Thompson & Morgan Gardening Blog

Our gardening blog covers a wide variety of topics, including fruit, vegetable and tree stories. Read some of the top gardening stories right here.

Propagation, planting out and cultivation posts from writers that know their subjects well.

Houseplant Watering Guide

Woman holding up a watering can

Image: Shutterstock

To water or not to water?

That is the question asked by many a gardener, their watering can hovering over a stubbornly mute Aspidistra which refuses to reveal whether it’s thirsty or not!  “When did I last water it?” you ask yourself. “Last week? Last month? ….Last year?” At this point you are pondering the possibility of encroaching dementia as your watering recollections have merged into a dense fog. “How often am I supposed to water this thing anyway?” you wonder, dashing to look it up on Google. “Every week”, “Every other week”, “Every few weeks”; the answers are as varied as the water stains on your furnishings which you are now eyeing up crossly. Clearly, your inability to divine your Aspidistra’s needs must be down to an absence of those mystifying ‘green thumbs’ and you splurge a glug of water into the saucer ‘just for good measure’ before stomping off to quench your own thirst with a cuppa.

Sounds like a familiar story? Well, sit back, enjoy your tea and I will attempt to clear the muddy waters around this critical topic.

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What to do when bad weather prevents planting

Bench in winter with snow surrounding

Unexpected late frosts or snow or can undermine the best laid plans
Image: Shutterstock

When bad weather stops you from immediately planting out your order, don’t despair. With a little bit of care, your plants will survive intact until conditions improve. Here’s how to look after your freshly ordered roots and plug plants when unexpected snow, late frosts, severe rain or the fickle British weather prevents you from getting them into their final positions straight away. From artichokes to strawberry runners, here’s what you need to do.

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Houseplant Lighting Guide

A sunny bay window decorated with a variety of houseplants

Image: Shutterstock

Houseplants function as living décor, making your home look beautiful. They also introduce nature into sterile indoor environments, injecting mood-boosting natural greenery. Finding creative ways to display your plants is the fun part, but before you do that, it is essential to consider the living conditions which plants require. The most important of these is light.

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Decorating with Houseplants

House full of houseplants

Image: Shutterstock

This guide to decorating with houseplants shows you how to get creative with plant shape, texture, colour and size. Plants breathe life into sterile spaces and which houseplants you select and how you arrange them will affect the dynamics of your space and create different moods.

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The rough guide to beans by Real Men Sow

Climbing bean ‘mixed’ from T&M

This mixed bean collection adds colour to the vegetable plot as well as the plate
Image: Climbing Bean ‘Mixed’ from Thompson & Morgan

To help you produce an abundance of beans this year, we turned to an expert grower for practical advice. Jono, the original founder of the ever-popular gardening blog, Real Men Sow, is a man whose own hard-won experience has taught him how to get the best from his beans. Here are his top tips for sowing and growing bean seeds in your garden or allotment. 

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Oh peas behave!

Pea Shiraz banner from Sam Corfield

Peas can be sown successionally for a continuous crop throughout the summer

If you love the idea of sowing pea and bean seeds and want to try growing them at home or on your allotment, we asked trained horticulturist, Sam Corfield, to talk you through his pea season. A man who likes to keep things simple, here are his top tips to help you enjoy excellent harvests with minimum fuss. Whether you want to grow juicy garden varieties, succulent sugar snaps or mangetout, this simple guide will have you growing your own peas in no time. 

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Growing raspberries with children

Raspberry 'Ruby Beauty'® (Summer Fruiting) from T&M

Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’ is a thornless variety, ideal for growing with kids
Image: Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’® (Summer Fruiting) from Thompson & Morgan

Children love growing things they can pick and eat straight from the plant, and soft fruits are particular favourites. Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’ is a dwarf variety that grows to about 3ft tall, and is perfectly happy in the ground, in a container, or even on a sunny balcony. 

As a thornless variety, children will love the easy pickings too, which is why we sent some plants to our horticultural expert, Sue Sanderson and her little helper to try out. Here’s how they got on with a raspberry that, while short in stature, is easy to grow and produces an excellent harvest of sweet, succulent fruit…

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Why you need to grow Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’

Summer-fruiting Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty' in container

Summer-fruiting raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’ can be grown in the ground or containers
Image: T&M

If you’d love to grow raspberries but lack the space in your garden to accommodate rows of towering canes, Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’® is the solution you’re looking for. This space-saving raspberry has all the deliciously sweet flavour you’d expect from a modern variety, but you don’t need a veg patch to grow it – in fact, this little beauty grows to just 1m in height and is perfectly happy in a container on your patio or balcony.

Being compact makes ‘Ruby Beauty’ easy to net to protect the fruit from hungry birds. And because its stems are thornless, the fruit is easy to pick too. This plant requires little, if any, support but you may choose to add a few canes around the pot to help hold up the fruit.

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Hyacinths masterclass: best expert content

Hyacinth ‘Berries and Cream Mixture’ from Thompson & Morgan

Hyacinths create fabulous colour displays with powerful scent
Image: Hyacinth ‘Berries and Cream Mixture’ from Thompson & Morgan

If you want to force hyacinth bulbs indoors to enjoy their flower, scent and colour over the winter, here’s a selection of expert advice from our favourite bloggers, YouTubers and Instagrammers. These independent posts and videos give you step-by-step advice on how to make these spring-flowering bulbs bloom early. You’ll also find information on growing them in water, and getting your hyacinths to flower again, year after year.

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Rise of the bedding plants

Begonia semperflorens ‘Organdy Mixed’ F1 Hybrid from Thompson & Morgan

Fill your beds and borders with show stopping bedding plants
Image: Begonia semperflorens ‘Organdy Mixed’ F1 Hybrid from Thompson & Morgan

Bedding plants became incredibly popular in the Victorian era, when specialist plant hunters were dispatched to find new and unique specimens to add colour and interest to gardens. The surge in interest coincided with the abolition of the glass tax. This meant that, for the first time, more people were able to erect modest glasshouses in their gardens allowing them to grow a wider range of the new bedding plants that were brought back from warmer parts of the world. Here’s why this Victorian status symbol has stood the test of time…

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The T&M blog has a wealth of knowledgeable contributors. Find out more about them on our "Meet the experts" page.

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