by Thompson & Morgan | Jul 5, 2019 | Gardening Posts, Recipes
Enjoy sharing homegrown food and drinks this summer
Image: Jack Frog
There’s nothing more satisfying than sharing fresh, homegrown produce with friends and family on a warm summer evening. Except, perhaps, relaxing with a cool sundowner to properly enjoy the garden you’ve spent all year working on!
We asked green-fingered bloggers to tell us their favourite homegrown summer drinks recipes. From light and refreshing cordials the whole family can enjoy, through to something a little stronger to keep you warm as the sun goes down, here’s how to distil a glut into a glass.
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The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Jun 27, 2019 | Gardening Posts
Looking for ways to prevent unwanted cats visiting your garden?
Image: lkoimages
Fed up with neighbourhood cats fouling your flower beds, digging up seedlings, and damaging your plants? Potential solutions to the problem are many, but no one method is 100% successful, which is why it’s best to deploy an integrated anti-cat strategy. Think of yourself as a Monty battling the moggies, it’s time to plan an effective – non-harmful – campaign to rid your garden of cats. Here are some tried-and-tested options…
Secure your outer perimeter
Make getting into your garden as awkward for cats as you can, and they’ll slink off to use someone else’s flower beds for their relief. Try stretching a string or wire a few inches above your fence line, or fix a band of soft, collapsible fencing to the top of your garden wall or fence – cats will find it tricky to negotiate these kind of hazards, and won’t be able to rest on top of your fence.
You might also like to try tacking chicken wire to your fence top, angling it away from your garden so cats will have to hang backwards if they’re determined to access your backyard. Do bear in mind, however, these kind of solutions look somewhat unsightly – you have to be pretty desperate to resort to them!
Border defences
The combination of lavender and gravel is unpleasant to cats
Image: Del Boy
Cats love to be comfortable while about their “business”, so make your patch as unpleasant as you can and, with luck, they’ll seek alternative arrangements. Cats hate the feel of chicken wire under their sensitive paws, so place a layer over your flower beds, cutting holes through which your plants can grow.
Alternatively, use a sharp gravel mulch, put down eggshells, sprinkle holly leaves, or place pine cones around the base of trees whose bark you wish to protect from cats’ clawing and climbing. Cats love dry, loose soil for their toilet, so water well and fill your borders with plants so they don’t have room to squat.
Plants to deter cats
The scent of the ‘scaredy-cat’ plant deters cats, dogs, rabbits and foxes
Image: Coleus canina (scaredy-cat plant) from Thompson & Morgan
Cats have a powerful sense of smell which you can use against them. By growing plants with strong perfumes that cats find distasteful, you make your garden a whole lot less attractive to feline visitors. Bear in mind that, just as some cats don’t love the smell of catnip, not all cats react to plants intended to deter them – but these are definitely worth including in your strategy:
- Lavender – this garden favourite produces dainty purple flowers and smells divine to us humans. Bees love it and cats do not.
- Rosemary – a kitchen staple, rosemary is a hit with pollinators. It prefers a sunny spot with well-drained soil.
- Rue – once known as a medicinal herb, rue has bluish foliage and yellow flowers – grow with caution because rue is poisonous and physical contact can cause skin blistering.
- Lemon balm – cats don’t like the smell of citrus and will avoid plants that smell of it.
- Pennyroyal – with a powerful spearmint smell, this plant is an antiseptic, and an insect repellant.
- Scaredy cat – specially bred as a cat deterrent, coleus canina smells horrible to cats and other animals but, provided you don’t touch the leaves, you won’t be able to pick up the whiff of dog urine this plant emits.
Chemical warfare against cats
Water around your flowers with a vinegar solution, or try heavily scented essential oils
Image: iko
Jeyes fluid and mothballs are often touted as effective cat deterrents, but they’re poisonous to cats and other animals. Natural options are a better alternative to using harmful chemicals to repel cats.
Try spraying white vinegar diluted in water – but be cautious – a vinegar solution won’t harm acid loving plants, but could potentially damage other garden plants if it’s too concentrated. That being the case, another option is to soak tea bags or cotton wool balls in vinegar and place them strategically about the garden – cats don’t like the smell and will avoid them.
Moggies are also dislike the smell of citrus and other herbal extracts – add a few drops of essential oils to your watering can. Citronela, lavender, orange, peppermint are all effective, especially when you use them in combination.
Cat scarers
Sonic cat scarers are a proven technique for scaring cats away. When animals cross the sensor, these systems emit a high-pitched sound barely audible to the human ear but very uncomfortable for cats.
Unfortunately cats sometimes get used to the sound from a sonic system and learn to ignore it, others will ignore it from the get go; still others learn to walk around the problem, and foul other parts of your garden. Sound is one weapon in your arsenal, but it’s far from the whole deal.
Attack is the best means of defence
Cats hate to get wet, and learn to fear the jet from a spray cat repeller. It works when the cat triggers a sensor, switching on a water spray connected to your garden hose – they’ll pelt for the fence as fast as their paws can carry them.
Cats make wonderful pets but when they use your garden as a public convenience, they’re a “purr–fect” nuisance. Hopefully these anti-cat measures will keep your lawn clean – if not, perhaps it’s time you resorted to the “nuclear” option – a dog.
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Feb 8, 2019 | Gardening Posts
If you’re looking for a wonderful shade plant to add colour and interest to the darker corners of your garden, look no further than heuchera. This hardy native of North America can withstand the cold, offers a wide range of colourful foliage all year round, and wispy flowers on long stems in the spring. Also known as coral bells or alumroot, this evergreen perennial is a must, and as an autumn bedding plant, is hard to beat. Here’s how to grow and care for it.
About heuchera
Heuchera comes in a variety of colours – ideal for any planting colour scheme.
Image: Buquet Christophe
Heuchera grows in a wide variety of habitats in its native North America, from the salty shores of California to arid Arizona and New Mexico. It likes shade and semi-shade best, but some varieties will grow in full sun. It’s not particularly fussy about soil type either, although it doesn’t like to get too wet or too dry..
Growing from a crown at ground level, the foliage is this plant’s main attraction. Think purples, red, and burnt umbers at one end of the spectrum, and limes, yellows, and greens at the other, with every kind of variegation you could possibly wish for.
Firm favourites
Try the moodier palette of Heuchera ‘Stormy Seas’ for a subtle flash of colour.
Featured Image: Thompson & Morgan
Heuchera ‘Berry Smoothie’ is a real treat. With its pink leaves and claret veins, it offers a vibrant splash of colour which only deepens as the foliage darkens through late summer and into autumn and winter. Come the spring, you’ll find this plant’s creamy white flowers a delight and a true contrast against the bright leaves.
Fancy something to suit with a verdant palette? Take a look at this Heuchera/ Tiarella hybrid, ‘Solar Power’. With its evergreen yellow lime foliage mottled with dark red markings, it’s a great way to liven up a shady border.
For more subtle coverage of difficult spots, give Heuchera ‘Stormy Seas’ a try. This hardy perennial features maroon and green leaves with silver variegation and creamy white flowers which bloom on tall spikes during the summer.
Where to plant heuchera
Heuchera normally prefer shade, but some varieties can cope with higher levels of sunlight.
Image: Maria Evseyeva
Heuchera is a shade-loving plant, but with so many varieties to choose from, there is considerable variation in terms of how much sunlight different specimens can cope with. As a rule of thumb, the colour of the leaves gives you a good clue as to where to site your plant; darker leaves are better at withstanding the sun’s rays.
A great plant for those who garden in coastal areas where salt-laden winds are an issue, the only thing heuchera really doesn’t like is heavy, wet ground which causes the crown to rot, or very sandy soils which can quickly dry out. Improve your soil by adding plenty of organic matter, choose well-drained soil, and water regularly but sparingly.
When to plant heuchera
Dig a hole that’s twice the size of the root ball for planting.
Image: Shutterstock
You can plant heuchera any time the soil’s not waterlogged or frozen, but for best results, put yours in the ground during the spring or early autumn to allow it to establish without risk of frost damage. Dig a hole about twice the size of the root ball and add a handful of organic matter or blood, fish, and bone to give your plant a good start.
Remove your heuchera from its pot and gently massage the roots to separate them before planting and covering until the soil reaches the same level as it did in the pot. Avoid covering the crown itself or there’s a chance it will rot.
How to prune heuchera
Prune your heuchera to keep it from getting leggy
Image: GardenTags
After a couple of years your heuchera may start to become rather clumped and leggy. When you part the leaves, you’ll discover woody stems that lead back to the crown of the plant. To prune, cut the stems back to a just above buds of fresh growth at the top of the crown.
To propagate your cuttings, snip away any dead wood until you come to the sappy part of the stem before planting in potting compost; general purpose compost with added grit and a slow release fertiliser will also work. Roots will develop in three to four weeks.
Heuchera rust
Ensure you don’t introduce infected Heuchera plants into your garden.
Image: AliScha
Although it’s a tough plant, in recent years, the fungal disease, Puccinia heuchera, otherwise known as heuchera rust has become widespread in the UK. It’s a particular problem during wet summers and appears mainly as sunken spots on the top of leaves with orange rust coloured pustules on the underside.
If you’re buying new plants to supplement other, uninfected, heuchera in your garden, it’s a good idea to quarantine the new plants for three to four weeks to be sure they are unaffected. Check your plants regularly for signs of the disease, removing any affected material and destroy rather than compost it.
Because heuchera rust likes damp conditions, pay close attention to soil drainage, plant your heuchera where there’s plenty of air circulation, and water early in the morning so the leaf surfaces have a chance to dry during the day.
You can’t beat heuchera for glorious foliage which provides both vibrant colour and structure to your autumn planting scheme.
For further flower growing advice, check out our collection ‘How to’ gardening guides. For help planting up shaded areas, and more top varieties and guides, head to our plants for shade hub page.
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Jan 23, 2019 | Gardening Posts
Are you looking for some garden inspiration? Or just curious about which plants were gardeners’ favourites last year? Here are our ten best-selling plants of 2018. The majority are flowers – including two of our own prize-winning hybrids – but there are a couple of fruits in there too – can you guess which they are?
Copyright: Visions BV, Netherlands
Hydrangea Runaway Bride®
Awarded the prestigious title of Plant of the Year for 2018 at Chelsea Flower Show, our Hydrangea hybrid Runaway Bride® ‘Snow White’ is one of the most floriferous and vigorous hydrangeas you’ve ever seen. It’s the only hydrangea to produce flowers from every leaf joint – producing up to 6 large, beautiful blooms per branch and a spectacular showy display. We’re so proud of this beautiful hydrangea with its pure white lace-cap flowers, flushed with pale pink. It makes an elegant border shrub and is equally stunning in hanging baskets and containers. The Runaway Bride® has stolen many hearts this year, has it stolen yours?
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‘Sunbelievable Brown Eyed Girl’ took third prize in Chelsea Flower Show’s Plant of the Year 2018
Sunflower SunBelievable™ Brown Eyed Girl
Our ‘Sunbelievable™ Brown Eyed Girl’ sunflower won third place in Chelsea’s Plant of the Year 2018 category. This stunning new hybrid sunflower doesn’t waste time setting seed but puts all its energy into flowering. This pretty sunflower is perfect for pots and borders. It produces masses of beautiful, dainty blooms all the way through to November. Our head breeder Charles says: “I’ve crossed the very best with the very best to really boost its flower power.”
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Copyright: Verdegaal
Tree Lily Pretty Woman
Tree lilies create a striking display in the garden. These impressive plants are giants of the flower world, their stunning blooms towering at up to 8ft (2.4m) tall by their third year. Sturdy and prolific, each tree lily plant produces around 30 trumpet-shaped flowers. But with a relatively narrow spread (45cm or 18”), they fit nicely into even narrow borders. The Pretty Woman Tree Lily comes in red, yellow and white varieties, all of which offer a deliciously sweet fragrance.
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This spiky clematis might be a real show off but it’s very easy to look after
Clematis Taiga
When clematis ’Taiga’ was launched at Chelsea Flower Show in 2017, it caused quite a stir. Its hand-sized blooms with multi-layered purple petals tipped with lime/cream unfurl into stunning spikey rosettes. This Japanese-bred cultivar loves to climb, producing countless blooms through the summer. But don’t let its show-off credentials fool you – clematis ‘Taiga’ may look exotic but it’s completely hardy, easy to prune and undemanding.
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Our giant fuchsia collection makes a stunning display of hanging baskets
Fuchsia Giant-Flowered Collection
With masses of pretty pendant flowers that bloom all summer long, fuchsias are a firm favourite for beds, borders and hanging baskets. Our giant-flowered collection features the ‘Deep Purple’, ‘Swingtime’, ‘Seventh Heaven’, ‘Holly’s Beauty’ and ‘Peachy’ varieties. The huge blooms measure up to 10cm (4”) across and combine purples, reds and pinks in frosted, marbled and striped petals. This collection of fuchsias produces a beautiful show of colour from June to September.
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These easy-to-care-for begonias produce gorgeous apricot blooms all summer long
Begonia Apricot Shades Improved F1 Hybrid
Begonias are easy to care for and produce continuous colour throughout the summer and well into autumn. This Begonia ‘Apricot Shades Improved’ variety produces gorgeous apricot and orange large double blooms that will cascade from your containers and hanging baskets, bringing colour and impact to your garden. And for the culinarily adventurous among you, their brightly coloured petals bring a lemony hint and crisp texture to salads and sandwiches.
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This decorative strawberry plant produces pretty pink flowers and sweet fruit
Strawberry Just Add CreamTM
These decorative strawberries look beautiful tumbling from a hanging basket, with masses of pretty pink flowers and delicate fruit. But they don’t just look great, they also taste delicious – combining the sweetness of home-grown strawberries with the distinctive flavour of wild woodland varieties. Just Add Cream™ strawberries have an intense flavour and aroma that will take you right back to childhood and your first memory of tasting this fruit. These generous plants fruit early and will keep on cropping from early May through to the first frosts.
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These cheerful begonias will flower non-stop throughout the summer
Begonia Non-Stop Mixed
If you’re looking for a riot of colour throughout the summer months and well into autumn, look no further than non-stop mixed begonias. These compact, vigorous double flowers grow to up to 7cm across and come in a glorious range of shades. Deadhead them throughout the growing season and they’ll continue to flower into October. Non-stop begonias are perfect for containers, beds and borders and their blooms are long lasting and weather resistant.
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These pretty, robust plants quickly spread to fill containers and borders
Busy Lizzie Divine Mixed
Busy Lizzie ‘Divine’ is every gardener’s friend. Flowering endlessly from June to November in a beautiful bright colour mix, these flowers are self cleaning and require virtually no deadheading. What’s more, they’re robust and downy-mildew resistant. Spreading willingly, these busy lizzies quickly fill up pots and baskets and cover beds and borders. And giant blossoms, in a range of vivid colours, contrast pleasingly with their attractive bronze-green foliage.
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Tomato ‘Sweet Aperitif’ will produce up to 500 sweet, red fruits!
Tomato Sweet Aperitif
The ‘Sweet Aperitif’ tomato produces up to 500 red-skinned, bite-sized fruits – that’s about 6kg (300lb)! These cherry tomatoes might be the sweetest you’ll ever eat, but their flavour delicately balances a high sugar content with a pleasingly refreshing tang. This is a cordon variety of tomato, which grows up to 200cm (79”) in a greenhouse or sheltered, sunny spot in the garden.
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From the delicate and understated to the showy and opulent, there’s something for everyone in our 2018’s top-selling plants list. We hope you’ve found one or two (or ten) that you’d like to add to your own garden.
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Oct 8, 2016 | Gardening Posts
Twins reclaim throne as Pumpkin Kings with 2,252lb record breaker
Ian and Stuart Paton UK record holders with Paul Hansord, Thompson & Morgan
Hampshire brothers smash the British record and set their sights on the world record in 2017
Ian and Stuart Paton have broken the British record for a giant pumpkin for an incredible 7th time at the annual Autumn Pumpkin Festival in Southampton. The event draws pumpkin growers from across the UK, all hoping to take home the prize for the UK’s largest pumpkin. This year, the Paton’s gargantuan gourd measured more than 19ft in circumference and during its peak period of growth, it piled on a staggering 57lb each day for 2 weeks. To match its rate of growth, the vigilant horticultural siblings, who run Pine Tops Nursery in Hants, lovingly supplied over 100 gallons of water a day, plus a nutrient-rich fertiliser. As the all-important weigh-in date approached, Ian and Stuart were spending 5 hours a day nurturing the 3 giant pumpkins that they entered into the competition. The final weight of the winning entry is just 71lb off the world record.
The new UK heaviest pumpkin record holder
Each time a record is broken at the annual Jubilee Sailing Trust Autumn Pumpkin Festival, show sponsor – seed and plant mail order specialist Thompson & Morgan – takes the winning specimen back to its Ipswich HQ. The seeds are harvested, tested for viability and prepared for sale, so for any budding giant pumpkin growers inspired by this weekend’s jumbo entries, Thompson & Morgan sell the seeds under the aptly named variety, Pumpkin ‘Paton Twins Giant’. It’s a popular line with amateur growers at just £9.99 for two huge seeds with the genetics to become a record breaker with the right care. It’s the seed of choice for serious competitors too – the majority of entries to this year’s official weigh-in at the Southampton pumpkin event were grown from seeds supplied by the Patons.
The brothers will be using seeds from this year’s crop next year – which they say will bear the best seeds in the country thanks to careful hand pollination of their plants to cross two of their best ever performing plants. And with the world record now held closer to home (Swiss gardener, Ben Meier, took the title in 2014 with a 2,323lb monster) they say they are even more set on achieving the accolade themselves.
Stuart said: “We’ve always been confident of winning the world title eventually, and our new greenhouse has made a big difference with its better soil and light levels, an improved watering system and a larger growing area with a more consistent temperature. We’re well prepared to take on not only the Swiss, but the Americans too.”
T&M Horticultural Director, Paul Hansord said: “It used to be said that the world record would never leave the US, but if the Swiss can do it, so can we. Our seed quality just keeps getting better, thanks to the Patons’ selective pollination, and UK growers are upping the game every year. I’ve every confidence the Paton boys can bring the world title to UK shores in the near future.”
Having just handed over the £1,000 prize cheque and with a promise to pay £10,000 for a British world beater, he could be regretting that confidence in coming years!
Want to try and grow a record breaker? Try Dill’s Atlantic Giant, with fruits weighing in at up to 800k!
For further information, images and reader offers/competitions on Paton Twin Giant seeds, please email Julie Rush jrush@thompson-morgan.com or call 01473 695227
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
