Hortoris

Perennials are a huge group of plants that should survive year after year. The majority of perennial plants discussed here are herbaceous in that the leaves and stems die back and new growth restarts from the buried roots in the new year.

Notes

So like everyone else you have weeds you want to ‘get rid of’ and here is how.

May all your winds be zephyrs and all your gales be miss spelt girls

Georgia O’Keefee painted some brilliant portraits of red Poppies some times upto 3 feet wide and high, even bigger than the real thing in my garden.The last photo shows how Red and Green work well together on a canvas or in a garden setting. Oriental poppies are perennial and most Poppy species are easy to grow from seed of which 50 varieties are available from Thompson & Morgan

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

Sources Tetranychus urticae Female of the red form of the spider mite Scale : mite body length ~0.5 mm Creative commons by Gilles San Martin, on Flickr Chuck Crandall ‘Whats wrong with my plant?’

Features to Expect in a Japanese Garden

Snapdragons or better known as Antirrhinum are an easy flower to grow and they provide lots of colour with a distinctive scent. Good F1 plants can grow more than 2′ tall and if pinched out they bush out quite well. Available in a wide range of colours I try and grow the same colours together to enhance the effect.

Get your bulb catalogues out and select your planting scheme for a glorious display next spring. Plant some bulbs just to cut for indoor flowers – the bunches will be superior to those you will pay na fortune for in the shops next year and you have the fun of growing your own.

There are a lot of things to go wrong with plants in the greenhouse but a red spider mite infestation is one of the most frustrating. This tomato plant in India has had its day.

Victorian gardeners seem to have coped very well with the winter conditions and were able to get seeds off to an early start. The climate was not too different 150 years ago to that which we endure today so how did Victorians cope. Seed was often sown earlier than we do now and the varieties of seed were no different except for some of our softer hybrids. ‘The answer lies in the soil’ and copious amounts of compost.

The objective of a Stumpery is to create a garden feature from ferns, logs and old tree roots. The Victorians started a trend to build Rooteries, Ferneries and Stumperies as romantic woodland places to grow exotic ferns and woodland plants. If you have a dark corner or want to collect ferns then you could start your own Stumpery quite easily and add to it as the fancy takes you.

For less than £5 you can buy ‘Container Gardening’ by Alan Titchmarsh from Amazon. Just click on the picture above

What is purple and where do you draw the line between dark pink and dirty red? How much blue should be included to make a purple plant? Does it really matter anyway?

Earwigs look worse than the bites they take out of plants. Some years there may be large infestations.

As a child I tried with seeds to grow stones – daft kid or what? Now I do not see the fun in growing Lithopes, due to the early aversion thereapy, but each to their own.

Overwintering as the name suggests is the treatment of a fuchsia to protect it during winter so that it will survive to perform again next year. All Fuchsias can be overwintered as cuttings and I recommend that as a belt and braces approach.

Great Runner Beans need plenty of water retentative and nutrient rich soil. That is why preparation is important but here are some more tips to rescue this years crop.

Baobab is a remarkable tree with striking appearance identified by it’s swollen trunk which stores water. Slow growing the tree is believed to live for centuries but has no aging rings in the trunk.

More exotics can be grown in the UK as we get hotter summers and temperate winters. Why not try a Pomegranate or Punica granatum a large shrub or small tree.

Seed collecting can be addictive. You may quickly discover you are surrounded by drying stems and paper bags but all you need is enough seeds for your immediate needs.

Members of the Buttercup family are called Ranunculaceae. To grow the plants successfully beware the seeds tend to have a short period of viability and need planting straight away.

Mulch mulch and more mulch is a must for getting humus into clay soil.

I coum early to Cyclamen (in the same way I came late to Chrysanthemums). Sorry, good gardening is no laughing matter but I like to plant a pun or two to see how they grow!

I am growing my early potatoes in various containers but these canvas sacks look to me to be a great idea.

Courgettes

Strawberry plants are cheap and easy to grow. Strawberries can be picked from spring to autumn if you choose the right varieties.

Get it right and you can grow bumper crops on straw bales.  It is clean, cheap and environmentally friendly. The principle is that decaying straw generates heat to form a ‘hot bed’encouraging healthy roots.

This fleshy leaved Sedum Telephium Matrona is just colouring and clumping up in my garden. It is not as vigorous as Sedum spectabile Autumn Joy which can be come a bit of a thug if left unchecked.

You don’t need to have muscles like Popeye to grow spinach. It is a simple leafy vegetable that is undemanding if given the right conditions.

Originally entitled ‘Why do white flowers smell best?’ I have revised this article.

Growing good roses is not difficult and plants are reasonable and long lasting. Plant them in good soil feed and care for them and they will reward you with magnificent blooms, scent, cut flowers and a great summer show. As a guide to growing roses there is a list on monthly tips and actions to help get the best from your plants.

From obenson flickr

There are a host of different Saxifraga or singular Saxifrage. They make for an interesting group to grow and collect both in the garden and in troughs or pots depending on the variety. Saxifrage kolenatiana has rosettes that throw up spikes of flower in summer similar to its better known Saxifrage relative ‘London Pride’.

Pyracantha, can be a neat shrub with attractive flowers and magnificent red, yellow or orange berries. The white flowers in summer are followed by autumn and winter berries, in fact my shrubs are still in berry this March.