Many plants have something to offer as the growing season winds down, but to truly take advantage of the best of fall, one should grow the three pillars of the autumn garden.
21.08.2023 - 11:56 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change, has ended with a ‘landmark’ agreement that climate change is something we all need to tackle together. Last week I was talking about what gardeners can do to reduce their carbon footprint, and a lot of it is about being thrifty with resources – something that tends to come naturally to us! Over the weekend, Ryan has done his bit by recycling plastic plant pots in my direction. He came across a newly landscaped commercial building, where the unwanted plant pots were being discarded.
If you come across ‘unwanted’ plant pots on landscaping sites or in skips (US: dumpsters) then the safest course of action is to ask whether you can have them. The legality of taking something that has been left out as rubbish is a greyish area in UK law, and you don’t want to risk being arrested for theft or trespass.
The new pots are a timely arrival, as I was starting to scratch around for anything to plant into. Like many gardeners, I used to have a large stack of empty plant pots, waiting to be reused. Some of them were even the same as these new ones – left over from a landscaping project where I used to work. I brought as many of them with me to the new house as I could, but when I moved out of the old house some of them had to be homed, recycled, or left behind for the new owners.
Recycling plastic plant pots can be a bit hit and miss – whether or not you can put plastic plant pots in your recycling bin depends on your collection arrangements, so you would need to check with your local council. But as long as they’re in good condition, there’s absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t be reused. While keen gardeners might amass a sizeable collection, there are plenty of new gardeners
Many plants have something to offer as the growing season winds down, but to truly take advantage of the best of fall, one should grow the three pillars of the autumn garden.
The Coral Plant is a stunning tropical shrub that can add a touch of exotic beauty to any garden or indoor space. It gets its name from its attractive coral-like appearance and unique foliage!
Yesterday I read that Trump adviser Myron Ebell, a climate change denier, thinks that the green movement is the greatest threat to freedom.
Plastic bottles are everywhere these days, even floating around in the oceans. Fortunately for the environment, recycling facilities are improving (here in the UK at least) but a lot of plastic bottles still end up in landfill, where they just don’t break down. If you would like to give your plastic bottles a new lease of life once they’re empty, and save money too, then try recycling them into something useful for the garden.
It has been a difficult spring for gardeners, and their plants, here in the UK. If you’re lucky enough to have the space (and funds) for a greenhouse or a polytunnel then that goes a long way to protecting plants from the vagaries of the weather, but for everyone else cloches are a good solution to the problems it brings.
One of the big differences between now and the time before gardeners relied so much on peat-based composts is the rise in container growing. An army of modern amateur gardeners has to put up with small gardens, and possibly with no soil at all. Growing plants in containers allows us to garden wherever we like, and even to grow plants that would not thrive in our soil. Some plants are grown in containers to keep them under control; others so that they can be moved indoors in winter to ensure their survival.
Buying plants
There’s nothing quite as British as a nice cup of tea, and sitting down for a good cuppa can certainly brighten up your day. A tea bush is unlikely to thrive in most UK gardens (although there are a couple of tea plantations) because of the climate, but there are plenty of herbs that are easy to grow and make a refreshing brew. They’ll even grow well in containers – so they make ideal plants for a windowbox or a patio. Having them close at hand means you can harvest leaves as and when you need them.
I’m not a chemist, but I do find plant chemistry (and the links and patterns between different plants) to be a fascinating topic. Fortunately there are chemists out there who can bring these to our attention, and Compound Interest includes some great plant-related infographics amongst a wider spread of chemical topics.
“April showers bring May flowers.” English proverb
At 11 pm on Friday (BST, 18:01 EDT), SpaceX launched an uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). This Dragon capsule has been to the ISS twice before, making it the first to fly in space for a third time. This is the 18th SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract mission for NASA: CRS-18.
The problem with elections, with votes of any kind, is that the process is inherently divisive. Whatever the result, there are winners and losers. The majority picks the direction we will take, for a little while, and everyone else just has to make the best of it. Given human nature, it seems like there’s a constant battle between tradition and progress. We’re all voting for a better world, we just disagree about what that means.