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.

12 fabulous flower-growing bloggers

by Mark Delaney | Nov 28, 2017 | Blogs we love, Gardening Posts | 3 Comments

The most colourful blooms
Image: shutterstock

If you’re into flowers, we’ve got a treat in store for you. We’ve scoured the web for brilliant blogs by writers who love to grow them, and brought them all into one place for you.

You’ll find bloggers who create stunning cut flower arrangements from their own gardens, give us the lowdown on what makes the perfect border, and show us how to collect and store seeds for next year’s blooms.

Everything you ever wanted to know about flower horticulture, right here.

Tidy up

by Sue Russell | Nov 24, 2017 | Gardening Posts, Winter gardening | 1 Comment

Today I’ve spent time sorting out the winter bedding from the greenhouse which are in need of transplanting into the herbaceous borders.

The Stocks ‘Most scented mix’ and the Polyanthus ‘Crescendo’ have been desperate to be planted, out growing their nursery pots so I cleared areas for them and cut back some of the perennial plants.

Our beds are plagued by Bindweed, this weed is a real pain, left to its own devices, it grows quickly, climbing up the nearest plant and choking it.

I try not to use much spray any more, but this time of the year (when not cold and icy) and spring is perfect to dig it out. Even the smallest piece left in will regenerate. I actually find it quite therapeutic and collect as many pieces as I can.

In between planting my plugs, now garden readies, I have put some more Alliums using my trusty Wolf Garten bulb planter.

It’s so easy to use, my general rule of thumb with planted bulbs is, whatever the size of the bulb, the hole needs to be double that size. The bulb planter has measurements on the side. Simply turn the planter into the soil with a twist, lift out the core of soil held inside the planter, then place the bulb in the hole, roots down! and then replace the core by gently squeezing the top.

The Phlomis russeliana, (Turkish sage) I leave in the borders and cut back in the spring, as the old seed heads look great with a dusting on frost and gives the birds somewhere to perch. The foliage is lovely too.

After going on my walk of the garden, firstly I could smell my favourite winter flowering plant, Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’, it’s a real beauty, it flowers on bare stems and gives that sweet fragrance as you walk past. It is a must for any garden in my opinion, adds height to borders and winter interest.

The Fatsia japonica also was in flower, attracting any little insects that may be around. Its glossy dark green leaves really are something at this time of year, stunning!

Anyway, back to getting outside while the sun is shining and it’s relatively warm!

Sue Russell

One of my earliest memories; helping my Mum and Dad weed the veggie plot and collecting chicken eggs from the chooks at the end of the garden. I grew up on a farm as a child and always had my own piece of land to grow and learn with, so I suppose its in the blood!
In my mid twenties, I re trained in Horticulture (Professional Gardening ANCH) and set up my own Gardening business working for clients in the Suffolk/Essex area. For the last thirteen years I’ve had the pleasure of working on a private twenty five acre estate tending to the grounds.
In 2016, I joined the team at Thompson and Morgan in the Customer Care department.
Also season ticket holder at Ipswich Town Football Club!!

9 top houseplant Instagram feeds

by Mark Delaney | Nov 24, 2017 | Blogs we love, Gardening Posts, House plants | 0 Comments

How does your indoor garden grow?
Image: shutterstock

Houseplants are back in fashion. Just look at Instagram for proof. Among the enviable snaps of interiors, fashion and food, you’ll now find millions of posts on indoor gardening. There’s a new generation of urban horticulturalists busy transforming urban homes into lush indoor jungles, and sharing beautiful photos of their work.

So if stunning plant images, green interior inspiration, and expert plant-care advice sound like your bag, here are nine of the best houseplant instagrammers to follow.

From swimsuit to sweater in one day!

by Caroline Broome | Nov 23, 2017 | Gardening Posts | 0 Comments

Whilst Cyprus enjoys an Indian summer, (or even a Cypriot summer for that matter,) the UK is plunging head first into winter. Having just spent a glorious week in 26ᵒc Paphos, staying with friend Naomi – how thoughtful of her to relocate to such a lovely home – it was quite a shock to the system to return to dreary 13ᵒc London. (Feel guilty now saying that, as if being disloyal to a family member!) However, I actually find myself to be more acclimatised to the cooler weather, spending so much time as I do outdoors. Who would have thought it ! In fact today we are experiencing a lovely crisp sunny day in Finchley and I feel invigorated as I pick the last of the windfall apples from underneath our ancient tree. For some reason they are the size of cricket balls this year so quite glad I wasn’t underneath when they fell.

Excuse my ignorance but until our recent visits to Cyprus I had no idea just how close to the Middle East it was, and how that impacted on its flowers. Plants that we treat as annuals here grow into shrubs and trees over there! Lantana: neighbour Anne nurses her cherished lantanas over the winter like delicate invalids, but Over There they grow into huge hedges with stems as thick as your fingers. The collective fool’s errand of trying to grow lavender successfully in the clay soil of the Hampstead Garden Suburb (henceforth to be referred to as The Suburb) is in deep contrast with the robust dense aromatic shrubs thriving in the thin stony soil of the Med. When visiting mountainside Monastery Neophytos we were captivated by the sunken courtyard garden, viewed from its ancient cloisters. Colour and vigour on a grand scale. Huge clumps of ginger and canna lilies, brugmansias growing into trees, Ali Baba pots of bougainvillaea and oleander, all surrounded by characteristic *Cypress trees. And the roses! We shouldn’t be surprised by their presence amongst all this exotica, considering their origins:

The first known paintings of a rose are actually frescoes, the earliest example of which was discovered in Crete around 1600 B.C.

Crusader Robert de Brie is often given credit for bringing the Damask rose from Persia to Europe sometime between 1254 and 1276. It takes its name from Damascus in Syria.

(*As to the reason why its Cypress trees and not Cyprus trees, I just don’t want to know.)

Bearing in mind that this is a gardening blog, I shall make my next paragraph brief: Second only to the flora, Cyprus means Cats to me. Cats at Naomi’s apartment complex, cats around your ankles at bars and restaurants, and above all, due no doubt to the significant British ex-pat community, cat sanctuaries, the largest of which Tala Cat Sanctuary, run by two Brits, has at present over 750 cats. For those of you feline phobics I make no apologies for including a photo of feeding time, a frenzy reminiscent of piranha fish! There is a tenuous link to horticulture here – feral cat communities thrive in the shelter of oleander and lantana hedges planted in raised beds all over the island!

And so to our return. I had imagined that autumn would have turned to winter in our absence and that I would be able to run amok with the secateurs, cutting everything back. I’m tired, I wish everything would die so that I can come indoors and have a rest! But what do I find? Salvias in full flower, a rainbow of colours; no way was I going to dig them up, having waited so long for their finest hour. Leaves still stubbornly sticking to their branches so no point raking until they are all down. Ergo, no chance of applying mulch to borders yet. (How daft are we? We rake off leaves then apply mulch. Why not just leave leaves to rot? Looks messy. Expensive intensive counterintuitive step!)

Still, there’s plenty to do in the meantime. In the Control Room (aka greenhouse) the salvia, fuchsia and penstemon cuttings I took last month are flourishing in their propagator (as is the electricity bill.) I’ve been so encouraged by my success that I have taken cuttings of coleus Campfire, and, fingers crossed, so far so good. I suppose now that the aforementioned cuttings are sprouting new leaves that means they’ve rooted, so I need to pot them on now, do I? Or do I wait until spring? Decisions, decisions!

And I shall not be idle outside either. (Why not? Please, can I be idle soon?) For the two large terracotta pots flanking the rustic arch into the fernery (now doesn’t that sound grand) I have bought a pair of cornus Alba Sibirica and half a dozen ophio-watsit black grasses to surround them. Now I come to think of it, some white bulbs would make a good contrast so I might just have to go to the nursery again; what a hardship! In the two black planters outside the front door I’ve planted Madonna tulips, Pueblo, Minnou and Falconet species narsissi, topped off with evergreen ferns and white cyclamen. Quite uncharacteristically tasteful for me.

Last Christmas I treated myself to six T&M hyacinth Midnight Mystic bulbs for a festive display in our front porch. Having carefully lifted them after flowering, I transferred them to the greenhouse to dry off, finally removing their dead foliage and roots ready for storage. I must have got bored or distracted because there they sat in a 6” plastic pot under the staging all through the rest of this year until I accidentally found them when tidying up in October! Still, they felt firm enough so I potted them up in shallow terracotta bulb pans and put them in a dark cupboard for a couple of weeks, and hey presto, they produced shoots! Now happily ensconced in the porch once again, they are sprouting away with visible buds. Amazing resilience!

There are some strange combinations going on in the borders right now, no doubt due to Mother Nature’s seasonal confusion: Late summer flowering Salvia Black & Blue with early spring flowering Coronilla valentina glauca ‘Citrina’ (or Bastard Senna – who knew?) It’s mortal outside but with no frosts and plenty of bright sunshine I feel like the grim reaper pulling up the annual container displays on the patio.

And whilst we talking of odd weather conditions, don’t ever moan to me about the vagaries of the British weather. Whilst In Cyprus it was too hot for me to sit in the sun during the day, but as soon as the sun went down, out came my suede fur lined jacket (travelling attire – I come from a bygone generation who still dress up to travel)) for evening excursions!

And as one of our favourite celebrated gardeners would say: whatever the weather, enjoy your garden.

Caroline Broome

Caroline Broome has been gardening for more than 20 years. Having passed the RHS General Certificate, she has since developed her East Finchley garden into a “personal paradise” that she and her husband invite the public to visit each year via the National Garden Scheme. Learn more about our contributor using T&M’s ‘Meet the experts’ page.

It’s been a while.

by Lesley Palmer | Nov 21, 2017 | Gardening Posts | 1 Comment

Actually it’s been nearly a year since I last wrote a blog. This year has been an eventful one for me, not only in my home life but in my gardening life too.

In June this year I decided that my gardening business was no longer giving me the satisfaction (or the financial comfort) that I had when I first started. So after many attempts at job applications to anyone and everyone and kept being told I didn’t have what they were looking for or I had too many qualifications just not in the right areas I came across a job advert for a Gardener at my local, private residence hall on the North Norfolk Coast. It’s a place I’ve walked around many times and always admired the six acre walled garden but could only dream of working there. Needless to say I applied and I spent a long while writing a covering letter about how much I loved the gardens and the park and how I came to be in the Horticultural profession.

I was lucky enough to land myself an interview and a week later I went back for a second interview as they had whittled it down to two of us. I was really doubting myself that I would get the job because the other candidate was a lot older than me and had already been working on other estates of a similar nature. Luckily though they couldn’t choose between the two of us and they ended up taking both of us on. I started late July this year and I have loved every minute of it! It has taught me many new things already. Not just about gardening but about gardeners ourselves.

There are 7 of us on our team, myself being the only female and rather lacking in height compared to the lads, but each of us has a different strength. My boss, DW, the head gardener, is a veg man. Like me, he got his love for gardening from his grandfather. He showed him how to grow veg and DW told me a story of how he helped his grandad one day tying his runner beans up. His grandad said to him ‘you’re doing it wrong’ to which DW asked why. He had twisted the stem the wrong way around the cane and beans, as many of you will know, wrap themselves a certain way around the cane because of geotropism. An invaluable piece of knowledge to be passed down.

Then there’s the manager of the walled garden. He ran a nursery with his parents before moving to the hall and he is a people person. He doesn’t have any interest in veg because ‘why would you want to put all that effort into growing something that another animal is going to eat?’ (we have a slight problem with pigeons, pheasants, and rabbits not to mention the cabbage white on the brassicas). But S loves nothing more than to get stuck in with our volunteers and re-shape the future of the garden and seeing plants thrive in the beds.

T is a more organic gardener and this winter is going to be implementing a ‘no-dig’ bed using his own compost made from the shredded plant material from the walled garden and leaves off the estate. He grows veg too and has had a very successful year with onions, carrot, chard and varieties of squash, with the latter three still producing good crops. He knows his stuff about ornamentals too and always has a thirst for more knowledge.

We also have DB on the team who loves nothing else but grass. He doesn’t really care for flowering plants (only in his own garden but shhh that’s a secret) and has had an amazing time this last month with a vertislitter aerating all the lawn areas on the estate. I drew a classic picture of a clump of grass with a seed head one day on the bottom of his mug and he said I had drawn annual rye grass (Poa annua). DB has been asked by members of the public if the lawns he maintains by the corporate function room are in fact real or astro turf because they look too good!

DH likes to do the mowing and care in the other public areas of the estate such as the village, industrial complex and the pub. He takes great pride in what he does and is even re-instating the bowling green in the village with his favourite piece of machinery being a flail mower that is used on the steep hill to cut the meadow like grass up at the estate church.

Now P (the other new employee alongside my self) doesn’t know much about flowers but is a machinery guy. He and DB share the mowing and they also have a mutual love of mole hunting (another pesky pest problem). He knows a bit about trees too but also shares one of DB’s passions of creating foods and drinks with the produce that comes from nature.

Lastly onto me. You already know a little bit of my gardening preferences but I generally love all things gardening. I get excited when cuttings I’ve taken have shot, I love the idea of producing my own food, I always want to know more about any plant that is a bit quirky and will try my hand at any different gardening techniques such as Bonsai (not very successful), topiary, landscaping and making my own juice from fruits. I do also enjoy a good grass cut every now and again. Seeing those perfectly alternating lines in the grass gives me huge satisfaction.

My new job has made me realise that us gardeners are much like plants – no two are the same yet we all have a common interest. So what type of gardener are you?

Smile,

Lesley.

P.s. I’ve been given the task of learning about all things Fig and how to get them to fruit so if you have any tips or secrets please let me know!

Lesley Palmer

I’m a 23 year old female horticulturalist. I studied at Easton College for two years until June 2014 and became self employed providing garden care and design in North Norfolk. I currently care for around 20 gardens and have now achieved a few designs and a small landscaping project.

I am passionate about getting young people, especially primary schools, involved in gardening again. I have a project running to do with children’s gardening, so if you’d like to know more please get in touch! I began because of spending so much time in the garden with my granddad as a child. I was also a member of my primary school’s environment club.

I am a fan of Michael Perry and James Wong and I love finding out about edible flowers and how to live more independently from my own garden.

9 fantastic flower garden blogs

by Mark Delaney | Nov 16, 2017 | Blogs we love, Gardening Posts | 3 Comments

Flowers are the fruits of many gardeners’ labours

You can’t beat time spent gardening, but even the most enthusiastic of growers need a little downtime. Here are nine of our favourite flower garden blogs – reading to enjoy over a well-earned cuppa and a biscuit.

Our newly formed New Product Development team boasts over 140 years’ horticultural experience

by Sonia Mermagen | Nov 16, 2017 | Gardening News, Gardening Posts | 2 Comments

L to R: Peter Freeman, Paul Masters, Charles Valin, Colin Randel

With 140 years of horticultural experience between them, our newly formed new product development team is able to boast a rich diversity of expert horticultural knowledge.

Sonia Mermagen

Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)

www.thompson-morgan.com

California Dreaming!

by Jean Willis | Nov 10, 2017 | Begonias, Customer Trial Panel, Gardening Posts | 1 Comment

At the time of writing this blog I am visiting Palm Desert in California for a few days with my Husband Alan and my Sister who lives in Huntington Beach Ca. Today`s temperature has been 104`F, how do they keep their plants alive in such hot weather? Gradually over a few days the temperature dropped to 100`F. Unfortunately brush fires have broken out in many areas, so sad to see people lose their homes, belongings and gardens. We have a lot to be thankful for in the UK even when we get the storms. We shall be visiting the Palm Desert Visitor Centre which has hundreds of different cactus growing – you do have to keep your eyes open as there are notices about rattle snakes hiding near the rocks. You also have to be careful when taking photos as my Sister discovered a couple of years ago when she backed up to a large cactus bush with unpleasant affects.

While we were at our overnight hotel at Heathrow Airport I had a text and photos from my Daughter in Law to say I had won a Gold Award for my hanging baskets and a Gold Award for my container Garden. I was thrilled as we have had a rough few months when my Husband was to and fro from hospital following a serious eye operation. I am sure concentrating on the garden really helped me.

Now down to work:

What a funny month August was – not funny ha ha – In the South we have had several really bad storms and gales with torrential rain and on one occasion hail which shattered a lot of the flowers. The plants did not recover so quickly as they did earlier in the season. As all my plants were in containers on the front decking some of them looked really sorry for themselves so emptied them out and cut some back with the hope that they might recover. A few did but became very untidy. The Apricot Shade Begonias have lasted right through the summer until mid October, also the Non Stop Begonias Citrus variety.

I had four dahlias for trial from Thompson & Morgan which turned out to be very prolific. I grew them in containers and were around 18 inches high although one variety were a little taller. The flowers were stunning with a slight perfume. I was also given two Hibiscus for trial, these have proved very successful growing to around 12 – 14 inches high and continuously flowered. They were still flowing when bought indoors for the winter before the cold nights. They are to be treated as indoors plants until next Spring when they can go back outside.

As I finish the blog we are back in Huntington Beach where we have had some heavy rain and still looks stormy – just to remind me of home.

As we look forward to Christmas have fun everyone and enjoy your gardening…………………..til the next time

Jean.

Jean Willis

I started gardening 65 years ago on my Dad’s allotment and now live in Bournemouth, where spend a lot of time gardening since retiring. In 2012 I won the Gold Award for Bournemouth in Bloom Container Garden. I am a member of Thompson & Morgan’s customer trial panel.

Where Have All The (Wild) Flowers Gone?

by Amanda Davies | Nov 9, 2017 | Gardening Posts, Your Stories | 0 Comments

This year marks the 40^th anniversary, since The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady was published. Amanda Davies looks back at her life, and asks if written today would it be as charming?

Amanda Davies

My name is Amanda and I live in Pembrokeshire with my fiancé and our garden is approximately 116 meters square. I want to share with you my love for gardening and the reasons behind it, from the good to the bad and ugly. I want to do this for my own personal pleasure. If you would like to take the journey with me then please read my blogs and share with me your gardening stories.

Nine notable seed bloggers

by Mark Delaney | Nov 8, 2017 | Blogs we love, Gardening Posts | 0 Comments

Ready to be planted…
Image: shutterstock

Nurturing plants from seed is the ultimate way to grow your own. It’s rewarding to tend your plants from first sprout to bumper crop, and it saves a fortune on buying plug plants. Here we present nine of the best gardening blogs we’ve found, that have an emphasis on growers who like to start from the beginning.

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Thompson & Morgan Gardening Blog

12 fabulous flower-growing bloggers

Tidy up

9 top houseplant Instagram feeds

From swimsuit to sweater in one day!

It’s been a while.

9 fantastic flower garden blogs

Our newly formed New Product Development team boasts over 140 years’ horticultural experience

California Dreaming!

Where Have All The (Wild) Flowers Gone?

Nine notable seed bloggers

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Meet the experts

Award-Winning Plants & Seeds

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Thompson & Morgan Gardening Blog

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Meet the experts

Award-Winning Plants & Seeds

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