Gardenig in Britain. Tips & Guides

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Lavender is a Mediterranean evergreen shrub, grown for its fragrant leaves and bee-friendly flowers. There are hardy, half-hardy and tender species of lavender to choose from.

I’m often asked for advice on visiting gardens in the UK.

Bougainvilleas

Some planting combinations are designed to be stable and static, with reliable perennials that work well together and stay largely in proportion for years. Other schemes are more dynamic, changing dramatically year by year as plants self-seed and move around, perhaps making use of annuals and biennials to add interest.

Bacopa is a trailing perennial that is perfect for hanging baskets, containers and providing ground cover at the front of borders. Originally from South Africa, it is grown as an annual in the UK, because it isn’t frost hardy and won’t survive temperatures below 5ºC. It produces a mass of tiny flowers over a long period, from June through to October, in either white, pink or blue.

Sweet and juicy, freshly harvested watermelon is a delicious treat and tastes far superior to what you can buy in the shops. Part of the cucurbit family, watermelon plants look similar to courgette and squash plants, with flat, green and slightly furry leaves followed by yellow flowers and fruit. They can be left to scramble across the ground or trained to climb a frame, where they take up less space. Like other types of melon, watermelons need up to three months of sun and heat to produce ripe fruit, which means success relies on a long, hot summer.

JULIE SOEFER

Happy Friday GPODers!

Roses are some of the most beautiful and versatile garden plants. They come in a variety of forms, from patio roses to shrub roses, ramblers and climbers. Nearly all of them make an excellent cut flower. Single-flowered roses are great pollinator plants, while some species are used by leafcutter bees to make their nests. Most roses need sun and heavy soils to thrive, but some will grow well in partial shade and poorer soils. There really is a rose, or three, for every garden.

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As we enter the peak of rose season, join us as we take a ramble through some of the most romantic rose gardens in 2-for-1 Gardens. You can save money on visits to all of these rose gardens, using your 2-for-1 Gardens entry card. Visit soon to capture the roses in all their glory.

Sometimes, it feels like plants are the only fix humans need for all their woes. Our list of the best privacy plants for windows uplifts your home’s aesthetics, calms your space, and is brilliant at shielding you from nosy and noisy neighbors!

As we enter the peak of rose season, join us as we take a ramble through some of the nation’s most romantic rose gardens. You can save money on visits to all of these rose gardens, using your 2-for-1 Gardens entry card. Visit soon to capture the roses in all their glory.

Gardening is not just a hobby, it is a way of life that allows us to get closer to nature. In our country, only 50 no deposit free spins in casinos can compete in terms of popularity with gardening, which has a special place in the hearts of millions of people. The history of British gardening goes back centuries, and this activity continues to attract more and more enthusiasts. In this article, we take a look at the best garden centres in the UK that offer a wide range of plants and gardening products, high quality service and many additional services. Whatever your preferences and level of expertise, you are sure to find something useful and interesting for you.

How to Grow and Care for Fothergilla Fothergilla spp.

KATIE CHARLOTTE FIEDLER

There are lots of plants native to the UK that you can grow together to create beautiful combinations. In doing so, you’ll be supporting native fauna that rely on these plants for food, shelter and to reproduce.

British wildflowers are some of the most reliable and beautiful plants you can grow. Being native, all of them have some benefit to wildlife, be it flowers for pollinators or leaves for caterpillars and other larvae.

Today much attention is paid to the development and organisation of leisure activities for kids in the family. The bulk of entertainment activities are intellectual and mobile games. If the family has a dacha or a homestead plot, you can organise active entertainment. This is very useful not only for children, but also for adults. The latter today prefer to spend most of their free time at the computer and other gadgets. One of the favorite ways to brighten up leisure time is gambling. In many states they are legalised. The most popular in different countries around the world, including the UK, are free 20 no deposit casino. To prevent children from getting addicted to gadgets, it is necessary to diversify home leisure time with active, exciting games.

Native to the Western Mediterranean, three-cornered leek is a bulbous perennial with white spring flowers. It’s also known as stinking onion, for reasons which become obvious when close by. In other countries, it’s known as onion grass or onion weed. Part of the allium family, it’s related to edible and ornamental onions as well as cultivated and wild garlic. However, since its introduction to the UK in the mid-18th century, three-corned leek has spread to become an undesirable invasive plant, forming dense colonies and crowding out native plants. It’s an offence to plant or dispose of it in the wild.

Wireworms are the soil-dwelling larvae of the click beetle, and live predominantly in undisturbed grassland. In gardens they can sometimes cause problems by eating the roots of seedlings and older plants, as well as burrowing into root vegetables. There’s around 60 species of click beetle in the UK and only a handful of their larvae cause problems, yet all of them are a source of food source for creatures such as birds and small mammals. In general, wireworms may only be a problem in ground that has been converted from lawn or grassland into a vegetable plot, particularly when root vegetables such as potatoes are grown.

Certain sounds fill the heart with the joys of summer, but the season's undisputed high note has to be the sizzle of a garden barbecue. Beyond clear blue skies, and an excellent potato salad recipe, what more could a griller want besides first-rate barbecue tool sets?

Hydrangeas are a beautiful addition to any garden. They are a much loved shrub with a wide range of varieties. The Hydrangea is an ideal choice for the gardener who wants a long flowering period, with beautiful displays of colours and busy flower heads. They look amazing in containers and offer a timeless elegance to your garden.

Monday vases following any Sunday garden opening usually take advantage of flowers used for table decoration, which in June inevitably means sweet peas. However, being even more prepared this year due to an early group visit, I had time to think ahead and made my vase on Saturday.

Would you like to add another native plant to your perennial or pollinator garden? One of my favorites is Stokes Aster (Stokesia laevis). It’s part of the Asteraceae family and is native to the southeastern United States. The genus Stokesia is in honor of Jonathan Stokes (1755-1831), an English physician and botanist, and the species name, laevis, means smooth.

It’s official, the UK is a nation of gardeners! With recent Census figures showing that 87% of UK households have a garden, many Brits are now beginning to embrace their green thumbs.

The sumac tree (Rhus typhina) is also known as staghorn sumac or staghorn sumach. It’s one of around 200 trees in the Rhus genus around the world, and is native to north America. Highly ornamental, it’s commonly grown in UK gardens for its attractive branching habit, which is said to resemble a pair of stag’s horns (hence its name), along with its fresh green, finely divided foliage, which turns glorious shades of red and orange in autumn. In spring, candle-like, yellow-green flowers form, which mature into a cluster of reddish fruits that hold throughout winter. If dried, the fruits make a passable substitute for the spice, sumac, which is usually made from the closely related Sicilian sumac, Rhus coriaria.

Monstera andansonii is officially known as the Mexican breadfruit plant although it’s more commonly known as the monkey mask plant. There are a few theories as to where this name comes from – that the shape of the leaf and its hole resembles a monkey’s face, or that monkeys use the leaf to hide behind, like a mask, peering through the holes. It’s a tropical perennial that makes a bold and beautiful house plant in the UK. Monstera adansonii is less vigorous than its relation Monstera deliciosa, and a good choice if you love architectural foliage plants but are limited on space.

Hey GPODers!

I have chosen roses to go in my Monday vase this week because they are the most floriferous blooms in the garden at this point in mid-June. There are two varieties, growing together in the gallery border, and both seem to have done better this year than before – behind the gallery fence is the woodland which blocks sun from the south, so the roses only get the morning and late afternoon sun. However, our neighbours cut some of the lower branches from their huge mature beech over the winter and perhaps this allows more light to filter through.

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Fuchsias originate from South America

Life, as I like to remind my sons, isn’t always fair. All things are not equal, no matter how much we’d like them to be and some are in fact far better than others, a truth brought home to all of us eventually. Hence the expression “garden-worthy”, that brilliantly concise description used to sum up a particular cultivar or variety’s outstanding qualities.

Happy Friday, GPODers!

Craving some Instagram-worthy greenery for your home? Indoor vines are trending as the best plants to decorate your home with! Make your drapes, walls, columns, and windows come to life with climbing plants, and replenish your selfie deficit with these easy green home decor hacks!