After a summer of high temperatures and little rain, gardening magazines, blogs and posts are full of recommendations for drought-tolerant plants. But are drought tolerant plants the answer? Looking around my garden, its clear that the classic drought-tolerant perennials have survived well – my eryngiums, rubeckias, heleniums, euphorbias and salvias have fared well. And all…
Here are a few top tips to help get you through the current drought especially in those areas where you can’t use your hose pipe Prioritise the areas of the garden that need water – pots, newly planted trees, shrubs and other plants, the veg plot etc. The lawn is definitely at the bottom of…
We have all seen flowers appearing earlier than ever – daffodils in December, magnolia in February – but now the extent of the change has been revealed by a new study. The research, carried out by a team at Cambridge University, found that plants in the UK are flowering as much as a month earlier than…
Salvias are generally drought resistant, long flowering and many have scented foliage, plus they are great for attracting pollinators too. They are the perfect option for a hot, dry border with free draining soil. There are annual, biennial and perennial salvias. Planted in the right spot, the shrubby and hardy herbaceous salvias can overwinter….
A garden or allotment can look a complete mess after surging floodwaters have passed through. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just rainwater, but most flood water carries with it all sorts of contaminants – plastic, sewage, manure, slurry and chemicals, such as oil and pesticides, and much more besides. So, if you…
The environment, climate change, water and plastic waste were common themes running through this year’s show gardens. Having just written a book on climate change gardening, I was keen to see what the designers had done on these topics. The garden that really got to grips with water and climate change was Thames Water Flourishing…
Kim Stoddart looks at some of the easiest and most rewarding ways to boost your eco-gardener credentials, whilst having fun in the process… I gardened entirely for free a few years back for my writing in the Guardian. What started out as a ‘can I really do this?’ experiment turned into one of the most…
Kim explains how to help counter the hungry gap by expanding your salad horizons with leaves from other plants currently growing. If you looked at the average bag of unexciting supermarket salad mix, you’d be forgiven for assuming that all leaves had to look like this. Yet, you’re really missing a trick if that’s how…