Garden Centre

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Another dangerous garden!

Well, the garden wasn’t dangerous in itself, no man-or-woman-eating plants or concealed pits, but dangerous for me, because it’s given me ‘ideas’ – himself has gone into hiding already, knowing that garden tours always result in my coming home with a madly grandiose plan.

This time it’s a greenhouse. Not any ordinary ‘just for growing things’ greenhouse, but a proper conservatory, with a space for me to do yoga, a desk for my laptop so I can write about gardening matters in an inspiring environment (your screen will fog up, says himself, in a doom-laden voice) and a wooden trellis up one wall so I can grow hibiscus.

I mean look at it! Who could resist a wall of hibiscus? (It will hide insects, the wood will rot, you’ll want something else within a year or two, says himself.) And our garden is not equipped to grow it, so we need to do something that allows us to grow it, right?

Himself points to the pot of hibiscus I have bought during my visit. How much did that cost, he asks. £2.99 I answer (it’s a bargain, you’ve got to admit.) And you want me to build a £3,000 conservatory for it, he says.

I couldn’t think of an answer for that one …

Labels: garden tours, garden visits, greenhouse, hibiscus, open gardens

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:35 AM 2 Comments

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Saturday, August 4, 2007

Sunshine at last ...

June was grim, July the wettest ever, but finally August holds out some promise … or does it?

The holly is in berry, the rowans too, and some trees appear to be readying themselves for the change in colour associated with autumn? What’s going on? Wildlife expert Trevor Beer suggests the early arrival of the various fruits is due to the intense rain in July, which may have fooled the plants into thinking autumn has arrived early so they have begun to fruit for fear of missing the season.

Alternatively the early and warm spring may have pushed certain plants into an early autumn as their growing season is measured by weeks, not weather conditions.

Down in Devon, at the Royal Horticultural Society gardens, the ornamental acer trees have already started going through the autumnal colours usually associated with later in the year.

While weather experts insist that such localised and recent changes cannot be put down to global warming or climate change – because they don’t add up to enough of a trend yet to be measured - it is clear that weather extremes like these, and hurricanes, and flooding, and winters that aren’t cold enough to kill off garden pests, will all become a more regular occurrence.

This means the kind of container gardening shown in the picture may become more prevalent, as we learn to cope with the unexpected. Even so, this August you can expect to see the Dahlias come into their own – they are the princesses of late summer and along with other members of the daisy family such as the rudbeckias and heleniums they offer a riot of colour and form for otherwise rather tired looking borders. If you want something more permanent, the later blooming varieties of ceanothus give an azure bloom to the garden now, and hardy hibiscus are in full flower in shades of magenta and pink.

Labels: ceonothus, dahlia, garden flowers, garden news, garden pests, hibiscus, rudbeckia

The All Seasons Gardener at 7:04 AM 0 Comments

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