Gardenig in Russia. Tips & Guides

Have you ever seen Plants That Are Growing Out Of Some Truly Strange Places? Well, you’re about to see some cool ones growing in places you never could have imagined. Here goes.

With so many varieties to choose from, it can be hard to know the Best Tasting Tomato varieties. Do not worry, tomato lovers! We’ve rounded up some of the most delicious tomatoes out there!

Q: Is this a good time of the year to plant lilac? And if so, could you please recommend some varieties that don’t grow too large? JK, Dublin

This article is all about Russian sage pruning, including when, why, and how. Learning how to cut back Russian sage properly is essential for plant health and maintaining the ideal growth habit of this hardy perennial. Read on to learn why millions of gardeners worldwide grow this beautiful flowering plant and how to trim it properly. You’ll also find general plant care tips for this popular perennial.

Brighten up a shady area in the garden with the colorful flowers and silvery foliage of lungwort (Pulmonaria spp.). It pairs well with hellebores, hostas, ferns, bleeding hearts, and other shade perennials. The patterned leaves have a silvery hue that contrasts well with the green foliage of other perennials. Plant it under deciduous trees or along woodland pathways for edging.

The herbaceous border, which is a comparative newcomer to the garden scene, is still one of its most popular features. Introduced at the turn of the century by Gertrude Jekyll as a protest against the monotonous formality of Victorian garden design, its popularity has steadily increased until today there are few gardens without some kind of perennial border to enhance their beauty throughout the months of summer and autumn.

Imagine discovering a lush green specimen flourishing in the most unexpected places, from tiny cracks in ancient stone walls to the rusted remains of old tools. Our latest feature, ‘Plants That Grew in Amusing Places,’ takes you on a captivating journey to explore these remarkable survivors of the botanical world!

If you are not sure about the Sunflower Colors, we are here to help you out! We have handpicked the best ones and have also divided the article in section according to the shades to help you pick out the most stunning one!

Did you know that some trees (such as alder, poplar, willow, ash and the dawn redwood) can “hold their breath” when the ground in which they grow is flooded? Or that others, such as the silver lime (Tilia tomentosa), have evolved ingenious ways of conserving their water supply when confronted with extreme heat and drought, including covering their leaves with a layer of fine hairs to keep them cool in sunny weather?

Tips for Growing Japanese Yews Taxus cuspidata

Spring is when wildlife reawakens in our countryside, parks and gardens. Despite the cold chill still in the air, signs of spring will be starting to appear and our garden birds will become more recognisable during the breeding season. From the noisy Willow Warbler to the colourful Siskin, the RSPB help us identify what birds will be paying a visit to your garden this spring.

In the world of botanical beauty, a unique serenity is found within Herbs with Greyish Leaves. Join us on a journey to explore the cool and understated charm of these herbs!

Russian sage is easy to care for and fun to grow in any perennial flower bed or landscaping.

Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA 

Fresh from the success that allowed astronauts to eat lettuce grown in space in August, NASA’s Veggie plant-growing hardware on the International Space Station (ISS) has been reloaded with new plant pillows – this time sown with Zinnia ‘Profusion’.

I joined Facebook in October 2007, and Twitter in May 2008. Social media has been a massive part of my life for more than a decade. It was originally a way to find and connect with like-minded people, and a natural extension of my blog. I made good friends, some of whom I went on to meet in the flesh.

Header image: Suited up to simulate the conditions of working outside on Mars. Jonathan Clarke (the author, left) with visiting engineer Michael Curtis-Rouse, from UK Space Agency (right). Jonathan Clarke personal collection, Author provided.

It’s hard to imagine anyone being more excited about eating lettuce than the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were yesterday, when they tucked into the first leaves of space-grown lettuce they’ve been allowed to eat. Despite having to sanitise the leaves first, with citric-acid-based, food-safe, antibacterial wipes (yummy!), they broke out the oil and vinegar and tucked in with gusto. They even thanked Mission Control and the scientists for giving them the opportunity to take part in this payload mission, and saved some veggies for the Russian cosmonauts who were outside on a spacewalk at harvest time.

Move over, Mark Watney, there’s a new space botanist heading for Mars! Ryan and I have just finished watching the new Netflix series Away, which follows (over 10 episodes) the quest of five international astronauts to be the first people to set foot on the red planet.

While we’re waiting for Tim Peake to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin his Principia mission, I thought it might be fun to have a look at the first Briton in space – Helen Sharman, who was also the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in 1991.

This is what the wild, self-seeded comfrey plant outside my front door looked like last week. It doesn’t look like that now, though, because I have cut it back and put the leaves to rot in one of my comfrey buckets (they have lids and taps). First, though, I had to empty out the last lot of comfrey liquid. I can’t remember when I made it – I don’t think it was last year, I think it must have been before that – and I harvested 3 litres of comfrey liquid from my pair of bucket. That’s certainly enough to keep my tomatoes and peppers happy this year!

If there’s a plant that’s destined to explode onto the Grow Your Own scene this year, then it has to be agretti (Salsola soda). Agretti got good press last year as being a vegetable sought-after by chefs; it didn’t hurt that seed was in short supply! Suppliers have taken note, however, and there are plenty more sources this year.

It has been a month since we set up the AeroGarden and started our journey into space gardening. It came with three herbs – basil, dill and parsley. The basil was the first to burst into life and has been the fastest growing. I trimmed the top of one of the young plants at the end of July, and it’s probably ready for another trim now. The parsley was the slowest to germinate and isn’t remotely close to catching up, but it is growing well now.

Hello! Welcome to Gardeners off World. The big news for space gardeners this week is that NASA has determined that the salads grown in Veggie are safe to eat. And a team of Russian researchers have developed a prototype for an orbital greenhouse. The Orbital Biological Automatic Module includes smart lighting to accelerate plant growth, specialised hydroponics, automated irrigation and harvesting solutions. It could be heading to the International Space Station (ISS) – “Humanity’s home in Low Earth Orbit” – in the next few years.

Sixty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin launched us into the era of human spaceflight. The Russian cosmonaut achieved a major milestone in the Space Race when he orbited the Earth in the Vostok 1 capsule. This amazing achievement came less than four years after the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1.

I imagine the Apollo 11 astronauts had plenty to do while they were hurtling towards the Moon, but from a bystander’s perspective it was probably pretty dull stuff. Still, it’s Day 3 of the mission, so let’s have a look at what they’ve got stashed away in their space age picnic basket.

Space research can take you to some odd places. Siberia isn’t known for being a hospitable environment, and cosmonauts used to go into space with a gun in case something went wrong with their re-entry and they wound up having to defence themselves from bears in a Siberian forest. Even so, Russia has built a new spaceport there (Vostochny Cosmodrome), to reduce dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan.

The role downunder played in helping track the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World, your round-up of interplanetary news and views. NASA’s Christina Koch returned to Earth yesterday, after spending 328 days onboard the International Space Station (ISS) – the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Koch participated in three expeditions – 59, 60 and 61 – during her first spaceflight. ESA’s Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov came home on the same flight.

In Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, Kate Greene talks about Shannon Lucid, the NASA astronaut who spent six months living on the Russian space station Mir. Shannon, it turns out, was a bookworm. During her stay, she read 50 books and improvised shelving from old food boxes, complete with straps to stop the books floating off. This was in 1996, a good decade before the invention of the Kindle, and so these were real books. She apparently chose titles with the highest word to mass ratio, since launch weight is a critical factor! Lucid left her library behind for future spacefarers, but it burned up when Mir was de-orbited in 2001.

Header image: Chinese astronauts Tang Hongbo, Nie Haisheng, and Liu Boming during ceremony before heading to Tiangong. ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA

Header image: Artist impression of a solar disk in space. Credit: NASA

Aldrin and Armstrong blasted off from the Moon in the Eagle lander at 17:54 UTC on 21st June, after spending 21 hours and 36 minutes on the lunar surface. They were carrying 22 kilograms of samples, including 50 rocks, fine-grained lunar “soil” and two core tubes that included material from up to 13 centimetres below the Moon’s surface.

Russia is poised to send a new kind of greenhouse to the International Space Station to grow plants “on an industrial scale”.

There have been a lot of days this year that have begun and ended with me despairing over the human race. This week we’ve seen Saudi Arabia, Russia and the USA come together to sabotage a global agreement to do something about climate change. And Brex*t makes me feel like a lemming being herded off the cliff in a tidal wave of other lemmings.

Christopher Gaffney, Lancaster University and Bethan Phillips, University of Nottingham