How to buy the best Christmas tree
If you're setting out to buy your Christmas tree you might be torn between which type to go for. Here's a guide on how to buy the best Christmas tree.
If you're setting out to buy your Christmas tree you might be torn between which type to go for. Here's a guide on how to buy the best Christmas tree.
What is the perfect Christmas tree? In a sense, of course, all Christmas trees are perfect. But there’s no getting away from the fact that some clog up the vacuum cleaner more than others. So here is your essential guide to the various types of tree available, with some advice on the benefits of each, from scent to needle retention. We also provide a guide on how to get the best from your tree over the festive season – and beyond, if you have bought a potted or container-grown one.
The best winter-flowering heathers
Winter-flowering heathers are inexpensive, evergreen plants that provide colour in the coldest months. They are perfect for containers and mix well with a host of other garden plants. Here are some of the best winter-flowering heathers to grow in your garden.
Winter-flowering heathers are inexpensive, evergreen plants that provide colour in the coldest months. They are perfect for containers and mix well with a host of other garden plants. Here are some of the best winter-flowering heathers to grow in your garden.
Evergreen, easy to grow, small, manageable and long-flowering, they are the ideal low-maintenance plant, although their image suffered after their rise in popularity in the 1960s when they became associated with dwarf conifers and dull grasses. Winter-flowering heathers have another great attribute: they are bee-friendly. They are a lifeline for bumblebees and solitary bees, which do not store food and emerge in mild spells in winter and early spring.
5 tips for planting hedges
Hedges can be one of the most versatile design tools in your garden. Here are five tips for planting hedges with ideas on how to make the most of them in your garden design. Photographs by Sietske De Vries.
Hedges can be one of the most versatile design tools in your garden. Here are five tips for planting hedges with ideas on how to make the most of them in your garden design. Photographs by Sietske De Vries.
Festive wrapping with natural charm
Personalise your gifts this Christmas with wrapping ideas that have natural charm - and won't cost the earth. Designer Ali Bell heads into the garden to find some materials. Here are her ideas, with downloadable templates included
Personalise your gifts this Christmas with wrapping ideas that have natural charm - and won't cost the earth. Designer Ali Bell heads into the garden to find some materials. Here are her ideas, with downloadable templates included
Personalise your gifts this Christmas with wrapping ideas that have natural charm - and won't cost the earth. Designer Ali Bell heads into the garden to find some materials. Here are her ideas, with downloadable templates included:
PAPER BAG
Gardens Illustrated Festival 2017: 5 minutes with Charlie Ryrie
Charlie Ryrie is a gardener and florist. She started The Cut Flower Company by growing the flowers she loved in a small field next to her house. Charlie will be speaking at the Gardens Illustrated Festival 2017, 25-26 March.
Charlie Ryrie is a gardener and florist. She started The Cut Flower Company by growing the flowers she loved in a small field next to her house. Charlie will be speaking at the Gardens Illustrated Festival 2017, 25-26 March.
Fed up with cut flowers shipped in from glasshouses overseas, gardener Charlie Ryrie set up The Real Cut Flower Garden to offer customers seasonal bouquets of home-grown blooms. She began by buying the field next to her her cottage in Hay-on-Wye and started to grow the flowers she liked. Now, she has has moved to Dorset and has been growing old-fashioned and unusual flowers for 12 years.
Book of the month: Plant
Our book of the month for November is Plant by Phaidon editors. Here you can read the review, written by Anna Pavord.
Our book of the month for November is Plant by Phaidon editors. Here you can read the review, written by Anna Pavord.
Plant: exploring the botanical world
by Phaidon editors
Phaidon, £39.95
ISBN 978-0714871486
A dazzling collection of more than 300 images of plants that brings the evolution of botanical art right into the 21st century.
Reviewer Anna Pavord is a garden writer.
How to age your garden
Left to nature, a garden can take many years to reach maturity and feel fully established. Here, Kristy Ramage suggests ways of hastening the process and shows how to age your garden.
Left to nature, a garden can take many years to reach maturity and feel fully established. Here, Kristy Ramage suggests ways of hastening the process and shows how to age your garden.
In a truly ancient garden, paths and steps have been worn down by pounding feet; tree trunks have grown into walls and fence lines; hedges have broadened, hanging out over boundaries, dipping and rolling, eccentric shapes evolved out of years of clipping. Plants grow where seed has survived, tight against walls, out of reach of boot and broom, colonising banks and verges, the less-tended backs of borders and under shrubs.
Wild About Gardens Week 2016
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Bat Conservation Trust and The Wildlife Trusts have joined up for this years Wild About Gardens Week, 24-30 October 2016, to encourage gardeners to help the survival of our native bats.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Bat Conservation Trust and The Wildlife Trusts have joined up for this years Wild About Gardens Week, 24-30 October 2016, to encourage gardeners to help the survival of our native bats.
Three winter squash recipes to try this Halloween
As Halloween approaches, look beyond the large, bright-orange, carving pumpkins and find green, white or yellow winter squash. Each with a unique flavour, these seasonal fruits are delicious to eat and wonderfully autumnal. Gardener cook, Jojo Tulloh shares three of her favourite recipes.
As Halloween approaches, look beyond the large, bright-orange, carving pumpkins and find green, white or yellow winter squash. Each with a unique flavour, these seasonal fruits are delicious to eat and wonderfully autumnal. Gardener cook, Jojo Tulloh shares three of her favourite recipes.
Butternut squash may be the best known, but the squash family has an almost infinite variety of shapes, sizes, textures and flavours. Versatility is their keynote, being good roasted, puréed, used in soups, turnovers, curries or even pies. The terminology can also cause confusion, as squash can refer to a winter-storing type or summer squashes, which are picked and eaten in the same way as a courgette. Here are some of my favourite winter squashes, good to eat now.
Apple Day 2016
Apple day is an event dedicated to celebrating Britain's apple cultivars and orchards. The tradition, started by the charity Common Ground over 30 years ago, is still growing and it's easy for you to get involved.
Apple day is an event dedicated to celebrating Britain's apple cultivars and orchards. The tradition, started by the charity Common Ground over 30 years ago, is still growing and it's easy for you to get involved.
Apple Day celebrations raise public awareness about the danger of loosing our traditional orchards and heritage apple cultivars. Started by the charity Common Ground over 25 years ago, events take place up and down the country on or around 21 October to celebrate the apple and all it has to offer.
We've found a few events that give a sense of what Apple Day is all about and a recipe that celebrates Britain's favourite fruit.
