perennial plants add an extra dimension of beauty to any garden, and ones that are pest-free, long-blooming and low-maintenance are the best ones of all. Add in weeks and weeks of summer blooming,…
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Perennial plants add an extra dimension of beauty to any garden, and ones that are pest-free, long-blooming and low-maintenance are the best ones of all. Add in weeks and weeks of summer blooming,…
‘Winter’ and ‘Berries’ definitely go together. The traditional Christmas holly may dominate the Christmas card market, but as many gardeners soon discover, if you live in areas that are too cold or too…
There is nothing new or unique about botanists and ordinary folk having different names for plants. If you look at the plants gardeners call ‘cypress’ you find a whole host of very different…
If you want to know the secret to creating an attractive garden, there is a one-word answer – ‘structure’. I don’t mean pergolas and gazebos, but structure from shrubs and small tree. A…
Everyone loves Hydrangeas – they are a classic summer shrub for partially-shade parts of the garden, and their long-lasting blooms make a real impact for weeks and weeks – probably longer than any…
Who doesn’t love peaches? Melt-in-the-mouth, buttery, sweet and fragrant – nothing beats that bite into a ripe peach, and no ripe peach tastes like one you grew yourself and just picked, still warm…
Every garden has spaces beneath the plants where the earth can be seen. These areas attract weeds, and they lose water to the air, drying out your plants faster. They also look boring,…
Plant breeding is one of the few areas where amateur, hobby gardeners have made at least as much of a contribution to the plants we grow as professionals – and sometimes even more….
When you start growing plants – indoors or outdoors – it doesn’t take long before you see a few creepy-crawlies on them. That isn’t reason to panic, because most insects on plants are…
“Never heard of him!”, did you just say? That’ not surprising really, as few people have. But Louis Boehmer was responsible for the arrival in Europe and North America of many of our…
Much of the world has been looking in alarm at recent events in Texas. No lights, heat or water for days for millions of people doesn’t sound like America. We can point the…
Especially for gardeners in colder zones, lilacs are classic flowering shrubs no-one would want to be without. Their large heads of fragrant flowers are a delight, and available in a wide range of…
Everyone loves blueberries – they are America’s #2 berry (after strawberries) – and we just love them in muffins and pancakes, in pies and smoothies, scattered over cereal or just popped straight into…
If you are having trouble knowing what to call that latest plant you just put in your garden, you are not alone. Many gardeners love their plants, and might even see them as…
A couple of weeks back we started this two-parter on choosing plants that will grow well for you if you have alkaline soil. If you are looking for some suitable trees, or are…
It doesn’t take long, once you start gardening, to start thinking about color. Yes, it is very important to arrange your beds using interesting shapes – a blend of vertical, rounded and horizontal…
The world of conifers is an enormous and diverse one, from the many hedges of Green Giant to the tiniest miniature collector’s tree, and from towering redwoods to flat groundcovers – there is…
The Right Plant in the Right Place is a slogan that you will often hear from professional landscape designers and horticulturists. It’s a simple principle, but one often ignored in the rush to…
In today’s global world we can easily make the mistake of thinking that international trade is something new and exciting, that ‘we’ recently discovered. How wrong we would be! The volume may be…
If you haven’t smelled the fruit of the quince, you have missed out on something beautiful. These strange hard fruits are renowned for their perfume, and were first used in the Middle East…
As the year winds down – and what a year it has been – this is the time to bring things to an end, and also to make new beginnings. We have said…
Older generations of gardeners who love roses might know the name Sam McGredy. One of the most famous rose breeders of the last century, Irish-born Sam, who was the fourth breeder in his…
With winter settling in around us we are turning up the heat and bringing out the duvets. Gardeners are casting an anxious eye on those border-line shrubs they planted in the now-distant spring…
I’m fortunate. I spent years living in zone 3, but today when I look out my window I see golden balls hanging from a green tree in my small yard. No, I haven’t…