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.

Not Quite Spring

by | Mar 11, 2019 | , , , | 2 Comments

Hello

As I write this it’s the beginning of March and we’ve had a lovely warm spell but are now experiencing some wetter, cooler weather, and today it is blowing a gale here in mid-Wales. Rain is never a bad thing to be honest, it’s good to have rain sometimes, if not for the fact that the water butts are full again!

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Planting bare root tree peonies

by | Mar 6, 2019 | , | 10 Comments

Dark pink peony with yellow centre from Thompson & Morgan

Few plants can compete with a mature tree peony smothered by more than a hundred exotic blooms
Image: Tree Peony ‘Luoyang Hong’ from T&M

Bare root peonies can be ordered from late autumn and should be planted as soon as they arrive between October and March. Whether you choose herbaceous peonies (Paeonia lactiflora) or tree peonies (Paeonia suffruticosa), the planting time for all bare root varieties remains the same. We asked professional gardener and trained horticulturist Sue Russell how she plants her favourite bare root peonies. Here’s what she said…

In the meantime, see our full range of bare root plants and trees for more winter-planting ideas.

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Scent-sational Spring Flowers!

by | Mar 4, 2019 | , , , , , , | 5 Comments

As I stepped into my garden earlier this week, I was captured by a breath-taking fragrance.  I went in search of its source – and there on the other side of the fence was a magnificent Sarcococca! I love this reliable evergreen shrub.  It has an intense (but not overpowering) perfume. Better still, it’s spidery, creamy white flowers are always busy with bees and other insects in early spring.

Sarcococca confusa flowers      ©Thompson & Morgan Sarcococca confusa

Last month was the mildest February since records began, and it seems to have brought out a flurry of early blooms in the garden. A walk around our plant nursery is a treat for the senses!

Old favourites like Mahonia aquifolium and Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ are in full swing. It’s easy to understand why they are so popular. These reliable shrubs are undemanding and their rich perfume will make you want to linger outdoors, even on a chilly day.

Mahonia aquifolium flowers

© Thompson & Morgan Mahonia aquifolium

Now maybe it’s just me, but I have never noticed so many Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’ as I have this year – they seem to have taken a real surge in popularity! Not that I’m complaining – they make a handsome shrub, all year round, with their glossy, evergreen foliage.  At this time of the year, they are in their prime. Clusters of sugar pink, star-shaped flowers make an elegant display. Their powerful fragrance fills the garden with a rich, perfume.

Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata' flowers

© Thompson & Morgan Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’

One fragrant shrub that deserves to be more widely planted is Edgworthia chrysantha. While wandering the nursery the silky flowers stood out against its bare stems, releasing a gentle scent on the spring breeze. It’s a good choice for a sheltered position in the dappled shade of trees. An absolute treasure in spring!

Edgeworthia chrysantha flowers

© Thompson & Morgan Edgeworthia chrysantha

Spring perfume doesn’t need to be reserved for the garden. There are plenty of bulbs that will deliver a powerful punch indoors each spring. Fragrant Narcissus are some of my favourites. The scent is subtle with a delicate floral note, and the flowers are relentlessly cheerful!

Double Narcissus flowers

© Thompson & Morgan Double Narcissus

Hyacinth bulbs make a showy display indoors too, but I do find that they suffer from the Marmite effect. Love them, or hate them – you will definitely notice the powerful perfume if you welcome them into your home. Personally I will be leaving my Hyacinths just outside the back door for now!

How to attract birds to your garden all year round

by | Feb 26, 2019 | | 0 Comments

Redwing bird on berries - photo from Nic Wilson at dogwooddays

This waxwing is a regular visitor to Nic’s garden
Image: dogwooddays

In January, Nic Wilson of dogwooddays was astonished to see a female blackcap in the garden during the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. It was a new species for her and, even better, it turned up at just the right time to be counted! She also has regular winter visits from redwing, feeding on next door’s cotoneaster, and waxwing in the birch trees behind her house.

Here are Nic’s top tips for attracting birds to your garden, including plants that they particularly love…

How to attract birds

Ivy berries on ivy bush - photo from Nic Wilson at dogwooddays

Plan to include a few more berry-bearing plants such as Nic’s beautiful ivy
Image: dogwooddays

In the winter and early spring it’s crucial to provide food for birds, to help them survive the colder months. This can be in the form of seeds and nuts – in our garden the finches love sunflower hearts and starlings flock to feed on the fat balls – but berries, seedheads and overwintering insects also offer hungry birds sustenance in the garden.

Winter is also an ideal time to plan simple changes to your garden that will encourage birds to visit throughout the year. It’s estimated that there are 400,000 hectares of garden habitat across the UK, and this could make a real difference if it were used creatively to support birdlife.

Stock up feeding stations

redwing sitting on a bush with red berries and green leaves - photos by Nic Wilson at dogwooddays

A redwing pauses for brief respite
Image: dogwooddays

The RSPB advise us to feed birds throughout the year, but winter is a key time to keep bird feeders topped up and ensure that there’s plenty of fresh water to drink. In colder months, fill feeders and bird tables with sunflower and niger seeds, or a quality wild bird seed mix.

Peanuts are a good food source, but they shouldn’t be provided whole. Only purchase peanuts from a quality retailer who guarantees that they’re free from aflatoxin, a natural toxin that can kill birds. Fresh mealworms, fatballs (remove any nylon meshbags first) and fruit – soft apples and pears cut in half, or bananas – are also ideal winter fare. It’s essential that feeders are kept clean or you can do more harm than good.

Growing your own seed-bearing plants is a great way to feed birds throughout the year. Sunflowers provide huge heads of seed, while poppy, teasel, allium, echinacea, phlomis and many other garden favourites also have seeds that can be left over winter to attract birds like finches to the garden. As I write, a charm of goldfinches has descended on our verbena, bouncing on the seedheads as they pick out the seeds.

Provide nesting places

Gardman Multi-Nest Box With Apex Roof by Thompson & Morgan

Mount bird boxes in quiet, sheltered spots
Image: Thompson & Morgan’s Gardman Multi-Nest Box With Apex Roof

Supplying bird boxes is the easiest way to encourage birds to nest in the garden. We regularly hosted blue and great tits as they nested in boxes my children had made with their grandad.

Hedges and trees are important as they offer sheltered spots for birds to nest. Just be sure to avoid cutting hedges in the breeding season (early March – end of August) to protect any nests that might be in use during this period.

Encourage insects

long tailed tit on a branch photographed by Nic Wilson at dogwooddays

Birds like this long tailed tit are attracted to gardens with lots of insects
Image: dogwooddays

The more insects in your garden, the more birds will be attracted to feed. Avoid chemical products and use organic growing methods to encourage healthy ecosystems that will support large numbers of minibeasts.

A perfect, tidy garden isn’t ideal for wildlife – creating ‘wild’ areas with piles of logs, sticks and stones helps to encourage a range of insects. Leave stems and seedheads over winter to offer shelter to insects during the cold winter months.

Bring on the berries

red pyracantha hedge photographed by Nic Wilson at dogwooddays

This pyracantha hedge looks gorgeous and provides a feast of winter berries
Image: dogwooddays

Trees and plants with berries offer rich pickings for birds, and they add colour to the garden during the bleakest months. More unusual garden birds like fieldfare, redwing, mistle thrush and waxwing love to visit berry-laden shrubs, giving us fabulous views of these beautiful birds. Try planting:

If your garden is too small for trees or large shrubs, try climbers like honeysuckle ‘Hall’s Prolific’ or ivy ‘Glacier’ that grow vertically and provide nourishing berries for the birds throughout the autumn and winter.

Five tips for planting for pollinators

by | Feb 12, 2019 | | 0 Comments

peacock butterfly against a green background

Important pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths are in decline
Image: Marek Mierzejewski

Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are under threat, so there’s never been a better time for gardeners to help by adding a few plants to support them. Here, Mandy Bradshaw from The Chatty Gardener shares five simple tips to help make your garden a refuge for pollinators.

1. Be part of the solution

bumblebee on a yellow foxglove

Residential gardens and allotments are an important lifeline for pollinators
Image: Paul Stout

I love watching the bees in my garden squeezing into a foxglove flower, noisily feasting on opium poppies in the veg plot or enjoying the winter honeysuckle.

Gardening without chemicals and trying to choose nectar-rich flowers means bees and other pollinators are often buzzing around my plot – good to watch and helping my flowers and veg set fruit or seed.

Increasingly, our gardens are becoming an important lifeline for these beneficial insects and go some way to counter the effects of natural habitat loss and the use of pesticides.

A recent study found that urban allotments and gardens are vital sources of food for pollinators – especially when they have native plants such as brambles and dandelions, and traditional favourites like lavender and marigolds.

So, to hear the sound of bees in your garden, make the decision to actively support our pollinators – it’s the first important step.

2. Choose the right plants

bench in the middle of a wildflower garden in England

A quiet corner of this walled garden has been dedicated to wildflowers
Image: Shutterstock

The very best plants for pollinators are ‘species’, as modern cultivars can be sterile or have low nectar and pollen levels. If you grow your own vegetable seeds, try to include some heritage varieties among the modern cultivars.

When it comes to the flower garden, plants with open, single blooms are better than double flowers where the nectar can be difficult to reach.

Incorporate some wildflowers in your garden, or even leave a corner where you allow weeds such as nettles and dandelions to thrive. Let your grass wait a little longer before you get the lawnmower out, to allow the clover to flower. Allowing ivy to flower will also provide important food for bees.

Think about adding a few flowers to your vegetable patch to help pollinate your crops. I edge my beds with the common marigold (Calendula officinalis). It looks pretty and draws in those helpful insects.

3. Give a good mix

Mahonia x media collection from Thompson & Morgan - available now

The mahonia’s large yellow flower spikes bloom from November through to March
Image: John Glover

Different insects like different plants, so make sure you have a range of flower shapes to ensure your garden helps them all. Some bees, for example, have long tongues to cope with plants such as aconitum.

Grow a mix of perennials and annuals and don’t forget trees and shrubs. Both can be excellent sources of nectar for bees and butterflies.

Think about planting to cover the seasons. Like the gardener, pollinators need food all-year-round, so it’s important to plant for more than just the summer! Early spring and autumn are the seasons when nectar can be particularly short in supply, but adding just a few of the right plants can make all the difference. Good spring plants are crocus and hellebores, while a winter feast can be provided by snowdrops, mahonia or sarcococca.

Take a look at Thompson & Morgan’s Perfect for Pollinators range which includes a selection of seed and plant varieties known to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.

4. Ditch the pesticides

Achillea millefolium 'Summer Pastels' (Yarrow) from Thompson & Morgan - available now

Yarrow attracts ladybirds and hoverflies
Image: Achillea millefolium ‘Summer Pastels’ (Yarrow) from Thompson & Morgan

Try to garden without using pesticide sprays as they often kill beneficial insects alongside the pests.

Instead, encourage birds, ladybirds and other gardeners’ friends in to deal with any problems. For instance, the larvae of hoverflies voraciously consume aphids. Similarly, when they hatch, ladybird larvae can eat up to 5,000 aphids as well as attacking red spider mites.

To attract these helpful insects plant things like marigolds, alyssum, cosmos, dill, yarrow, penstemon and fennel.

5. Give them a home

Garden Life Wooden Insect Hotel from Thompson & Morgan - available now

Insect hotels are beautiful and functional
Image: Garden Life Wooden Insect Hotel from Thompson & Morgan

Make or buy an insect house to give solitary bees and others somewhere to nest. Something as simple as an old terracotta plant pot filled with lengths of bamboo can be used as a bee hotel.

I hope this has given you plenty of food for thought. Just a few simple changes can turn your garden into a wildlife sanctuary that provides vital food and shelter for our precious pollinators. For more advice and pollinator-specific recommendations, visit our hub page.

How to grow Heuchera

by | Feb 8, 2019 | | 1 Comment

Heuchera 'Patchwork' Mix from Thompson & Morgan

Cultivate heuchera to spice up the darker corners of your garden
Featured Image: Heuchera ‘Patchwork’ Mix from Thompson & Morgan

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

Different heuchera varieties

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

Heuchera Stormy Seas from Thompson & Morgan

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 growing in shade

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

Digging a hole in garden

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

Pruning heuchera closeup

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

Heuchera in garden with dark foliage

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.

Spread The Love

by | Jan 28, 2019 | , , , | 1 Comment

I’m really not a fan of the aforementioned festive season, but I’ve suddenly realised that I lurve January! The inclement weather gives me the perfect excuse to be bone idle guilt free. Mind you, some things can’t wait, especially when you are up against the horticultural prowess of Diane, she of the London Gardens Society Best Large Back Garden 2016/17/18. (When will it end?) The task at hand is simple muck spreading. (Some might say we are experts in the wider sense already!) So I was galvanised into action after a phone call from Diane on New Year’s Day to tell me, smugly, that she had managed to lay seven bags of well-rotted horse manure over her borders that very day. And I, readers, hadn’t even placed my order yet! Quelle horreur! Within the week I had spread three-bags-full but more supplies were required on both sides so off we went to Crews Hill, Horticultural Retail Epicentre of The World. A dozen bags duly loaded into the vehicle, off we went to Myddleton House, home of celebrated horticulturalist E A Bowles, (ancestral connection with our very own Duchess of Cornwall having never occurred to me before).

Myddleton House Border

Myddleton House Border.
© Caroline Broome

What a lovely way to spend a dull January morning. The grounds were empty bar a couple of in-house landscapers who were rebuilding a dry-stone wall. We wandered around admiring the snowdrops and hellebores in the crisp echoey stillness of a typical winter’s day, the fragrance of hamamelis contorta and chimonanthus praecox filling the air. Mistletoe was abundant in the tree canopies but also at ground level, where we were fascinated to see how it grafts naturally onto its host. The ornamental grass borders looked so orderly combined with sedum spectabile – my sedum never looks that erect even when it’s in its prime. The hot houses were full of exotic succulents, tillandsias and cacti in pristine form. Reminded me of when I was a gel; I lived opposite Broomfield Park in North London and used to love to sneak into their huge lofty greenhouse. Somehow it seemed forbidden and eerie, with its seemingly bottomless irrigation channels sunk into the floor under the benches. (Didn’t care a hoot about the plants but just loved the otherworldliness of it.)

Contorted hazel, mistletoe and tillandsias at Myddleton House

Contorted hazel, mistletoe and tillandsias at Myddleton House. © Caroline Broome

…But the rivalry doesn’t end there. There’s even Green Bin One-Upmanship! With the regular collections having been suspended for six weeks over the New Year, it’s a competition as to who’s created the most waste: “I’ve filled up my two garden bins as well as my two allotment bins.” “Well, I’ve filled up our bin and ALL the other neighbours’ bins in the entire street!” And now she informs me she’s had her silver birch trimmed. I tell you, she doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet (boom boom!)

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. There’s something so satisfying about spreading the mulch. Apart from the opportunity it gives you to get up close and personal with your plants, to get a sneak preview of spring as bulbs, shoots and buds start appearing, the borders look so finished once its down. (Reminds me of the flattering effect a layer of moisturising foundation can bring to one’s tired and dull complexion, my dear!) Mind you, it seems impossible to imagine the garden at full tilt in high summer with so much bare earth exposed right now. And of course there is the small matter of my digging up half the garden last autumn ‘cos I was bored with it all. Pity the poor transplanted perennials cowering their pots, exposed to the elements, until I’m ready to replant. (Hmm, wonder how soon I can start – steady on, its not even Valentine’s Day yet!) Seems everyone’s at it now, Rosie’s been out mulching the borders in her garden in all weathers. I really can’t be lagging behind so it‘s off to the nursery to buy bark chippings for the fernery and gravel for the stumpery.

Every year, a clever acquaintance makes a note of all plants flowering in her garden on New Year’s Day. Wish I’d the wits to think of that. So here’s my list of flowers for mid-January instead, some bang on target, some way off the mark seasonally speaking:

  • Hesperantha Major formerly known as schitzostylus (so annoying all these name changes.)
  • Salvia Black and Blue insinuated itself up the fence alongside a variegated trachylospurnum, its flowers cascading like wisteria. Hope I can bring that through the frosts, what a combination!)
  • Salvia confertiflora
  • Salvia Uliginosa
  • Coronilla glauca Citrina
  • Rosa Mutabilis ish, one or two bedraggled blooms amongst the orange hips.
  • Viburnum tinus Eve Price
  • Hellebore hybrid Spring Promise aptly named and much admired in the front garden, underneath the contorted hazel.
  • Fuchsia thalia on the patio
  • Fuchsia thymifolia
  • Snowdrops
  • Aconites
  • Melianthus major no natural timing this one, always produces buds just before the first frosts!
Hellebore hybrid Spring Promise and Caroline's front garden border.

Hellebore hybrid Spring Promise and Caroline’s front garden border. © Caroline Broome

There are an amazing amount of little treasures to be seen out there if you go looking. Over the holiday season David and I did our usual New Year’s Resolution walks in Kenwood on Hampstead Heath. Some might find the low light levels rather bleak but I love the paired down landscape, the bare trees, clear ponds and uninterrupted views of The City. You share your strolls with every dog and his man, chitchatting with owners and catching snatches of conversation as your pass. Cormorants and parakeets, magpies and crows, sparrowhawk.

Kenwood, Hampstead Heath

Kenwood, Hampstead Heath. © Caroline Broome

Talking of birds, I’m looking forward to introducing three newcomers to the results of my Big Garden Birdwatch: goldfinches, starlings and a black cap. Must be the extensive array of seeds on offer, costing me a fortune. Black sunflower seeds, white sunflower hearts, meal worms, three flavours of fat block, oh and mixed birdseed for the squirrels. So worth it.

I feel quite inspired now, so it’s back to the T&M Spring Catalogue to place my Trial Plant Order. Colour colour colour 2019.

Roll on Spring! Love, Caroline

Ducks, B-sides and Blackadder

by | Jan 24, 2019 | | 1 Comment

White Duck

© Alison Hooper

We’re in that slow part of the year when not much appears to be happening. Leaves have fallen, fruit and veg long since picked. It’s all a bit grey and samey, like the turgid mid-section of an album’s B-side. You love that album, but frankly there are eight tracks to get through before you get to the A-side again where all your favourites live. And seeing as the seasons aren’t yet available for digital download, we have to listen and go through it one track at a time, a day at a time and take the positives where we find them.

Anyway, much as this is a bit of a reflection on the passing and transformation of the seasons, I don’t intend to get all heavy and depressing and stuff. I pledge there will be *cute animals* further down this piece. Adorable, cute and fluffy animals which go quack. But more of that later.

 

 

Fun facts!

1. Back to the autumn and something for word nerds everywhere now. I was pleased, more than I should be most likely, to discover that the word ‘Fall’, which we commonly think of as an Americanism for the ‘English’ word ‘Autumn’, is in fact…not. Fall was the word used back in 16th century England before it hopped on board ship and travelled across the Atlantic where it took root and flourished, just as we back home had our head turned by the chiselled Roman good looks of the word Autumn and dropped it sharpish

2.One for any foragers who have ever had purple-stained fingers. The study of blackberries is called batology. You’re welcome.

Enough verbiage. The point of this rambling – there is one, trust me – is that things progress, change, appear to be completely separated but then turn out it’s all interconnected and reliant on its constituent parts and processes to work. So there is beauty in decay, amazement in atrophy.

Take this Rhus typhina. This one is in our back garden, it’s super common and you may well have one too.

Rhus typhina leaves and a conker

Rhus typhina leaves and a conker – © Alison Hooper

Arguably, it’s at its best in autumn for a vanishingly short period before all that colour disappears. Leaves turn from green to yellow to red. As sunlight fades, chlorophyll levels drop meaning the other leaf pigments present get to take centre stage. Exit green, enter yellows and oranges, purples and reds. Those dazzling colours had always been there all along, and if I were more philosophical that could be quite poignant.

Also, the humble horse chestnut. The tree is at its best when the candle-like flowers give way to shiny conkers in their bright green spiky cases (which always strike me as a prototype for some kind of medieval weapon. Just me?) Without this, there is no regeneration.

And then there’s that extraordinary quality of light you get in autumn. Amid the long bleak periods, a sudden surprising beam of crystal clear warm brightness, illuminating everything around to remind us of what has been and what is to come again.

And so to winter when the garden is put to bed.

Bare exposure reveals the true state of the garden. Branches bereft, revealing the hidden underpinning structures, shapes and – whilst we’re on about honesty – all that plastic garden junk which seems to mass throughout the year. Maybe work on reducing that waste in 2019. That same light which, sometimes joyous, sometimes a bit embarrassing, also shines a little too intensely on your recycling bin full of post-Christmas clanking empties.

So, like dry January, the intervening months of autumn to winter have a transformational effect. Very brown, the only colour making an effort now is the Winter Jasmine and the grass has been left long ahead of the expected frosts.

But just as the garden hits its weary head to the pillow – and I did promise you cute animals – we take noisy delivery of four ducks. Yard ducks to be precise, a cross somewhere between a mallard and Indian running ducks. They’re on loan to us for ten days whilst their proper owners go on holiday, and we naively and excitedly volunteered to look after them in our small back suburban garden. Frankly it’s a bit of a social let down for them, but that’s life.

Winter Jasmine and Ducks

Winter Jasmine and Ducks – © Alison Hooper

Just as the mood of this blog was getting a little quiet and contemplative, the arrival of these ducks punctures all of that with a huge, celebratory QUACK. Picture Blackadder’s Lord Flashheart crash landing by means of a rope swing into a genteel Edwardian tea room. Pearls may be clutched. Or picture something worse. The same, but with the kids.

The ducks are somewhat non-plussed at having us as their temporary landlords, and a bit huffy at having children intermittently race around them excitedly and at speed, taking shelter in their cage when it all gets a bit much.

As pest control goes, they’re as eco as it gets. They hoover through what surely must be thousands of slugs between them, and even turn the soil over. Great job, Flashhearts.

And the best part about duck sitting is being able to hand them back at the end of their stay. They’ve done an excellent job and all that really remains is the garden is literally covered in feathers, like someone shot a duvet there. So they’re constantly snacking, a bit noisy from time to time, a lot cute and leave loads of mess behind. So that kids analogy is still working for me. Like doting grandparents, we miss them already. I’d pour a small glass of Baileys as a toast to them, but it turns out the bottle’s in the recycling.

Top 10 best-selling plants of 2018

by | Jan 23, 2019 | | 0 Comments

white hydrangea flowers on green foliage. Hydrangea 'Runaway Bride' available to buy from Thompson & Morgan

This pretty hydrangea won the nation’s hearts and Chelsea’s Plant of the Year 2018
Image: Hydrangea ‘Runaway Bride’ by Thompson & Morgan

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?

 

Hydrangea 'Runaway Bride' by Thompson & Morgan

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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Sunflower 'Sunbelievable Brown Eyed Girl' by Thompson & Morgan - Available to buy now

‘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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Tree Lily 'Pretty Woman Red' from Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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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Clematis florida 'Taiga' by Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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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Fuchsia 'Giant Flowered Collection' by Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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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Begonia Apricot Shades Improved F1 Hybrid from Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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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Strawberry 'Just Add Cream' by Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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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Begonia Non-Stop Mixed by Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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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Busy Lizzie 'Divine Mixed' (New Guinea) by Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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' by Thompson & Morgan - available to buy now

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.

Growing sweet peas

by | Jan 7, 2019 | | 1 Comment

field shot of pink sweet pea flowers

Fill your garden with fragrant sweet peas
Image: Vic and Julie Pigula

Sweet peas are top of my desert island plant list. I love them for their soft papery flowers, pretty pastel shades, and that stunning scent. Summer just wouldn’t be right without them. Here are The Chatty Gardener’s, aka Mandy Bradshaw’s, excellent tips for growing healthy, prolific and beautifully fragranced sweet peas from seed in your garden.

The scent of a sweet pea

red and white sweet peas, little red riding hood variety

Most sweet peas are beautifully scented
Image: Sweet Pea ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ from Thompson & Morgan

They’re easy to grow from seed and I raise dozens of plants each year – old favourites along with just a few new varieties added to the mix. It gives a much better choice than buying plants from a nursery and means I can choose my own colour combinations.

Among my favourites are ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, which has pretty pink and white flowers, and Lathyrus odoratus ‘Cupani’, which dates back to the 17th century. Its violet and maroon flowers may be tiny but little else has the same strong scent. If it’s scent you’re after, take care not to confuse the annual sweet pea, Lathyrus odoratus, with the perennial pea, Lathyrus latifolius, which has a pretty flower but no fragrance.

Sowing for success

pink and purple sweet peas in a basket. Sweet Pea 'Fragrantissima' from Thompson & Morgan

Sweet peas are tougher than they look.
Image: Sweet Pea ‘Fragrantissima’ from Thompson & Morgan

Surprisingly, despite their delicate appearance, sweet peas are tough, and autumn-sown plants will come through winter with ease and just a little care.

I prefer to start mine in January or early February, as life is too busy to keep an eye on them in the run-up to Christmas. It also gives me something to sow in the dark days of winter. Seeing new shoots is guaranteed to lift my mood.

Warmth and light

Train your sweet peas with homemade root trainers
Image: Ian Grainger

Sweet peas have a long root system so a deep pot is needed. Root Trainers are ideal, or, if you’re cutting down on plastic, try the cardboard inner tubes from toilet rolls. The advantage of using them is that the whole thing is planted – the cardboard will break down as the plant grows – so there’s no root disturbance.

Use a good quality compost and plant a couple of seeds per pot. Some gardeners pre-germinate the seeds on damp kitchen paper but I’ve never bothered and germination is fine. Make sure you label them clearly!

I use a heated propagator to get them off to a good start but a sunny windowsill would do, just pop the pots into a polythene bag, or cover with a piece of glass. Uncover them when the first shoots appear.

Once the plants are about an inch high, I get them out into cold frames to toughen them up a little and free up space in the greenhouse. Just make sure they get good light to stop them getting leggy.

Top tips for successful sweet peas

Grow your sweet peas vertically with an obelisk
Image: Shutterstock

  • Pinching out the growing tip when there are two pairs of true leaves will give you bushier plants and, ultimately, more flowers.
  • Make sure you harden plants off gradually before planting them out towards the end of April, or once the ground has warmed up a bit.
  • It pays to get the soil right before you plant out. Sweet peas are both hungry and thirsty so improving the nutrients and water-retention of your ground will mean a better performance.
  • As well as adding homemade compost to the planting hole, I put a thick layer of newspaper, which is then watered well. This then acts as a ‘sump’ – important on my thin, sandy soil.
  • Plants can be grown up netting stretched between bamboo poles or on wigwams. If you don’t have space in the borders, try plants in a large container on a patio and there are even trailing varieties suitable for a hanging basket. Mine are grown on obelisks in the vegetable garden where they’re easy to pick, add colour and bring in pollinators.
  • Once the plants are in, protect them against slugs and snails until they get established and then feed and water regularly and keep picking! The plants will stop producing flowers if seeds are allowed to set.

So, make sure you check your plants every day and fill your home with their scent. After all, it wouldn’t be summer without vases of sweet peas.

 

About the author:

Cotswold-based, Garden Media Guild member, Mandy Bradshaw is also known as the Chatty Gardener. Passionate about gardening and writing, her beginnings are in football reporting for her primary school, and Mesembryanthemum planting with her mother. Winner of the ‘Garden Journalist of the Year’ in the 2018 Property Press Awards, she writes for not only her own blog but also newspapers, magazines and other sites.

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