Lilac bush and flower: all about lilacs and how to grow them | House & Garden

When and How to Harvest Zucchini

The napkins, cushion cover and table cloth seen here in Ivy Green

Summer is arriving and, all of a sudden, the kitchen garden is coming into its own. I am harvesting masses of salad leaves, broad beans and strawberries, and hopefully the first new potatoes. I can almost see things growing before my eyes, including the weeds, which I make an effort to keep on top of every few days (although I leave self-seeded dark pink poppies and some mauve linaria to encourage insects and add colour). To make the most of a small space, I grow salad leaves in large galvanised metal troughs, making sure that I sow a new crop every few weeks so I have a constant supply through the summer. Salad leaf mixes, including swift-growing, cut-and-come-again lettuce, rocket and mustard leaves, are available from almost any seed company, or at garden centres. Winter salad leaves, including mizuna, are best sown after midsummer, as they tend to run to seed quickly. I grow my salad leaves in the least time-consuming way, scattering the seeds thinly on the surface of the prepared soil or compost, and raking them in gently with a hand rake. Keep them watered and they will germinate within a few days and be ready to harvest in about six weeks. If you want to grow them in your vegetable beds, it is better to sow them in drills, so that the emerging seedlings are easily distinguishable from the weeds.

Marchelle Farrell

In 2020 a rather unusual virtual Chelsea Flower Show took place online instead of at its usual Royal Hospital location due to the coronavirus lockdown. As you can tell from our gallery of archive pictures from Chelsea, the royals are among its most enthusiastic attendees; the Queen almost never missed a visit, the Duchess of Cambridge had her own garden there last year, as has Prince Harry in the past, and various other senior royals are regular visitors. That year, since they were unable to visit, the royal family took part in the #MyChelseaGarden campaign, which encouraged the public to post pictures of their own gardens on social media to celebrate the show.

The gardens at Charleston

For the ultimate in low-maintenance planting, intersperse small balls of box with a seasonal display of bulbs and summer bedding: tulips in spring, geraniums in summer and winter pansies in autumn — or almost any annuals that take your fancy.

What Is a Flowering Flush? All About Plant Bloom Cycles

The garden shed is a part of a home garden that can have multiple purposes. Besides storing gardening tools, it can also be used as a place to relax and enjoy the garden. In case you also want to utilize your garden shed as a place to relax, it’s a good idea to enhance it with some additions, such as adding some garden furniture and installing wood wall panels. The following are 3 tips on how to enhance your garden shed that you can follow to make it better.

When and How to Deadhead Cosmos Flowers

Garlic is one of my favorite vegetables to grow. I love that I get two harvests from the bulbs I plant in the fall. The first harvest, because I plant hardneck garlic, is the long, loopy garlic scape. Then a few weeks later, I pull the garlic bulbs to dry and store through the fall and winter. In this article, I’m going to share tips on trimming the scapes, as well as when to harvest garlic. I usually spread my garlic crop out over a couple of my raised beds. If I still need space, I’ll pop a few extra here and there i

Tom Massey's WaterAid garden at the Chelsea Flower Show 2024