A successful landscape needs a garden style which appeals to you, and this is often linked to the house design. It can also be influenced by the kind of plants you like, or by your garden site and its climate.

Garden styles

There is a variety of garden styles, from formal to cottage garden, each with its own atmosphere and character. A predominantly natural or wild garden might look best in the country, or, alternatively, it could turn a town garden into a green oasis and bird sanctuary. A Mediterranean courtyard style would suit a small garden or echo Spanish-style architecture. You may like a formal garden for its symmetry, or an oriental garden for its serenity. Read the rest of this entry »

The land surface of our planet provides a remarkably wide range of climatic conditions, and all but the most inhospitable habitats have been colonized by plants. Where plants are established, insects and animals can follow and the greatest diversity of life of all kinds is to be found in the most ideal climates. Read the rest of this entry »

Success with this method depends upon providing the right conditions. Warmth and humidity are essential for good results in every case.

• Alpines Take small cuttings as soon as ready in spring. Best rooted in greenhouse.
• Chrysanthemum Outdoor and greenhouse kinds. Remove 5cm/2in-long cuttings from as close as possible to crown of plant. Root in greenhouse.
• Dahlia Start tubers into growth in heated greenhouse early in year. Take 8cm/3in-long cuttings from the tubers and root in warmth and humidity.
• Delphinium Remove 8cm/3in-long shoots from as close as possible to crown of plant in spring. Root in greenhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

Two automatic watering systems

If you cannot regularly attend to watering, consider an automatic system which runs from a header tank connected to the mains water supply (or a semi-automatic system which is supplied by a reservoir).

• Capillary watering Pots are placed on water-retentive capillary matting and take up moisture as required. The matting can be laid in gravel trays. Complete watering systems are available, with trays, matting and sometimes water reservoirs.
• Trickle watering Popularly known as the “spaghetti system”: a main plastic supply pipe with thin tubes sprouting from it. Each tube is positioned over a pot or container so every plant is watered when the supply is turned on. Read the rest of this entry »

Most flowering plants are not much at risk as long as they are well cultivated. Among the principal sufferers are bulbs, and plants grown under glass, where pests and diseases particularly flourish.

Five troubles affecting roots

A number of insect pests live in the soil and feed on the roots of plants. Usually you do not know they’re there until leaves and shoots begin to wilt.

• Chafer grub Long fat creamy-white grubs with brown heads which feed on the roots of many flowers. If suspected, water the soil with pirimiphos-methyl or dust with gamma-BHC.
• Cutworm Soil-dwelling caterpillars about 4cm/I 1/2in long, creamy brown, which feed on roots and the surface of stems at soil level. Many border plants liable to attack. Symptom: wilting. Dust soil with gamma-BHC insecticide. Read the rest of this entry »

Succulents are easier to handle, though some of the agaves have sharply toothed leaves. Crassulas make good tree-like subjects for a desertscape.

C. argentea, the jade plant or money tree, could be combined with an aloe such as A. humilis, the hedgehog aloe, which is predictably very spiny, or with one of the echeverias, which make nice rosettes of fleshy, sharply tipped leaves. Sempervivums are not dissimilar in shape and

S. arachnoideum, the cobweb houseleek, is covered with a netting of fine cobwebby hairs. Among the sedums you can have S. morganianum, which grows down like a donkey’s tail, or S. rubrotinctum, the jelly bean plant, which looks just like that. Senecio rowleyanus is the string of beads plant, which grows tiny strings of green beadlike leaves. Lithops are pebble-like plants that are fascinating in themselves and very much more so when sporting their large daisy flowers. Read the rest of this entry »

Cacti and succulents are not hardy enough to stay out of doors throughout the year but will always benefit from spending the warmer months out in the air and sun. They are perhaps the most misunderstood of all plants. Somehow the myth has grown up that they can live indefinitely without water and this is what many of them must, perforce, do, usually in some ill-lit corner of the house where nothing else would be expected to survive. But water them correctly—not at all between December and March, then one good soaking every three or four weeks until June, followed by weekly watering and even daily spraying—and you will see them in a new light. Neglected specimens from indoors or, even better, well-cared-for plants from a nursery can go out on the window sill in late May or early June. Again, fill the box with gravel, settle in a nice rockscape and plunge in specimens still in their pots. Decorate the scene with finely crushed gravel. Read the rest of this entry »

Silver and variegated foliage

Once you have discovered the hundreds of different variations on a green theme there are, it is worth exploring still further towards are some plants which are only ever seen in the more subtle colouring found in the which are variegated. Variegation is the feature present when a plant has areas of its leaves with colours other than the green of the rest of the plant.What may have happened as an aberration in a plant is spotted by the plant breeder and developed and used to best advantage. Some people don’t like their plants variegated, others can’t get enough and collect masses of examples for their gardens or greenhouses. There are many houseplants now which have variegated plain green versions and there their variegated forms. Read the rest of this entry »

Colour is profoundly important in our lives and nowhere more so than in the houses we live in. Very often the first choice made about a room is what colour it should be. Colour can be used to our advantage to create a mood, highlight something special or even trick the eye. Houseplants will do all this, used either on their own or in a subtle mix with fabrics, paint, carpets and furniture. Nowadays there are hundreds of plants to choose from, and more and more flowering types are appearing in a vast range of colours. It is therefore important to consider the whole subject of colour in some detail to get the best from your plants and maybe take a fresh look at how you use them in your home.

Pinks and Reds

Although pastel colours are now very fashionable, pale powder pink is not the most popular colour for living rooms. Many people, however, choose soft coral, peach or terracotta as the basis for furnishings as it is a welcoming and warm colour and very easy to live with. Read the rest of this entry »

Dracaena marginata tricolor is a stunningly dramatic plant. It has narrow knife-like leaves, striped green, cream and pink and, as in the yucca, the leaves burst out from the centre of the plant. There is also the species D. marginata which has the foliage clustered at the top of a stem. The croton definitely belongs in this category, but needs some cosseting to really flourish. It needs constant warmth and no chills, plus humidity and plenty of light. Given all this it will reward you with amazing splashes of colour on its broad densely packed leaves. The veining varies from cream through yellow to red according to the individual cultivar. Certain cacti can be very dramatic especially if placed in a situation which makes the most of their extraordinary shapes and weird textures. Read the rest of this entry »

Houseplants are not simply collections of green leaves or flowers and leaves. Each variety has a very definite character, either due to its colour and habit, or because of its associations of place, or the feelings it may give us. Some plants are definitely exotic because of their foreign nature. Others have an aura that is much more difficult to pin down — elegance or flamboyance. These emotive plants can set a sense of style and mood that will give a distinct atmosphere to any room. To help you choose which might suit you, here is a collection of the various characters plants can assume.

Flamboyant

A flamboyant plant is bright, elaborate and draws attention to itself and its surroundings; it cannot be overlooked. It is to be used when a bold stroke is needed and you want to make a strong point. Many flowering plants tend to fall into this category but only a few foliage ones, as flamboyance has more to do with colour than with form. Read the rest of this entry »

Dry Atmosphere

However hard you try some rooms just don’t suit houseplants., They are either too dark, and no plants can do without light, or they are too warm and this is a problem when it goes hand in hand with low humidity. Some of the problem can be eliminated by using electric humidifiers or the water-filled variety that is attached to a radiator. Grouping plants together improves their chances of prospering and maturing. Also standing the pots on a base of pebbles or plunging into peat, which is then kept damp, helps immensely. Alternatively you can give up the struggle with the fine mist sprayer and grow plants which naturally come from arid regions of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Bedrooms

Once upon a time, plants were never seen in a bedroom. They were considered unhealthy and kept strictly downstairs. They would most likely have greatly suffered upstairs in rooms more often than not kept unheated. In these days of central heating, bedrooms are usually heated, though kept cooler than the rest of the house and at a fairly even temperature, and there is often plenty of space to show plants off to advantage. Sometimes a bedroom is the only room cool enough in a house to grow cyclamens or azaleas well. Both are plants which like quitecool conditions. Bedrooms are often the prettiest rooms in a house but commonly forgotten when houseplants are bought. A pale-pink or cream colour scheme for example, or an all-white lacy bedroom needs the contrast of bright green foliage to bring it alive. Bedroom furniture often has large very bland areas of plain colour which need the change of texture and pattern that comes from a foliage plant such as Ficus benjamina or even from a little plant such as Pilea cadierei or Hypoestes phyllostachya. For pure luxury and a sense of hedonism a beautifully scented plant such as a hoya or Jasminum polyanthum or a pot of lilies, or ‘Paperwhite’ narcissi in spring, make spectacular bedroom plants. Read the rest of this entry »

Finding a plant to suit every situation in the house might sound impossible; so few rooms have the perfect environment. If we have a few failures we tend to become discouraged. However there are dozens of plants which are quite happy in extreme conditions from hot and dry to dark and humid and there are many easy plants which are not in the least bit fussy about where they live. Sort out your problem areas and you will find there are plants which will make the most of them.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms seem to be the perfect environment for plants. All that warmth and water splashing about makes us feel that anything growing there will thrive. Also, from the point of view of appearance, foliage plants, in particular, are most effective. Their leaf shapes and textures produce a strong contrast with the smooth monochrome forms of bathroom fittings. Read the rest of this entry »

Where several plants are grown together the principle remains the same but the method is enlarged, using troughs to hold several plants. The more plants that you grow in close proximity to each other in this way, the greater is their surrounding microclimate. There is a whole range of decorative plant troughs, from inexpensive plastic containers to shiny copper types, all suitable for a few orchid plants.

A constant check on the temperature is essential and one should always have a minimum/maximum thermometer close to the plants. These are easily obtainable for a small outlay from any garden shop. Read the rest of this entry »