by Thompson & Morgan | Oct 28, 2020 | Flowers, Gardening Posts
One of the most spectacular spring-flowering bulbs, tulips dazzle the post-winter garden with their bright blooms. Plant these hardy bulbs in beds, borders and containers for a joyful burst of colour and fragrance come spring.
From delicate native varieties to scented giants, browse our full collection of tulip bulbs here. When you’ve made your choice, here’s everything you need to know about growing them.
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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 | Oct 26, 2020 | Gardening Posts
Adorn your mantlepiece with stunning Christmas gifts from Thompson & Morgan
Image source: Thompson & Morgan
Christmas is a time to be thankful and show people you care – whether it’s through the exchange of thoughtful gifts, spending time together, or taking a moment to catch up on news.
And what better way to spread goodwill than with the surprise delivery of a festive houseplant? These eco-friendly gifts can be easily ordered from home, and will continue to give pleasure long after the tinsel has been returned to the loft. Here are five cracking choices from T&M’s Christmas gift selection…
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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 | Sep 14, 2020 | Gardening Posts
There’s a huge choice of plants to bring your winter garden to life
Image: Andrew Fletcher/shutterstock
Create a garden full of colour, scent and interest this winter! Here’s our pick of the flowers, climbers, winter bedding plants and shrubs to help you to enjoy an all-year-round display and raise your spirits through the colder months. Looking for a little drama once the leaves have dropped? Here’s what to plant for a bright and colourful winter wonderland…
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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 | Sep 7, 2020 | Gardening Posts
Transform any vertical space into a growing opportunity
Image: CoolKengzz/Shutterstock
Is your garden overflowing with plants, flowers and shrubs, leaving no room to squeeze in exciting new specimens? Perhaps you have limited outside space? The solution is one and the same – go vertical! With a little ingenuity, you can create an interesting, colourful and productive garden where there wasn’t one before.
What is vertical gardening?
This eco-friendly “living wall” is vertical gardening on a dramatic scale
Image source: Evannovostro/Shutterstock
Vertical gardening simply means growing plants on a vertical plane, like up a fence or wall. It could be as straightforward as training climbers up a trellis, or as elaborate as engineering eco-friendly “living walls”, like those with integrated irrigation systems seen on eco-friendly homes and office buildings. Whatever your style, space, or budget, a vertical garden is a fun and creative way to make the most of your outdoor space.
What are the benefits of vertical gardening?
Make the most of small spaces with shelves, hanging baskets, and window boxes
Image: Isa Long/Shutterstock
Adding height and interest, a vertical garden is, in a word, beautiful. But vertical gardens don’t just look good – they do good! They improve the air quality, boost biodiversity, and even reduce ambient noise and temperature. Not to mention boosting mental wellbeing.
These are particularly welcome benefits for space-challenged urbanites for whom a vertical garden is the only way to add a bit of green to the city’s grey. Vertical gardens can grow on balconies, patios, or even just a fence, if that’s what you have.
For those with more traditional gardens, growing “up” lets you make the most of your garden real estate, while giving you the chance to highlight particular areas or disguise unsightly ones.
Happily, it also makes gardening much more accessible. Tasks can be tailored to any height and level of intensity, which is ideal for gardeners with mobility issues. It also makes vertical gardening a fun project for the whole family.
What can I use as vertical planters?
Upcycled pallets make a great frame for a vertical garden
Image: lulu and isabelle/Shutterstock
Garden walls and fences are a blank canvas. Let your creativity loose!
- Hook window boxes from fences or balconies, or suspend hanging baskets for interest, colour, and depth.
- Use a climbing frame to encourage evergreen plants like clematis to thrive upwards.
- If you have a craggy or dry stone wall, plant alpines or succulents directly in the gaps.
- Try securely mounting flat-backed planters for a permanent feature wall.
- Affix wire mesh to the wall or use a freestanding trellis for a more adaptable approach. You can then use a variety of removable containers; a great option for gardens with limited sun or if you plan on changing the plants with the season.
Whatever your approach, you’ll need to balance practicalities with aesthetics. Will the plant need regular pruning? Will it produce fruit that needs picking? Can you water it from that height? And some plants can be heavy, especially after watering, so make sure your support structure can take the load.
There are lots of ways to grow vertically – many of which you may already have, knocking around in cupboards or sheds. Upcycling is a great way to help your garden grow up – and save you money, as well as space. Old tin cans, plastic bottles, bookshelves, and pallets can all be used for creative effect. See what you can repurpose from around the house to suit your chosen plants.
What fruit and veg can I grow in a vertical garden?
Ripe for the picking – strawberries adapt well to vertical gardens
Image: Luoxi/Shutterstock
Herbs, fruit, vegetables, annuals and perennials can all be grown in vertical gardens. In fact, away from the ground, they’re more likely to avoid pesky pests and diseases, so it’s a win-win.
An edible vertical garden offers a great return on investment. If you’ve got a decent amount of sun, strawberries are well-suited to container planting. Fast and strong growing, the unique “Mount Everest” climber variety is a knockout. It can be trained up a trellis or obelisk climbing frame, or cascade from window boxes and hanging baskets.
Cucamelons and kiwis are also climbers that are lovely to look at and eat, and they’re very happy in containers. Bush varieties of tomatoes like ‘Romello’ will also thrive vertically. Same goes for a huge variety of easy-to-grow salad leaves, as well as hardy, low maintenance herbs like thyme, parsley, and oregano.
What plants and flowers can I grow in a vertical garden?
Break up a plain fence with some welcome greenery
Image: AMMARIN NANTASEN/shutterstock
Vertical gardens are an ideal way to add colour and structure to your outside space without sacrificing square footage on the ground. Sun-loving plants – best for south-facing vertical gardens with a bit of shelter – include fuchsia, salvia, and nasturtiums. And with their dense rosettes of foliage, evergreen succulents like sempervivum can grow to create a living carpet in wall crevices and troughs. They are also pretty drought resistant, making them a very low maintenance addition to any vertical garden.
For a longer term investment, try a climbing hydrangea like Moonlight. It’ll need training for the first few years of slow growth, but then it will use self-clinging aerial roots to cover entire walls with its creamy-white, lace cap flowers and silvery blue leaves.
Gardens with more shade, meanwhile, will benefit from plants like small ferns, pansies, and wallflowers. For more coverage for less effort, Virginia creeper is the way to go. A fast-growing and easy climber, its beautiful foliage turns flame-coloured in the autumn, making it a striking garden addition at any time of year.
Colourful, creative, and offering a whole range of positive benefits, vertical gardening is a great option for amateur and seasoned gardeners alike. If you’re looking for creative ideas to make the most of a small garden, visit our hub page dedicated to small space and balcony gardening.
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 | Sep 2, 2020 | Gardening Posts
Amaranthus caudatus ‘Love Lies Bleeding is one of the most popular varieties
Image: pjhpix/shutterstock
‘Love Lies Bleeding’, the name most commonly used for Amaranthus caudatus, is a bushy, 5ft tall, half-hardy annual with distinctive flowers that cascade to the ground in dramatic, crimson tassels. In each of these fascinating tassels is a colony of tiny, tightly packed flowers that last for many weeks.
From the Greek word ‘Amaranth’ meaning ‘the unfading flower’, the bright red blooms of Amaranthus generally retain their colour even after the flower has died. No surprise that they’re loved by gardeners and flower arrangers alike. Here’s how to grow Amaranthus in your garden.
Amazing amaranthus
In addition to the popular weeping panicles of ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, there are many other different types of amaranth to bring interest to your borders. Amaranthus tricolor ‘Joseph’s Coat’ is coveted for its stunning variegated leaves, while Amaranthus paniculatus is loved for its tall, feathery spikes.
Amaranthus is a warm weather annual that prefers a sunny position and slightly acidic soil. It belongs to a genus of over 60 amaranth species that have an established presence in nearly every continent. They’re easy to cultivate, able to tolerate poor soil and don’t require a lot of watering. Amaranth will also self-sow, bringing more flowers every year.
How to grow amaranthus
Sow amaranthus seeds outside in late spring or early summer after the last frosts. The minimum germination temperature is around 13°C, but best results are seen at 15-18 degrees.
You can direct sow seeds every 15cm (6 inches), thinning to 45 cm (18 inches) as the plants become established. Amaranth can grow to 1.8m (6 feet), so tall varieties like Amaranthus caudatus ‘Fat Spike’ will need approximately 60cm (24 inches) between plants. Don’t worry that the extra seedlings will be wasted. Rather than throwing away these tender shoots, add them to salads or stir-fries instead.
Many people prefer to start their amaranthus seeds off indoors, to give them an early start. If you want to get them going a little sooner, sow your seeds in pots or trays of moist seed compost in February to March, and cover with a very fine sprinkling of compost or vermiculite. Keep them at a constant temperature of between 20-25C but allow the temperature to reduce at night. Keep the seeds somewhere bright, as light helps them to germinate. Germination usually takes 3-15 days. Transplant your seedlings into larger pots and harden them off for 10-15 days before planting out.
As amaranthus are generally large plants, they’re best grown at the back of a flower border where they make dramatic companion plants to other tall summer favourites such as sunflowers, Cleomes, Zinnias and Nicotiana. Smaller varieties, such as Amaranthus paniculatus ‘Marvel Bronze’, look fantastic grown en masse, providing a spectacular display!
Is amaranthus safe to eat?
Historically, amaranthus was revered by the Aztecs and Incas, who believed that it had supernatural powers as food and medicine, making it one of the world’s oldest crops. It’s also sometimes known as ‘Chinese spinach’ or ‘callaloo’ in Caribbean cooking.
Today Amarathus is gaining popularity as a superfood, and more and more people are choosing to grow it in the vegetable garden. The plant’s green leaves can be eaten raw in salads, added to soups and stir fries, or simmered in curries. Similar in taste to spinach, Amaranthus leaves contain almost twice the vitamin C and the same amount of iron, but unlike spinach, the plant doesn’t bolt.
Each Amaranthus plant also produces multiple seed heads, yielding up to 5,000 seeds that are a bit like quinoa. Mild and nutty, gluten-free and packed with protein and calcium, the mild peppery flavour is a great addition to breads and cereals.
How to harvest amaranthus seeds
While most people want to grow Amaranthus for its ornamental value, it’s worth knowing a little bit about harvesting the seeds. Perhaps also having some recipe ideas if you fancy growing amaranthus to add variety to your diet.
The seed heads mature from the bottom of the tassel and move upwards, so the simplest way to test if they’re ripe is to shake out the ripe seeds into a clean bucket. Alternatively cut the seed heads, cover them with a paper bag and hang them upside down in a well ventilated place to allow them to dry for a week or two.
Are you excited by the possibilities of amaranthus growing? Tag us in your photos and share your interesting new amaranth recipes over on Facebook or Twitter. For more advice on growing different types of exotic plants, visit our hub page where you’ll find expert variety recommendations, care tips and much more.
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.
