For your perennial vegetables and fruits, pick a spot separate from or on the edge of (second best) the main vegetable garden. The easiest way to get a bed started is to stake it out the season before you plant. Cover existing sod with a thick layer of newspapers, magazines, or cardboard. A friend of mine declares that covering sod is the best use she’s found for cast-off issues of the Congressional Record. “They’re so thick nothing will grow through them,” she says. So they don’t blow away, pile something on top —hay, wood chips, sawdust, branches, whatever. By spring, the sod will have decomposed and added green manure to the soil without a struggle. Read the rest of this entry »

Geranium Origins

Of the 700 different varieties of geranium, around seven are used to produce essential oils. The most exquisitely scented essential oil is Geranium Bourbon, which is obtained from Reunion, an island in the Indian Ocean that produces half the world’s total supply, and Algeria.

Geranium Essential oil

Steam distillation of the leaves and stems, gathered before flowering, produces a yellowish green to brown oil with a powerful aroma. It is a joyful, mentally uplifting oil and a great favourite. Its perfume makes it a valuable addition to many therapeutic but otherwise unattractively scented oils. Read the rest of this entry »

I plant them early, at least 3 or 4 weeks before the last spring frost date, and also later in the season so they can mature in the cool weather of fall.

A couple of years ago, Jan and I picked our first heads of broccoli a few days before Memorial Day, and cut the last ones from our fall planting on Thanksgiving Day. If you live south of my homestead, you can easily get a longer season of cabbage family crops—especially in the fall. Read the rest of this entry »

Peas are the ultimate crop for the lazy gardener. Using my wide row method, you can plant them in minutes and come back weeks later to harvest them. There’s no weeding, side-dressing, staking，or hilling. . .there’s just no work at all to growing tasty fresh peas anywhere in any climate.

People in the South often complain to me, “Dick, it’s just too hot down here to grow English peas. They start growing okay when the weather is cool but then it gets hot and the peas don’t produce.” My wide row method solves this problem.

I once brought 2 bushels of fresh-picked peas from my Florida test garden to a class I was giving nearby. I set the peas down in the middle of the crowd and said, “Taste for yourself.” These Florida gardeners sampled the peas and said, “They’re great!” Read the rest of this entry »

Virtually all shrubs can be propagated in this way. The following respond particularly well.

• Azalea Peg down shoots into a peaty soil. Roots form slowly, taking about 12 months.
• Camellia Best rooted in peaty soil. Takes about 12 months.
• Lilac (Syringa) Roots in about 6 months in sandy soil.
• Magnolia Takes 12 months to root. Peg into peaty soil and keep moist.
• Rhododendron Best rooted in peaty soil. Roots form slowly, taking at least 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »

These plants are suitable for growing around the base of winter- or spring-flowering shrubs, for bright splashes of colour in the border..

• Bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) Pink and white heart- shaped flowers in spring above attractive foliage. 45-60cm/ 1¹/2-2ft. A pure white form is becoming popular. Moist peaty soil and dappled shade.

• Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) Evergreen hand-shaped leaves and white single-rdse-like flowers in winter. 30cm/12in. Fertile moist soil and partial shade.

• Elephant’s ears (Bergenia species/varieties) Large, shiny, leathery evergreen foliage and dense heads of pink, red or white flowers in spring. 30cm/12in. Foliage often turns reddish in winter. Moist soil. Sun or partial shade. Read the rest of this entry »

I. danfordioe is another early dwarf, this time yellow, as is I. histrioides, of which the most commonly found variety is ‘Major’ at 4 inches high and with deep blue flowers splashed with yellow in the centre.

I. reticulate, 6 inches, comes in a range of blues: ‘Harmony’ is dark blue, ‘Cantab’ light blue, ‘J. S. Dijt’ a warm purple. A feature of these tiny irises is that they flower when the leaves are very immature and in some cases all but absent. Later the leaves can grow quite tall but by this time you will probably have planted them out in the garden. Whether they will flourish there is a matter of luck—I. danfordiae is never very robust—but it is always worth a try. Bulbous irises could be planted in a window box but I would rather see them in shallow containers— they need only be planted 22 inches deep—and close together for maximum impact. In a 12 inch pot I would plant a dozen of the tiny bulbs, then put them somewhere where they can be seen close up and also smelled. Read the rest of this entry »

Flower patterns

Fabric designs over the centuries have mostly derived their inspiration from nature and in particular from plants and flowers. It is no different today: the largest choice in wallpapers and fabrics is still in the floral ranges. Even the occasional abstract design is more often than not based on natural forms. We all love flowers and therefore use them as decoration wherever possible. The choice is immense now and there is every style of design available from very smart, small- scale, all-over flower patterns to great splashy chintzes smothered with full-blown summer garden flowers, ideal for curtains. 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 »

It is fashionable to reel in horror at the thought of gnomes in the garden but it has to be said that children usually love them. They also fall for cement ducks and frogs, for plastic toadstools and windmills and wells, complete with bucket and chain. Disparity of size or materials doesn’t seem to bother children either, so a window sill garden of small shrubs and large gnomes or large shrubs and small gnomes would probably delight its young owner.

It goes without saying that only children who can be trusted to lean out of the window or who are carefully supervised should be allowed a gnome garden box. Your local garden centre will probably reveal a rich source of possible subjects. As with all collections, it is best to have a theme so if the first choice is a jolly gnome with a fishing rod you should give him something to fish in. An old china dish might do, or even a plastic fridge container, as long as the edges can be concealed with small stones or rocks. The bottom could be decorated with gravel, which will support a few marginal plantsfrom the water section in the garden centre or even from a local supplier of tropical fish. These can be rooted in the gravel and, barring accidents, should last a season before succumbing to frost, although some cold-water plants will survive. Read the rest of this entry »

These are the well known and popular ‘lady’s slipper’ orchids, so named because the lip has developed into a large pouch resembling a slipper. They were among the first orchids to be cultivated as house plants and were a common sight in the Wardian Cases of Victorian drawing rooms. In older books you will find them referred to as Cypripediums. This large group of orchids was later divided, and the Cypripediums of the modern classification are quite unsuitable as house plants, as well as being difficult to obtain; many are extremely rare plants indeed.

Paphiopedilum species are widely distributed throughout the Far East, stretching from China and the Himalayas in the far north to the islands of the Philippines, all the way down to Malaya and south to New Guinea. The species are usually terrestrial in habit, growing in the ground among other shady vegetation. Occasionally some may be found growing as epiphytes on the lower branches of trees. Unlike most orchids, the plants do not have pseudo bulbs but produce growths, each consisting of five or six leaves. Read the rest of this entry »

Cymbidiums, like so many orchids, are widely distributed in the wild. They occur in an area of the Far East which stretches from the Himalayas, China and the southern islands of Japan, through the East Indies to the northern territories of Australia. Most of the species are of botanical interest only, with small, insignificant flowers. Also among the Cymbidiums can be found an extraordinary species of minute plant which grows under the ground and produces small flowers on a short spike about 8 cm (3 in.) high. None of these more obscure species have qualities which make them worth using for breeding purposes.

A typical Cymbidium from which the bulk of hybrids have been raised produces egg shaped bulbs, completely covered by the leaves. These leaves are up to 1 m (3 ft) long and there are eight to ten per bulb. As is typical of orchids, Cymbidiums grow in enormous clumps in the wild, but in cultivation are maintained at a convenient size; Read the rest of this entry »

The stones had to remain as they were for several months, a monument to my ignorance, but one happy day a cousin with a genius for gardening visited us and remade the gardens for me. Although there is a distinct downward slope towards the gate he placed the stones to give the effect of level strata of outcrop, something I could never have dreamed of and have never ceased to admire. From the house the effect is a luxurious display of rock plants growing out of the wall.

I had very few real rock plants to begin with, and those that I had were very small, so the first season I kept up a succession of colourful effects with annuals. I do not know whether the soil was particularly good or as a beginner I took more trouble and followed instructions implicitly, or perhaps I was just lucky. Certainly I have never again grown such superlative Phlox Drummondii, dwarf antirrhinums, mignonette, zinnias, clarkia, godetia and candytuft, to mention only a few. For once, and once only, I achieved displays that really looked like the pictures on the packet, and I thought that it was all just too easy. Read the rest of this entry »

The garden that went with the house was divided at the back into two tiny gardens, with walls and small plots of grass. We supposed that these went back to the time when the house had been two cottages.

In addition to the walls dividing the two little gardens at the back another wall divided us from the barton, and beneath all these walls someone had amused himself by making banks and sticking in stones vertically, like almonds on a trifle. We imagined the idea was a nice ready-made rock garden for us to play with. The first thing we did, when we really set our minds to the garden, was to remove all the walls and stones and pile them up for future use. They were quite a problem, those piles of stones, as they were moved from place to place as we dealt with the ground where they were piled. I could not see how we should ever use them all. Read the rest of this entry »

Walter always did the mixing and superintended the operation while the boy of the moment wielded the cans. It always seemed to me that they waited for a windy day for this job, and I had many anxious moments as wisps of poison spray were blown on my precious plants growing in the walls on each side of the path. In the end I took over the job myself and picked my own day.

My quarrel with gravel paths is that they require far more attention than most of us can possibly give under present day conditions. To keep them hard they must be rolled thoroughly very regularly, and once having achieved a modicum of perfection the proud owner is on constant tenterhooks that something will happen to spoil them. Walter used to get very worried if visitors drove the wrong way round our drive. One side was steep and it needed quite a lot of acceleration to get up and round the grass knoll in the middle of the drive. Read the rest of this entry »

The foregoing paving plants do not restrict themselves to the spaces left for them but make big mats covering great surfaces of stone. Other carpeters creep along between the stones, filling all the cracks with greenery but hardly intruding above ground. My favourite is Mentha Requienii, the tiny creeping mint, with bright green leaves and the tiniest pale mauve flowers. The scent is strong when you press a finger on it, but the time I am most grateful for its fragrance is in the winter, when I brush snow from the paving and the heady scent comes up in waves. I used to think the creeping pennyroyal, Mentha Pulegium, was as neat and self-effacing as Mentha Requienii, but on closer acquaintance I find it likes to spread itself in rather untidy loops and flusters. But its scent is pleasantly pungent and I wouldn’t be without it. The acaenas offer new foliage colour, A. Buchananii is silvery grey with yellow burrs, while A. microphylla (or A. inermis) has bronze fern-like foliage and crimson spiny flowers. Arenaria balearica will cover everything in sight when it once gets going. It likes to work in damp shady places and then it gets as busy as helxine. But no one minds, so fine and bright is the foliage and so star-like are the tiny white flowers with which it smothers itself in April and May. The cotulas are not very exciting but they make tiny lawns of bright green between the stones. Dresden china daisies are still among the best plants for growing in paving. They enjoy the cool root run and increase rapidly, and they never wander beyond their ascribed domain. Their little bright pink flowers are always welcome, and there is a white version called The Pearl, which looks entrancing in a dark corner. The bigger crimson daisy, Rob Roy, I prefer to use in a flower bed, close up against a paved path. It seems a little too fleshy to grow in paving, but in a bed, where it can spread itself, it makes a delightful crimson accent. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: A subtropical evergreen shrub up to 3 m high, with numerous coppice shoots by which the plant naturally rejuvenates itself. Leather) leaves are deep green and slightly serrated. Pedicellate flowers are whitish tc yellowish, with 5 petals and numerous (about 200) stamens with bright yellow anthers and trifid stigma. Fruit is a brown, leathery capsule containing large oily seeds. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: A perennial plant with a scaly underground bulb (corm) about the size of a walnut. Linear leaves with a white central nerve and a short flower-bearing stem grow from the corm in spring. The flower-stem terminates in a pale violet flower with six regular petals. The typical pistil has an inferior ovary and style branching out into three orange stigmas. The dried stigmas with a portion of the style are the parts used. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: A tropical branching tree up to 12 m high. Evergreen, leathery leaves are ovoid, acuminate, on long petioles. Tiny greenish-yellow flowers arranged in axillary panicles on long pedicels. Fruit are dark red, pea-sized berries.

Origin and Distribution: Native to Taiwan, China and Japan, and successfully cultivated in Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Florida, as it grows well in all warm regions. Read the rest of this entry »

Description: An evergreen tropical tree up to 12 m high. The trunk has cracked, ash-grey bark; leathery leaves are light green, aromatic, with distinct venation. Flowers are tiny, inconspicuous, arranged in clusters, exuding a pleasant smell. Resembles the cinnamon to which it is closely related.

Origin and Distribution: Indigenous to southern China. Cultivated mainly in China, Thailand and Indonesia. Read the rest of this entry »