OK, so this is a risky one. For Plant of the Week, I mean. Firstly garlic chives – Allium tuberosum – is a cheap and easy herb. Once a plant has proven useful we seem to habitually see it in that light. Secondly even if you can manage to change lenses, and evaluate it as...
Gardening by the sea? Check out some of our favourite coastal plants to grow.
Olearia axillaris is one of Perth's most iconic coastal shrubs, with distinctive grey foliage and a height of up to 2 metres. It is a member of the Daisy ( Asteraceae) plant family, with small yellow flowers being produced between March and August. It occurs naturally on coastal limestone and sand dunes.
Ogród Pieta Oudolfa odwiedziłam w snach tyle razy, że wypadało zrobić to już na jawie, dotknąć, spojrzeć na ziemię i otoczenie, być tam przez chwilę...
Ogród Pieta Oudolfa odwiedziłam w snach tyle razy, że wypadało zrobić to już na jawie, dotknąć, spojrzeć na ziemię i otoczenie, być tam przez chwilę...
Brighten up your coastal garden with a few of my favorite coastal garden ideas.
Schlehe (Prunus spinosa)
You may remember that I wrote about the replanting of the Thyme Lawns in March of this year. I thought I would just give you a quick update on their progress. Although our summer was slow to start,…
The invaluable red or purple leaved rose. Beautiful foliage has hints of blue and with the single pink flowers in May/June its sublime. These are followed by clusters of showy orange hips. To 7′ x 7′ very quickly in full sun and well drained soil of average to rich fertility. Avoid standing water in winter. […]
Anthemis tinctoria 'E.C. Buxton', Salvia nemorosa 'Ostfriesland', Nepeta and Geraniums in a mixed herbaceous border, late June.
A prolific plant for a sunny border, Anthemis tinctoria 'E.C. Buxton' is a vigorous perennial that will light up your garden throughout summer and sometimes into fall with its abundant blooms of pale, yellow, single daisy-like flowers atop the fragrant lacy foliage. A low-maintenance plant, it adds long-lasting color and contrast to the summer perennial border.
Discover some attractive and flavoursome varieties of thyme to grow.
The colourful floral lawn at Avondale Park in London
Discover some attractive and flavoursome varieties of thyme to grow.
The colourful floral lawn at Avondale Park in London
Gardening by the sea? Check out some of our favourite coastal plants to grow.
Today also had mild weather although the extreme cold is set to return this weekend. Our Holiday Light Show (HLS) retrieval team was out in full force today and lead … Continue reading "Summer Alliums"
A kínai metélőhagyma vagy tatárhagyma (Allium tuberosum) közepesen magas termetű, hagymás évelő növény mely Délkelet-Ázsiában őshonos.
What is a ‘Hibernaculum’, you may ask? The word ‘hibernaculum’ has Latin roots, meaning “winter quarter”, with hibernus being Latin for winter. Thus, hibernacula are places…
Sea Thrift (Armeria maritima) is a compact, evergreen perennial with charming round clusters of pink to lavender (or sometimes white) flowers.
Food forests can seem like the most complicated of garden designs, but here's how to do it yourself, step-by-step. Words and photos: Carl Pickens There is almost no-one I know who doesn’t get excited by the mere mention of the words ‘food forest.’ It seems to evoke distant memories buried deep in the subconscious, of a Garden of Eden-like scenario where food is abundant, free, and easy to obtain. Such romantic notions belie the fact that food forests are a lot of work, especially in the early stages, and it can take seven years before the system reaches a seriously
Are you thinking about what to do in this lockdown? It is an interesting question, everyone is trapped in their houses. If nature gives you…
Last week we looked at the front garden of Greg Shepherd, co-owner of Xera Plants , with promises of tours of the back garden this week. I...
Just Harvested The first Dwarf Apple banana I attempted to grow was a young plant from Plant It Hawaii that I purchased at one of the Kahului garden centers. I planted it in a 30 gallon container - don't believe anyone if they tell you a Dwarf Apple banana plant can be grown in a container. It didn't take long for the roots to outgrow the cramped space and the banana plant to begin to die. But, it produced a keiki or baby plant and I cut down the parent and transplanted the banana keiki into the ground. At 2 weeks from transplanting. On August 4th, 2011, I planted the keiki in a hole amended with a lot of compost and a generous amount of an organic all-purpose fertilizer. At 2 months from transplanting the plant was growing vigorously. It doesn't take long for a small banana plant to produce corms. If they aren't removed the planting area will become seriously over-grown with keiki banana plants before the parent plant produces any fruit. I use a pic-ax to remove the corms unless I'm going to transplant one. I like to transplant them into a pre-dug area rather then let them grow next to the parent plant. From my experience, they're rooted better into the ground. If a banana plant isn't properly anchored it can blow over in a strong gust of wind or fall to the ground due to the weight of the bananas. At 6 months from transplanting, the flower stalk started to emerge. When the flower stalk began to emerge, the banana plant was over 7 ft tall at the center and the tops of the leaves were over 11 ft from the ground. No wonder it couldn't be contained! Dwarf Apple Banana plants are a lot shorter than the regular bananas like Cavendish. At 7 months the baby bananas were developing. At 11 months the bananas were getting heavy but the tree appeared to be well rooted in the ground. What I especially like about growing dwarf bananas is that everything about them is manageable. I don't have to recruit anyone to help me cut down the banana stalk or to cut down a 20 ft tall plant after the bananas are harvested. A bunch of Cavendish bananas can weigh 50 lbs and usually requires a ladder in order to cut them down. I didn't weigh the Dwarf Apple bunch after I cut it but I would guess the weight to be around 25 lbs. And on July 28th, 2012, almost 1 year from transplanting, the top bananas began to turn yellow - the bananas were ready to harvest. I decided to plant dwarf varieties of bananas because my patch of Cavendish bananas were way too tall and blocking my neighbors view. I cut them down and dug them out twice but they grew back. Eventually I had to hire a landscape person to dig them out completely. Bananas should be managed and maintained or they become over-grown and invasive like ginger. Bananas are bothered by several pests and diseases. Aphids and white flies go for the older leaves. I hose the under sides of the lower leaves with water to remove as many aphids as I can and I cut the leaves off as they get older. There's an aphid that causes "banana bunchy top virus". So far, none of the banana plants I've grown over the last 6 years have had this disease. If my plants were to contact this virus I would dig the infected plants out completely but I would not use the recommended toxic herbicides. There are differing opinions about fertilizing bananas. I've been giving the plants a generous amount of an organic all-purpose fertilizer and compost once a month. Supposedly, fertilizer encourages the plants to grow taller. In my opinion, the quality of the fruit improves when the plants are well watered and well fertilized. When the bananas are harvested the hands tend to ripen all at once. There are several ways to preserve a banana harvest. I freeze ripe peeled bananas for making smoothies and banana bread or slice them vertically and dehydrate them. Another way to use perfectly ripe, unpeeled bananas is to grill them and then slit the husk or skin open vertically on one side and eat the cooked fruit from the husk with a spoon. Grilled bananas are so ono especially over ice cream.
