Posts from expert gardeners just like you!

Getting more from your garden!

By ‘getting more’ I mean multiplying up your favourite plants the cheap and easy way — by taking cuttings. Although September is thought to be late for taking cuttings, it is in fact my chosen moment. The busy spring and summer seasons of the gardening year are behind us, but light levels and warmth are still adequate to persuade the many half-hardies currently doing colourful duty in mixed borders and pots, to root in double quick time. By ‘half-hardies’ I mean the more tender perennials such as the larger Verbenas, Venidio-arctotis, Diascias, Salvias, some Osteospermum, and many of the foliage plants that are downright tender, including Iresine, Helchrysum petiolatum and Plectranthus argentatus. Interestingly I also routinely take Penstemon cuttings at this time of year, although they are hardy in the ground, I often treat them as annuals. In my garden, they flower their socks off in their first year for many weeks longer than older stock can ever manage.

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Phillippa Lambert

Phillippa Lambert is a landscape designer based on the Isle of Wight at a unique site in the Undercliff of the Island — a favoured microclimate sheltered by enormous south facing cliffs. In 2002 Phillippa and Stephen Lambert came across the ‘lost’ gardens of a Victorian mansion dating back to the 1820s, managed to acquire part of the site, including the walled garden and ornamental lake, and have since worked on their restoration. The result is not an ‘expert’ garden and does not try for technical perfection in any sense. ‘Make do and mend’ is the keynote — most plants being raised from seed or cuttings— and self-sufficiency is the motivation for all the growing in the walled garden. In essence, this site goes back to the philosophy of ancient gardens in sustaining the body as well as the soul. Read more at Lakehouse Design.