Gardenig in France. Tips & Guides

Where to buy September issue with 2-for-1 Garden entry card and guide 2023

As the golden warmth of summer winds down, many believe it’s time to hang up their gardening gloves. Whether you’re a city dweller with limited terrace space or just someone looking to optimize their garden yield, here’s a list of Vegetables You Can Plant in August and Harvest in September!

“If you look the right way, you can see the whole world is a garden.” ~Frances Hodgson Burnett~

Even green thumbs think it’s an uphill battle to say which one is a pansy and which one is a viola. That’s what happens when people emphasize classifications rather than plants. Everything gets all complicated and confusing.

A fad in modern architecture and gardening or a necessity to bring back nature into industrialised densely built urban landscapes? Living green walls are becoming more and more popular, so we decided to explore the benefits, installation and maintenance process of these structures. Read on to find out how long they have been around, why so many buildings are having them, and how you can make one for your home.

Since Doris blew our expectations for a “windy day” away, here in London the demand for fence panels at our office skyrocketed: Seeing the destruction it has caused we feel slightly obligated to talk some fences, moderate winds and hurricanes.

The almighty rose can easily be dubbed as the queen of flowers. It’s one of the most popular plants to give but it’s also an easy way out of the flower shopping hassle around St. Valentine’s Day. However, there is different types of flowers for Valentine’s day or any other cheerful celebration.

The Chervil or Anthriscus cerefolium is a delicious annual herb that never fails to create a solid impression in kitchen gardens and outdoors with its lush green look. With a unique, sweet, peppery flavor that loves to grow in cool, shady spots, it can be a superstar plant to grow at home.

No food signifies summer more than watermelon. We’re so sweet on the hot pink (or yellow) fruit that we designed an entire watermelon bar party showcasing the many ways to snack on, sip, and even centerpiece-ify the hydrating produce item.

At The Pig near Bath gardeners Ollie Hutson and Fran Chilet-Olmos aim to have a steady supply of leafy herbs all summer. Crops such as tarragon are picked in fat bunches, then hung upside down in one of the polytunnels to dry, before the crisp leaves are stored in preserving jars so they can be used in winter. Annual herbs to grow such as basil, coriander, caraway and chervil are sown two or three times during the growing season, so there is a constant supply of fresh leaves.

Veg Seed Sowing Plans for May To ensure a continuous harvest throughout the summer rather than a glut successional sowing of salads, radishes, beetroots, carrots, autumn giant leeks and spring onions and peas should continue. Sow basil, particularly alongside tomato seedlings to help draw white fly away plus spinach, rocket and ornamental salad leaves. Globe Artichokes and Swiss Chard for looks as well as food. Pole, French and above all Runner Beans Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Savoy Cabbage, Kale and Calabrese

Herbs to make a bouquet garni can be grown at home and used later for cooking. All these herbs you can grow in the garden or on a suitable windowsill. The ingredients for our basic Bouquet Garni are the herbs Parsley, Thyme, Bay and a clove of Garlic. Tie them together with undyed string. Then add other herbs that are specific to the dish you want to cook.

This selection of top ten Roses to grow as cut flowers has been chosen for their scent and the length of the vase life. If Roses are picked as the buds are breaking they will last at least a week and if they are picked fully open it will be several days.

Some flowers look best in groups or large swathes. These fields of cultivated Lavender demonstrate the point clearly. Imagine the scent from all these individual stems of flowers a heady experience. For commercial purposes growing in rows makes Lavender easier to mechanically crop and maintain.

A favorite annual is the Marigold or Tagetes. Bold colours in Yellows, Oranges, Lemons Reds and Creams are a feature of these plants that flower from July to the first frost. Despite the names they all originate from Mexico.

The ancient Chinese have cultivated Tree Peonies for over 1500 years. Prized specimens are and were grown for medicinal purposes as they contain glucocides and alkolides. The  imperial palace gardens had many specimens that became quite valuable.

Orange or Yellow are the signature colours of Pot Marigolds more correctly named Calendula officinalis.

Zonal Pelargonium aka Geranium

As summer arrives, I’m drawn outdoors whenever possible to make the most of the long days, but as I work from home I still have to spend quite a lot of time inside, in front of my computer. Fortunately, the house plants that fill my home provide a wonderful link with greenery and nature, and, at the height of summer, the lush, verdant foliage helps me daydream about holidays in far-flung destinations.

If you had asked how I felt about geometry when I was a high school sophomore preparing for final exams, I would have had an immediate and firm answer: “No, thank you.” But as soon as that geometry had anything to do with food, I’d correct my answer to “Count me in for all the research!”

Rows of tall Delphinium ‘Strawberry Fair’ in Polly Nicholson's Wiltshire garden

Requiring less watering and weeding than any other type of garden, a gravel garden is ideal for anyone with a busy lifestyle. Comprising freely draining soil covered in gravel, through which suitable plants grow, the only effort required is in its creation; after that, this contemporary form of garden largely looks after itself.

A potager in a Devon garden by Dan Pearson

According to the USDA, the two highest consumed vegetables in the United States are potatoes and tomatoes. 40% of that potato consumption was frozen and 58% of the tomato consumption was canned. We consumed 46.4 pounds of potatoes per person, and 29.6 pounds of tomatoes per person, in 2016. Why? Americans love french fries and pizza sauce.

Are you frustrated because your French or mophead (Hydrangea macrophylla) hydrangeas only bloom once? Then the Endless Summer® Hydrangea series is the answer to adding repeat blooming hydrangeas to your landscape. With proper care, they will bloom from early summer to fall. The first flush of flowers in the early summer usually bloom on old wood; therefore, any necessary pruning should be done immediately after blooming. Flower buds will then form on new wood. As these blooms fade, deadheading is recommended to encourage more flower bud production. Flower color is determined by the availability of aluminum in the soil. If the soil is more acid, the flowers will be blue in color, but in alkaline soils, they will turn pink. If the soil pH is neutral (7.0), then the flowers will be purple.

Winter is the perfect time to install a drainage solution to remove standing water in the yard by adding surface drains, French drains, or both. Removing excess standing water helps with disease prevention in turf. Many turf diseases are made worse by prolonged wet conditions.

The French Style of Flower Arranging by Laura Dowling, Chief Floral Designer at the White House 2009-2015.

As I mentioned in my previous blog about the French style of floral design, I was inspired to create my Southern style arrangement using flowers and foliage from my own South Carolina landscape. The only floral items I purchased were a bouquet of fall floral mums and a bag of dried, sustainably gathered Spanish moss.

I recently had the privilege of attending a presentation by Laura Dowling on arranging flowers in the French style. Laura was the Chief Floral Designer at the White House from 2009 to 2015. Her arrangements were inspiring, and the use of the materials was inventive and beautiful. She attended floral design schools in both Paris and Germany and has continued to pursue new techniques. She has also authored several books on flower arranging in the French style, featuring her design work at the White House. Laura shared her stories of working in the White House and other major events where she designed flower arrangements to create a magical background. Those two and a half hours encouraged me to think outside the box to create beautiful flower arrangements.

The Rosedown Plantation gardens were the province of Martha Turnbull throughout her life. The Turnbulls’ 1828 honeymoon in Europe included great formal gardens of France, England, and Italy, an influence seen in Martha’s gardening activities at Rosedown. During Martha’s lifetime, the landscaped gardens covered about 28 acres. The present gardens now cover 18 acres.

“Laissez les bons temps rouler” is Cajun French for “Let the good times roll.” With the start of Mardi Gras, everyone will begin hearing that phrase quite often. Another favorite Mardi Gras tradition is the King Cake. But what is it, and why do they put plastic babies in there?

Called “the mystery plant of the herb world” by The Rodale Herb Book, “oregano” is the common name for a small multitude of plants that are mostly useless in the kitchen. Among them are many true oreganos, in the genus Origanum, and also many plants that aren’t. Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens) is a relative of lemon verbena, not oregano. Cuban oregano (Coleus amboinicus) is a succulent that tastes and smells somewhat like oregano and makes a good houseplant. It is used like oregano in Cuban cuisine. Italian oregano thyme, a member of the genus Thymus, also has the familiar oregano scent.Among the true oreganos there are choices for great beauty, like O. vulgare ‘Aureum,’ a golden-leaved form. (My sorry plant was probably just plain O. vulgare—not even pretty like the golden kind.) Sweet marjoram, a kind of oregano known as O. majorana, is more the stuff of French cuisine, and an excellent culinary herb. Pot marjoram, O. onites, is also savory-flavored.But if you want to cook with the classic oregano taste, you want to try Greek oregano, O. heracleoticum, which is a pungent

It was the gold-leaf version of a ‘Scarlet Runner’ type of bean in the pages of Territorial Seed’s catalog that set me off down the yellow-brick road. ‘Golden Sunshine’ bean has the typical red hummingbird-friendly flowers and green pods but on a 6-foot plant (somewhat less enthusiastic than the green original).Next I met up with a gold-podded filet bean—an extra-long haricot vert type called ‘French Gold’ that isn’t vert at all but solid or. Renee’s Seeds offers this beauty, a pole type that’s new for 2010 and promises 7-to-9-inch pods for “especially choice eating.” Sold.Romano-type, or Italian-style beans are my favorites, typically, so when I happened on ‘Gold of Bacau’ bean a

I want to introduce some oddball varieties I like to grow (like ‘Chinese Red Noodle’ and ‘Scarlet Runner,’ both shown above), and tell you what I’m planning to do with that Hefty-bagful of the more typical green bean types that I just harvested. (No, not 10 Pyrex baking dishes full of Grandma’s Green Bean Casserole with cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and butter-soaked Saltine crumbs and melted cheddar, though I am definitely tempted.)Do you grow beans like ‘Royalty Purple Pod’ that are easy to spot on the vine when harvesting, but cook up green? Or slender filet beans, the haricot verts or filet beans of French cooker

Each of her 150 recipes is delightfully prefaced with what amounts to its provenance: a juicy and sometimes hilarious back story that Clark tells in as simple yet deft a fashion as the style of the dish that follows. I sat right down to chapters like “Better Fried” and “It Tastes Like Chicken” and “My Mother’s Sandwich Theory of Life,” the perfect mix of a good read and a good meal.For me—a flavor-fearing kid who rinsed most of her entrees off at the sink conveniently positioned halfway between the Garland range and the family dinner table—Clark’s childhood tales are positively hair-raising: Summer vacations were spent touring France with her psychiatrist parents, gourmands determined to eat at every Michelin-starred restaurant there. Worse yet (or to Clark, more thrilling): Th

I SAY THANK YOU to the University of Chicago Press for investing in “Weeds of North America” (above) by Richard Dickinson and France Royer. The Canadian authors have created a massive work (800 pages paperbound) covering 500 of the continent’s pest plants, including aquatics. Key ID tips include not just flower and foliage photos, but also images of seeds and seedlings.This serious reference volume illuminates other reasons to consider the plants as pests, beyond the space they steal from natives. Such traits include toxicity to livestock (like milk thistle) or transmitting a disease to a valuable crop (like barberry does w