Thompson & Morgan Gardening Blog

Try out these delicious plot-to-bowl recipes
Image: Chainupong Hiporn

Homemade soup isn’t just good for the soul – it’s a healthy, wholesome and cost-effective meal that makes excellent use of homegrown veg. 

If you’re taking part in this week’s Big Soup Share, or you’re looking for new ideas to fill your family’s soup bowls and lunch flasks, check out some of our favourite bloggers’ recipes for inspiration…

Image: An English Homestead

Beetroot Soup

Kev at An English Homestead grows such beautiful chioggia beetroot that it’s almost a shame to blend them. His velvety red soup is a feast for the eyes as well as a vitamin-packed winner on a cold winter’s day.

Image: The Seasonal Table

Borage Leaf, Pea and Garden Mint Soup

At The Seasonal Table, Kathy & Tom use borage as a companion plant alongside tomatoes. The fact that the cucumber-flavoured leaves make a beautifully light and delicious soup is an added bonus. Top with a fresh hen’s egg and serve with crusty bread – sensational.

Image: Crofters Cottage

Carrot and Saffron Soup

Come November, Milli at the Crofters Cottage is looking forward to harvesting ‘Jaune d’Obtuse’ carrots that range in colour from almost white to a vibrant yellow. Her beautifully delicate-flavoured soup is simply divine.

Image: Hedgecombers

Nettle Soup

“Nettle soup isn’t rocket science,” says Janie, dismissing a disappointing celebrity chef’s version to come up with her own. Want a good excuse to let weeds run riot in your garden? This iron-rich bowl of green goodness is it! See Hedgecombers for the recipe.

Image: Family Way Studio

Celeriac and Hazelnut Soup

Celeriac can be expensive to buy but it’s easy to grow. Blitzing to a silky consistency, this ugly root veg is perfect for winter soups. Over at The Veg Space, Kate’s festive flavour combination would make the ideal starter for Christmas dinner…

Image: chomplearn

Creamy Avocado Soup

Served warm rather than hot, Shaheen’s “delicious blanket of green velvet lushness” combines the flavours of Mexican guacamole in an exciting new way. Homegrown onions, tomatoes and chives raise it to a new level. See Allotment 2 Kitchen for the recipe.

Image: Recipes from a Pantry

Wild Garlic and Farro Soup 

Over at Recipes from a Pantry, Bintu loves foraging for wild garlic. Her soup is the ideal way to warm up after a brisk winter walk in the woods – just think nutty farro, garlicky greens, lemony tahini and sweetness from toasted almonds and pomegranate seeds.

Image: Agents of Field

Roasted Roots Soup

Roasting only improves the flavour of root vegetables, enhancing their earthy sweetness, say Sophie & Ade from Agents of Field. For the ultimate bowl of comfort soup, this is the recipe for you.

Image: Marrow ‘Tiger Cross’ F1 Hybrid from Thompson & Morgan

Marrow Soup

Marrows make for a silky smooth soup, say Maria & John at Allotment Garden. But if you’re looking for texture, simply add some cooked rice or soup pasta – along with a generous dash of chilli sauce to turn up the heat.

Image: Tinned Tomatoes

Sweet Potato, Green Lentil and Spinach Soup

Fancy a comforting and hearty soup that’ll help you get to your five-a-day in one sitting? Try Jacqueline’s sweet potato, green lentil & spinach recipe. Check out Tinned Tomatoes for this amazing recipe.

Image: The Flexitarian

Curried Brussels Sprouts Soup

Don’t like Brussel’s sprouts? You’ll be surprised what a difference a little garam masala makes! Blended until smooth, Annabelle’s high fibre soup is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to see you safely through winter. Visit The Flexitarian for the recipe.

Image: grafvision

Vegan Leek and Potato Soup

Leek soup is one of Lucy’s favourite homemade wintertime treats – especially if it’s made with fresh, flavoursome leeks and onions that she’s grown herself. See her easy recipe over on The Smallest Smallholding.

Image: dogwooddays

Roasted Jerusalem Artichoke and Sweet Chestnut Soup

Nic says “there’s nothing better than soup…to warm your cockles when your heart’s feeling chilly, for whatever reason.” A glut of Jerusalem artichokes required her to get creative, but you’ll want to plant more when you’ve tasted this soup! Visit dogwooddays for the recipe.

That’s it for now. We hope you like our favourite soup recipes and you’ve bookmarked some to try later, and if you’re planning on planting out some ingredients, check out our veg plants range. Let us know if you’ve come across anything that we’ve missed. We’re especially keen on soups that use edible pumpkin innards…!

Thompson & Morgan

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.

Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ is ideal for poor soil and dry conditions
Image: Peter Turner Photography

Many people have a tough spot in their garden – too dry, too shady, or just too exposed to be able to easily grow plants that will thrive. Others have damp, boggy areas or frost pockets that present challenges to plant life. 

We asked The Sunday Gardener, Carol Bartlett, to share her expert advice on tough plants for tough locations. Here are some of her top suggestions for plants with the stamina and staying power to fill your tricky spots.

Shrubs for exposed areas

The silvery variegated foliage of euonymus brings all year round interest to tricky corners
Image: Euonymus ‘Emerald Gaiety’ from Thompson & Morgan

A blustery corner of the garden could be the ideal spot for a tough shrub such as cotoneaster. There are lots of different varieties in this group of shrubs, and an ideal sized variety that grows to around 2.5m is C. Amoenus. It’s tolerant of all soil types and copes well with partial shade and blustery conditions. An evergreen shrub, its lovely white flowers in the late spring and early summer are attractive to bees.

These are followed in the autumn and winter with masses of red berries – a feast for wild birds, and especially loved by blackbirds. It’s a tough shrub and will grow wherever you plant it, except in wet conditions.

Another tough shrub which is very hardy and tolerant of most conditions is elaeagnus. Most attractive are those with variegated leaves such as ‘Limelight’ and ‘Gilt Edge’ which has the RHS award of garden merit. Equally tough, with bright variegation is Euonymus fortunei. ‘Emerald and Green’ which has golden green leaves, and ‘Emerald Gaiety’ with white and green variations are good varieties to grow.

If you’re looking for a tough shrub with flowers, Viburnum tinus is an ideal choice. It has pretty, white-tinged, pale pink flowers in the spring and it tolerates most soil conditions, sun and shade.

Buddleja davidii is another hardy and easy to grow shrub that’s tolerant of all conditions, except wet and boggy soils. Buddleja is often called the ‘butterfly bush’ as its aromatic flowers attract a wide variety of butterflies into the garden.

Grasses for exposed areas

A carpet of achillea is the perfect partner for grasses
Image: The Sunday Gardener

As an alternative to shrubs, you might like to try some of the hardier plants and grasses, but bear in mind that windy positions will cause tall grasses like Cortaderia selloana (Pampas grass) and Miscanthus to shed their lovely plumes.

Stipa tenuissima (Mexican feather grass) is an attractive, compact grass that grows to around 35cm. Ideal in harsher conditions, and with masses of soft fluffy plumes, it combines beautifully with achillea in a dry spot. Achillea’s large, flat, long-lasting flower heads continue to look good as the flowers fade.

Another plant that combines well with shrubs or grasses is nepeta. Tougher than lavender, and tolerant of different conditions including semi-shade and damp, it brings clouds of blue to your borders, from pale mauve through to deep indigo.

For excellent ground cover and as an edging for paths, Alchemilla mollis tolerates full sun, full shade and everything in between. Extremely hardy (to -20 degrees C) and tolerant of all soil types, it’s an ideal plant for tough areas. However, you’ll need to keep it in check as it’s vigorous, almost to the point of being invasive.

Plants for dry soils and rockeries

In dry poor soils, or for the small spaces between paving slabs and in rockeries, Erigeron karvinskianus is an excellent choice with its lovely pale pink and white daisy-like flowers. It will grow in many awkward areas and, once established, re-appears reliably each year.

Equally tolerant of dry conditions, if provided with a sunny spot, is sedum. This group of plants contains many different varieties including larger, upright specimens such as Herbstfreude with its familiar red and rosy pink flowers so loved by pollinators, to tiny ground-hugging plants with small but attractive flowers.

Plants for dry shade

English ivy is a native plant loved by wildlife
Image: The Sunday Gardener

One of the trickiest conditions to successfully garden, and requiring a very tough plant, is dry shade. I recommend trying vinca, commonly known as periwinkle, which has lovely blue flowers to brighten up the gloomy areas.

Equally happy in these conditions is the English ivy Hedera helix. When mature this plant produces late autumn flowers that provide high quality nectar for bees and pollinators just when they need it, before winter hibernation. The flowers are then followed by purple berries loved by blackbirds, thrushes, blackcaps and wood pigeons. It’s a native plant with great wildlife value, as is Hawthorn, which will also tolerate difficult conditions.

With stunning lime green foliage, euphorbia is another ideal plant for dry shade. Varieties such as Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae retains its lovely fresh, lime green leaves and combines well with the blue flowers of Vinca to provide bright colour in a dry shady area.

Plants for damp shade

Slug-resistant varieties of hosta thrive in damp shade
Image: The Sunday Gardener

A tough condition that’s slightly easier to accommodate is damp shade. One of my favourite stand out plants for a darker damp corner is Astilbe. The strong white plumes of Astilbe ‘Professor van der Wielen’ are particularly good.

Astilbe combines well with ferns and hostas which thrive in damp shade. Try planting some of the more slug-resistant hostas such as Big Daddy, Gold Regal, Liberty, Halcyon, and Silvery Slugproof to keep the pests away.

Conservatory flowers

Smothered in scarlet blooms, this was the most outstanding pelargonium in T&M’s trials
Image: Geranium ‘Moulin Rouge’ F1 Hybrid

Finally, are you fed up of composting dead and diseased conservatory plants? If the toughest place to grow successfully in your garden is your conservatory, take a look at pelargoniums. These non-hardy geraniums not only withstand the extreme heat of your conservatory – they positively bask in it. They’ll also survive the winter in an unheated conservatory. Tolerant and forgiving, just give them a regular water and occasional feed (tomato food is fine) and geraniums will flower away from March to November. I have to make myself cut them back in November when they’re often still in flower, knowing that this will improve the plant for next year.

Geraniums have many different flower types, some with amazing scented leaves, that will happily live in your conservatory for several years. When they get leggy, simply take a cutting and start again with a fresh plant.

Geraniums really brighten up a conservatory and are one of the few flowering plants which will take the very hot temperatures unscathed.

We hope this has given you plenty of food for thought and lots of ideas for those tricky areas in your gardens. Let us know how you get on over on Facebook or Twitter. We love to hear from you!

Carol Bartlett

Carol Bartlett, The Sunday Gardener, lives in the north of England where she has created a diverse garden including wildflowers, natural areas, herbaceous borders, a wildlife pond, trees and wetland plants, along with a vegetable plot. She has been gardening, reading, researching and photographing plants for over twenty years and her website is a popular resource for gardeners young and old.

https://www.sundaygardener.co.uk/

Nic has planted Rudbeckia ‘Savannah Mixed’ alongside grasses in her own garden
Image: Nic Wilson of dogwooddays

Midsummer is a time of plenty in the garden with roses blooming, sweet peas in their prime and borders a riot of colour. But as summer progresses and cottage garden stalwarts begin to fade, there are some fantastic late-flowering plants ready to carry the torch into autumn. 

We asked professional garden designer, Nic Wilson of dogwooddays, to share her thoughts on rudbeckia, one of our favourite ways to add a splash of late summer sophistication to any garden.

Prairie-style planting

Prairie style planting displays provide long-lasting colour and attract pollinating insects
Image: Lukasz Stefanski

It’s at this time of year that North American perennials and annuals really come into their own. Unlike meadows in the UK which generally peak at midsummer, North American grassland reaches its zenith around late summer or early autumn, making prairie flower displays ideal to keep the colour in the garden going well past the summer equinox. The daisy flowers of echinacea, helenium, aster and rudbeckia are also fabulous sources of nectar for pollinating insects.

Best varieties of rudbeckia

The striking red of this rudbeckia flower is a glorious addition to any planting scheme
Image: Nic Wilson of dogwooddays

Rudbeckia (commonly known as coneflower or black-eyed Susan) was named after Olof Rudbeck (senior), the Swedish Professor of Medicine and polymath who founded the Uppsala Botanical Garden in 1655.

All rudbeckias prefer an open sunny spot with soil that has been improved with organic matter. They can be planted in spring or autumn, or sown from seed. Charismatic Rudbeckia hirta is a valuable annual to add to container displays and to the late summer border, often flowering up until the first frosts. There are many annual cultivars to suit different colour schemes:

• R. hirta ‘Cherry Brandy’ – rich crimson flowers
• R. x hirta hybrida ‘Cherokee Sunset’ – mahogany, orange and bronze flowers
• R. hirta ‘Chim Chiminee’ – cheerful yellows, oranges and reds

One of the most popular perennial rudbeckia varieties is R. fulgida var. sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’ – a robust and reliable flower that likes to be kept moist in summer. The open yellow petals contrast with the dark central eye, making it a striking bloom, especially when planted in swathes through grasses or with other prairie flowers like echinacea and heleniums.

Sophisticated ‘savannah mixed’

Opening in gentle lime green, petals mature to wine-red and burnt orange as summer progresses
Image: Thompson & Morgan’s new half-hardy annual R. ‘Savannah Mixed’

This year I’ve planted Thompson & Morgan’s new and exclusive, half-hardy annual R. ‘Savannah Mixed’ from their own breeding programme. Beautiful colour-changing double flowers with petals in shades of yellow-green, wine-red and burnt orange, ‘Savannah Mixed’ evokes the subtle colours of the grassy African plains and brings real elegance to late summer displays. It looks best planted en masse in containers or borders, where the flowers combine to create a sophisticated scheme.

In my garden, I’m planting R. ‘Savannah Mixed’ with grasses (Briza maxima, Deschampsia cespitosa and Stipa tenuissima) and with other late-bloomers like Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’. The muted lime, burgundy and copper tones of the rudbeckia add touches of colour without disturbing the soft mood created by the grass seed heads gently swaying in the breeze. And as the flowers age the colours deepen, providing an effortless transition to autumn in your late summer borders.

Image: Nic Wilson of dogwooddays

Nic Wilson

Nic Wilson is a writer, garden designer and Garden Media Guilds Awards nominee (Best Blog, 2018). She enjoys growing flowers and unusual fruit, vegetables and herbs, and loves to encourage nature into the garden. She also blogs at dogwooddays.

http://www.dogwooddays.net