by Mike Palmer | Feb 19, 2020 | Flowers, Gardening Posts, Wildlife
We are in the midst of somewhat dark and difficult times. Newspapers, social media and television constantly reminding us of the troubles that loom uneasily around us. Every day seems like a battle. And yet, there is one battle that continues to fly beneath the radars of far too many of us; let alone the political leaders across our planet.
©Shutterstock – A solitary bee visiting nectar-rich Cornflowers
Bee populations in decline
Our bee population is in a worrying state of decline. Without bees and other pollinators, there is no pollination of crops, 70% of which feed the world. And without food crops the survival of the human race itself is questionable. If current trends continue some bee species will be lost from Britain altogether; and one in ten of Europe’s wild bees will face extinction. It’s serious.
A number of factors are at play here including the ever topical climate change, the destruction of bees’ natural habitats and the continued overuse of bee killing pesticides.
©Shutterstock – 97% of our wildflower meadows (a natural habitat for wild bees) have been lost.
Pollinators need food, water and shelter, and since World War II, 97% of our wildflower meadows (a natural habitat for wild bees) have been lost. As such, pollen and nectar rich flowers in our own green spaces provide both much needed food and indeed shelter for the beleaguered bee.
Planting to attract pollinators
As gardeners and plant lovers this is a call to arms. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder, trowel to trowel and do what we do best. Eliminate the usage of harmful pesticides and most effectively, plant, plant and plant more.
The plants that we so adore, that we spend our last single penny upon are the single most important factor in this worrying dilemma. Luckily, it’s a rousing cheer for us gardeners as we can cheerfully proclaim to our long-suffering but significant other halves, that we are helping to save the planet by buying more plants.
But what plants too choose? Like many garden centres and online plant retailers, Thompson & Morgan have adopted the beneficial ‘RHS Plants for Pollinators’ logo which highlights plants which will attract pollinators into our gardens.
©RHS – RHS Plants for Pollinators logo highlights plants which will attract pollinators into our gardens.
Scan through Thompson & Morgan’s catalogue and you’ll see the ‘RHS Plants for Pollinators’ logo sprinkled liberally across its pages.
Attract pollinators all year round
As gardeners our endeavour is to attract these precious pollinators into our plots year-round. In the depths of our dreary winters plant cheerful, yellow winter aconites and beautifully scented Mahonia x media ‘Charity’. Spring heralds the much anticipated arrival of our beloved snowdrops, drifts of golden narcissus, stunning hellebores and a bounty of beautiful tulips, all of which will have the bees buzzing for joy. Summer naturally brings with it a seemingly never-ending parade of pollinating plants; a confection of Cosmos, fantastic fuchsias and geraniums galore. An endless summer bouquet of blooms. And finally, into the listless, mellow days of autumn, delightful dahlias, echinaceas, asters and the ever-popular bee magnet, sedums provide a final hurrah for our busy bees.
©Shutterstock – As gardeners our endeavour is to attract these precious pollinators into our plots year-round. Cosmos, Dahlia and Monarda are all valuable plants for pollinators.
No matter what size our garden, be it a solitary, veronica packed window box, a hanging basket crammed with a cascade of lobelia or perhaps a single patio container playing host to exquisite agapanthus, there is no excuse.
It is estimated that there around 27 million gardeners in the UK (from a current population of 64 million). Think of the positive implications of each of us 27 million gardeners planting just one container of pollinating plants.
We have to take action before its too late. Let’s make sure the sting in this tale is ensuring we still have a bee population that has a sting in their tails. Find even more information and advice about plants for pollinators over on our dedicated hub page.
I am an experienced and professional gardener, designer and garden writer/blogger. I also have a successful podcast, ‘Mic the Gardener’ where I chat with well-known gardening celebrities, authors, garden designers and writers amongst others.
I set up my gardening business in 2004, having studied horticulture and garden design at Kingston Maurward college in Dorchester, where I gained the prestigious RHS Advanced Certificate in Horticulture.
In the past fifteen years I have maintained, designed and planted a wide range of gardens from small urban gardens to large sprawling countryside gardens.
With a life-long passion for gardening, I have a good knowledge of plants and have created many beautifully planted gardens during my career, including my own prize winning gardens in Bournemouth.
For more information about me and my popular gardening videos please visit my website www.mike-palmer.com or check out my Instagram @mike_thegardener
by Phillippa Lambert | Feb 18, 2020 | Expert Update, Exterior design, Gardening Posts, inspiration for the garden
There can be much more to a beautiful garden than masses of flowers. Although a ‘sea of colour’ border is spectacular it may be fleeting in beauty, and can lack definition through the seasons if it has no underlying form or structure.
Putting together the shape and outline of different types of plants to create harmonies and contrasts is what can give a garden a distinctive, cohesive look.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – A ‘green on green’ combination gives a subtle harmony of two hardy shrubs that will both cope well with shade; left is Fatsia japonica (False Castor Oil) sporting glossy, broadly fingered leaves, while to the right is the newish Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’ delicately feathery and full of grace.
Plants are endlessly varied in their forms, ranging from the vertical spires of narrow conifers, down to the mounded shapes of Lavender, giving way to the creeping horizontal mats of Ajuga and Thyme. Feathery Fennel emphasises the strong form of Phormiums. Wispy grasses intensify the solidity of leathery Hosta leaves.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Some of the most dramatic plant groupings involve a number of different contrasts, in this case of light and dark, as well as of form — skyrocket verticals set against a softly rounded mound. The wonderfully glossy rich purple Phormium ‘Black Adder’ is underplanted with the felted leaves of Plectranthus argentatus in one of its variegated forms. The Plectranthus hales from Australia and is not hardy (kept from year to year by cuttings in the Autumn), but similar effect would be to substitute the hardy Brachyglottis ‘Sunshine’ (formerly Senecio)
Playing with the geometry of nature, in juxtaposing plants with differing forms and habits delights the eye, and gives the planting a clear framework on which to build the more ephemeral delights of colour and scent. In other words, the way plant varieties are grouped together is the essence of great gardening.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Another dramatic phormium grouping see Phormium ‘Rainbow Sunrise’ against the rounded leaves of the dark Canna ‘Australia’. This duo also gains resonance from the tone on tone colouring of the two plants together.
Although it is a daunting prospect to tackle the redesign of an established garden, in reality plants come and go. Once you have finished mourning the loss of a favourite plant, the realisation comes that each demise gives a chance for a little improvement to the scheme, by then making a more considered choice of replacement that will enhance and resonate with its neighbours.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – A waterside grouping sees a ‘fountain’ of the variegated grass Carex trifida intertwined with the hand-like leaves of Rogersia aesculifolia, delighting the eye from early Spring to late Autumn. Plants adapted to wet or damp conditions often have lush expansive leaves, giving scope for the most interesting foliage combinations.
In small gardens already furnished with many favourite plants, and new ones just waiting to be to tried out, it is tempting to plant just one of each variety, but one plant very rarely looks good — unless of course it is a ‘specimen’ with dramatic or sculptural form. The ‘one of each’ policy can produce a ‘spotty dotty’ look that is visually too restless, with no repose for the eye.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Foliage plants alone are perfect for furnishing parts of the garden, especially shady areas, which are intended to be calm and restful. The delicate, acid green fronds of baby tree ferns (Dicksonia antarctica), can contrast equally well with the rounded, handlike leaves of Darmera peltata, or entwined with the strappy spikes of Astelia chatamica ‘Silver Spear’. Interestingly the Astelia, although adorned with glossy silver leaves, does very well in shade, whereas silver-leaved plants usually need full sun.
The key to an harmonious effect is to gather up smaller plants or shrubs in three’s or five’s of one kind, and then use these groups, set against one another, for maximum effect. Luckily the smaller plants are often very easy to bulk up by splitting clumps, or taking cuttings, ensuring planting for style and substance does not dent the budget too much!
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – A subtle combination of two ground cover plants for shade, both with attractively veined leaves. Above is Heuchera ‘Big Top Bronze’, underplanted with Saxifraga stolonifera giving a subtle interplay of scale, tone and form.
Making patterns with leaf colour — the subtle interplay of greens, or silver, or gold — is a never-ending pleasure that ensures a furnished garden even in the darkest months, without the need for the fleeting attraction of flowers. Just as interesting are the many forms and textures of foliage, from the shiny and glistening spears of Astelias, through to the furry felted mats of Stachys byzantina (Lamb’s Ears), via the satiny leaves of Heucheras, and the broad ribbed leaves of Hostas. Essentially texture gives us contrast of rough with smooth, matt with gloss, as well as providing another level of interest, that of sensation and touch.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Scale and form again relate to good effect in this grouping of grasses and hostas. The solidity of the massive plate-like golden leaves of Hosta ‘Sum and Substance’ point up the wispy drooping heads of the grass Chionochloa conspicua (to the right) and give a background of contrast to the ribbon leaves of the grass-like plant Libertia ‘Goldfinger’, to the left.
Endless permutations of form and the subtleties of foliage texture can be harnessed to make the building blocks of a great planting — the answer then is to ‘compare and contrast’ for stunning, enduring effect in your outside space!
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Playing with scale is another great strategy to give interest and depth to borders. Here the feathery uprights of African feather grass Pennisetum macrourum, are delicately poised against the massive solidity of a Tetrapanax papyrifera leaf. As the Tetrapanax is not especially hardy, in more exposed gardens The False Castor Oil, Fatsia japonica would have somewhat the same effect. The Pennisetum started out as a single plant in the previous year, but was split in the spring to make a substantial group of three plants.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – No other plant gives the same effect as grasses in the landscape of the garden with their fluttering leaves catching the light, or passing breeze. Grasses are generally pest-free, need no staking, have a long season of beauty, and, if carefully chosen, add airy elegance to a scheme. Here the fountain effect of Pennisetum ‘Tall Tails’, in the foreground, is contrasting with the sword-like silver leaves of Astelia chatamica ‘Silver Spear’.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Gardening in smaller spaces, using groups of pots on paving or decking, can still offer opportunities to play with leaf shape and colour. Although flowering annuals are the usual way to furnish pots for the summer, foliage plants have a long season of beauty and are less demanding of care and deadheading. Here a young Tetrapanax papyrifera, is teamed up with the gloriously metallic, net-veined Begonia ‘Benitochiba’.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – Another idea for a foliage pot sees Begonia luxurians planted up with a dark leaved canna. The fingery brillant green leaves, against the solid ‘paddles’ of the canna would enhance the tiniest garden and give pleasure from May to October.
©Steve Lambert, Lake House Design – A telling foliage contrast sees the needle-like leaves of the small pampas grass Sellonia ‘Richardii’ poised elegantly above the robustly shiny ‘plates’ of Bergenia ‘Bach’. Both these plants are not fussy as to soil, put up with a certain amount of shade, and have a long season of interest, both in foliage and flower.
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.
by Ben Doyle | Feb 18, 2020 | Gardening Posts, Spring gardening, Top 5
Spring is an important time in the lawn care calendar. In order to help your lawn recover from the stresses of winter you’ll need to give it a bit of TLC. If you get your lawn care jobs done in spring, it’ll look fantastic heading into the summer.
When to Start Spring Lawn Care
For most of us in the UK, spring starts in April. Every so often we might experience a mild February or March and the temptation might be to start early. However, it’s common for these mild breaks in the weather to be followed by cold, wintry snaps later on. March is still too early for most spring jobs. That said, you can often get a head start by giving the lawn a topping with the mower and applying a moss killer.
Here are 6 of the most important lawn care jobs to tackle this spring;
1) Start Mowing
Cutting the grass is the most important part of caring for your lawn. So mow regularly while the grass is growing, this means at least once a week and if growth is particularly strong, once every 5 days. Never cut off more than a third of the grass leaf each time you mow. If you remove too much at all once you’ll weaken the grass.
The first couple of times you mow, keep your lawn mower set quite high. Then if you like a shorter cut, gradually reduce the height each time you mow.
©Thompson & Morgan – Cutting the grass is the most important part of caring for your lawn.
It’s also a good idea to tidy up the edges of your lawn. If they need re-cutting, use a half-moon edging iron. For Once established, edges can be maintained by trimming with a pair of lawn edging shears. For a professional looking finish, you can install a permanent lawn edging.
2) Kill & Remove Moss
Moss and weeds are a common problem in spring and will completely ruin the look of your lawn. Apply a dose of moss killer like Iron Sulphate and watch as the moss dies and turns black over the best week.
Once all the moss hast turned black, rake it out. You can use a springbok rake but a powered lawn rake will make the job much easier.
3) Kill Any Weeds
Weeds can be a real problem in spring. If your lawn is full of weeds, apply a weed killer to the whole area. Make sure it’s a ‘selective’ weed killer which is safe to spray on lawns, otherwise you’ll kill the grass too. Use a spot spray weed killer if you only have one or two weeds.
©Shutterstock – Use a ‘selective’ weed killer which is safe to spray on lawns, otherwise you’ll kill the grass too!
4) Aerate to Relieve Soil Compaction
Spring is the perfect time to aerate your lawn, either by spiking with a garden fork or hollow tining with a dedicated tool. This improves drainage and also allows air and nutrients to penetrate the soil. If the soil in your lawn is in fairly good condition, spiking with a fork or aerator sandals will be perfect.
However, if the soil is compacted, aerate with a hollow tiner. This will remove cores of turf from the sward and create hundreds of holes.
This will give the soil particles in your lawn room to ‘relax’ into, improving drainage and the penetration of oxygen and nutrients.
5) Overseed to Fill in Any Bare Patches
The removal of moss can leave your lawn looking quite sparse as the grass will have thinned out. If the problem was particularly bad you could have bald patches where there is no grass at all.
In order to fill those patches in you’ll need to overseed your lawn with new grass seed. As the new grass germinates you’ll see you lawn become thicker and denser. By the time summer arrives, your lawn will have fully recovered.
©Shutterstock – Fill bare patches by overseeding your lawn with new grass seed.
6) Apply a Spring Lawn Feed
After a long winter, your lawn can come into the spring lacking in nutrients. It’s important to replace them in order to support new growth and healthy root development. After applying a spring feed you’ll see growth quicken and the grass grow greener.
We hope this article has helped you with tips on sprucing up your lawn. For more advice, visit our helpful lawn care hub – full of additional maintenance tips & gardening guides.
Having loved spending time in the garden with his grandad as a child, Ben Doyle was always destined to be a gardener.
Having left university with degrees in horticulture and sports turf science, he developed a loved for lawn care and shares his knowledge on his personal blog, GardenSeeker.com
by Thompson & Morgan | Jan 6, 2020 | Gardening Posts
Garden lighting can transform an ordinary garden into something extraordinary
Image: welcomia
If you’re dreaming up big plans for your garden in the New Year and you’re looking for clever ways to create dramatic impact, we can help.
We asked our favourite British garden designers for their top tips on how to make a big statement in your outside space. Here’s what they said…
Choose strong architectural plants
Acanthus mollis brings dramatic impact to a garden
Image: Acanthus mollis from Thompson & Morgan
Let’s start with planting. Whether you prefer cottage garden style or something more contemporary, professional gardeners understand the power of repetition. Russell Page, a hugely successful twentieth-century landscape designer said: “the most striking and satisfying visual pleasure comes from the repetition or the massing of one simple element.”
Jason of Hornby Garden Designs agrees, and likes to use these architecturally dramatic plants in his schemes:
- Acanthus mollis with jagged leaves and majestic white flowers that bloom from May to August.
- Phormium ‘Maori Queen’ (or New Zealand Flax) with strappy pink and green leaves throughout the year.
- Anemanthele lessoniana (or Pheasant’s Tail Grass) lending green yellow and orange hues to the garden together with sensory movement.
- Fatsia japonica (or Japanese aralia) with its large glossy palmate leaves makes a perfect specimen feature plant.
Geoff Stonebanks has some wonderful plants in his award-winning Driftwood Garden, but his favourite is also the acanthus: “Centre stage is taken by a large and imposing acanthus, which has incredible towering flower heads throughout the open garden season. Some years it can produce over 20 heads from the one plant.”
“If you’re looking for architectural impact, it has to be all about the foliage,” says Sarah Wilson of Roots and All:
“Large-leaved plants such as cannas, begonias, phormiums, ferns, bergenias and palms all look dramatic. Light them to bring out their best features such as attractive leaf undersides, leaf texture or for the shadows the leaves cast on a background surface.
Add height
Topiary brings vertical interest to your garden
Image: Rachel Benn
Clever garden designers create a sense of privacy, refuge or sanctuary within a larger outdoor space through the use of vertical planting and height. This doesn’t necessarily mean fencing the garden in, but applying 3-D design rules to make use of an entire space rather than just planting patches of ground.
Sarah Wilson recommends trying to create a variety of different ‘levels’ of interest in your garden: “Use a trailing plant on top of a wall to add interest where a planting scheme would otherwise be all on one level. A climbing plant can be used to create a green screen or wall. Evergreen climbers are the best – you can clothe an entire wall or trellis panel with a climber such as ivy, to give you a dramatic backdrop year-round.”
Alexandra of The Middle Sized Garden likes to use topiary to add height and architectural impact to her own garden:
“It can be expensive, but you can also grow your own and learn how to topiarise. We have two holm oaks that we bought as £50 young ‘whips’. It took about five years before they were bulky enough to make a good topiary shape but they are now really distinctive.
Plant containers for instant drama
Geoff Stonebanks has hundreds of terracotta planters in his Driftwood Garden
Image: Geoff Stonebanks
Long term design schemes can take time to fully mature. While you’re waiting why not fill gaps and add instant colour with container plants, advises Sarah Wilson:
“If your garden’s going through a tatty spell or you need to create instant drama for an outdoor party, draft in some help from containers. Placing a couple of well-thought out and freshly-planted containers in key places around the garden, such as either side of doorways or in front of borders, will draw the eye and they’ll become the flashy focal points.
Sarah recommends packing your containers full of plants and focussing on colour harmonies and foliage contrasts. And be bold with your pot sizes. Try using a few large containers rather than lots of small ones to create impact.
Geoff Stonebanks also recommends the use of container plants for dramatic effect, although he continually moves his around throughout the season:
“My garden contains over 300 different terracotta planters, filled with anything from bulbs, small shrubs, annuals, palms and grasses. The trick to using them is to ensure they contain plants and shrubs that ‘peak’ at different times of the year. That wow factor can easily be achieved by moving a fabulous-looking pot from its regular home to pride-of-place in the garden, just as it starts to look its best!”
Plan for winter
Ornamental grasses lend an air of Narnia to your winter garden
Image: Cheryl Cummings
One of the things that separates professional from amateur garden design is the ability to plan for year-round interest. Even when the leaves have fallen and plants have died back, a garden with ‘great bones’ will have enough structural interest to carry it through the coldest months in style.
Cheryl Cummings uses ornamental grasses to create wonderful winter structure in her gardens:
“In the depths of winter the best and longest lasting ornamental grasses are elevated from supporting artists into stars. In a hard frost their fine lines and elegant shapes are emphasised by a dusting of ice crystals. Left standing with the uncut remains of herbaceous foliage until the very end of the season, they provide essential shelter and sustenance for wildlife. And on sparkling cold days they reward us for our restraint with the stunning appearance of Narnia.
Here are four of her favourite grasses to recreate the magic in your own garden:
Add a focal point
Use pieces of sculpture to create focal points in your garden
Image: Geoff Stonebanks
Finally, successful garden design is about more than just plants. It’s about using the space to maximum effect and giving your scheme a bit of personality. Here are three tips from our garden designers that will help deliver a professional punch to any garden:
- Get creative with coloured paint:
“A pot of paint adds instant wow factor. Give your garden a signature colour and use it on outdoor furniture, fencing, sheds, trellis and pots. It pulls mismatched styles together and can be easily changed when you want something different… Chalk paints can be used on any surface – plastic, metal and wood.” – Alexandra of The Middle Sized Garden
- Invest in a garden sculpture:
“Instant wow factor can be achieved by carefully placing a stunning piece of sculpture in the garden. I have many, in both wood and metal, and the eye is immediately drawn to them.” – Geoff Stonebanks
“Personal pieces of sculpture hold relevance and give pleasure no matter the price tag. They add focus, meaning and charm whatever the weather.” – Cheryl Cummings
“Cross lighting is one of my favourite lighting methods. Place two lamps at different angles to the front of a feature tree or plant to create a natural and three-dimensional effect.” – Jon Gower
We’d like to thank all of these fantastic garden designers for sharing their top tips with us. We hope you’ve found some ideas to inspire your own garden plans for the coming year. Want more expert gardening advice on how to incorporate ornamental grasses into your planting scheme? Then visit our helpful grasses hub page for growing and care advice.
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. 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.
by Caroline Broome | Aug 29, 2019 | Gardening Posts, Wildlife
© Caroline Broome – Cats in the Catio.
We all love creatures great and small, right? I’d far rather employ birds and bees to reduce pests than use chemicals, and so we go to great lengths to entice them into our garden. But there’s the small matter of our six cats to consider. Our solution? The ‘Catio’. By encasing the pergola covering our 27ft x 8ft patio with wire mesh, we’ve created a safe outdoor environment for our cats to enjoy fresh air and exercise, whilst protecting local birds!
Browse our full range of wild bird food to encourage feathered visitors to your outside space.
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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.
