Container gardening works best with people who are really interested in having the pleasure of gardens around their house but at the same time not having enough space because of a small balcony or a patio for instance. Simple, easy and totally fun is basically what container gardens are all about. You decide on what [...]
Shrubs are something that really helps in brightening up your garden. A touch of color gets added up with relatively easier maintenance as well. Having the right types of shrubs really matters to experience the distinguished positive differences in your garden and since having a big variety of shrubs available; I do not think it [...]
No cottage garden can be considered complete without its complement of roses. Not the roses of the modern day with their iridescent colours and feeble scents, but the bold old fashioned shrub roses that were all the rage just before the turn of the century. Although many suffered a decline in popularity after the First [...]
If you select good-sized bulbs of first-class quality during the autumn you can almost guarantee a good show the following spring. After that it is up to you to maintain this quality in the planted bulbs in order to secure succeeding displays of flowers. For top quality blossoms it is essential to have the bulbs [...]
The marigolds of the cottage garden are not the marigolds of the bedding plant trade. The bold characters of even stature with strange smelling leaves and garish blossoms that appear in every nursery, garden centre and greengrocers shop in the land at the beginning of summer are all members of the tagetes family. The marigold [...]
Poppies are plants that are always associated with cottage gardens, especially the giant oriental poppy, Papaver orientale. This is a tough resilient character that will flourish in almost any soil providing that it is in full sun. Attaining a height of a metre (yard) or more, the typical oriental poppy has dark red silky blossoms [...]
The true musk, Mimulus moschatus, was grown extensively in cottage gardens by our grandparents for its delicious heady fragrance. Indeed, apart from being grown in the open garden it was raised in pots for the window ledge. Without its scent it would never have made any impact, for it is a rather uninspiring character which [...]
These essential preliminaries having been completed, the basis of a successful garden will lie before one. Irrespective of the time of year that the garden is started, it is a good policy to turn up uncultivated soil in hefty lumps to allow it to weather. Most advantage will be gained by autumn digging, for then [...]
Trees and shrubs should be planted as early as possible in the development of the garden so that they can be growing while the rest of the operations are going on. They can be planted at any time during their dormancy period, which extends from autumn through to early spring. Garden centres offer trees and [...]
What about some of the annual dianthus or pinks and carnations? Nowadays there are some superb strains about, many of which are made for cottage garden display. The modern Fleuroselect winning ‘Telstar’, a much refined and long-flowering sweet william-like pink with a colour range that embraces all the old fashioned shades. True carnation-type flowers can [...]