Snow turned my garden into a winter wonderland last week...

Snow turned my garden into a winter wonderland last week. Yours too I bet.
Isn’t it lovely when unsightly plastic pots and broken wheelbarrows
disappear under the invisibility blanket which we know as snow! This surely
is a useful note to self: make the garden look gorgeous all-year-round, not
just in the summer, or when its uglier corners are disguised by soft
white stuff. My tips: Allocate a kind of glory hole to hide the messy bits,
behind a shed or shady corner. Arrange all your container plants together or
in groups (- keeps them neat, but also cosier for the plants.) Protect tender
plants from freezing weather. Looking at its blackened form struggling to
recover for the next 6 months is one of my least favourite garden eye-sores.
Especially if its in my garden...

Helen Riches is a garden designer who also writes and develops features for gardening magazines. She also runs light-hearted but informative garden courses from her home in North Essex.
http://www.helenriches.co.uk

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Dr Hessayon slams EU for banning garden chemicals

Dr Hessayon slams EU for banning garden chemicals

http://www.amateurgardening.com/home/dr-hessayon-slams-eu-for-banning-garden-chemicals/

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Look clever this spring

Oh dear – left it late again? If you still haven’t planted that bargain bag
of garden-centre-Christmas-clear-out-tulips, don’t worry. Its not too late.
But get them in the ground this weekend. Hopefully they’ve been stored
somewhere cold (not beside the boiler) which has held them in check.

But pause for a moment before randomly sticking them in. If you match your
tulip flowers with adjacent planting, the effect can look quite stunning.
Just try to remember what is going to flower in spring.

The photo shows my display - planted 1st January this year & flowering cheerfully four months
later. Yellow tulips match the Mahonia, purple tulips love the Lilac and the
cream & greens of Tulipa ‘Spring Green’ love the similarly tinted Skimmia
‘Kew Green’. It’s easy- but can make you look quite clever!
 

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What to do with my Poinsettia now Christmas is over!

Keep poinsettias looking good this season and through the next year, says Amateur Gardening’s Michelle Wheeler

Now that Christmas day is just a memory, poinsettias can be seen in many homes. Their colourful bracts (modified leaves) are a delight.

Often thrown away when they lose their colour or wither away, poinsettias actually make a rather stunning houseplant with their green shapely leaves in the summer. And it is possible to get the plant to turn itself back into the Christmas beauty we love from November onwards, by carrying out some simple care. Poinsettias are known as short day length plants; this is the title given to a group of plants, which ‘flower’ when the days are short and night time is long.

On a commercial scale flowering is forced in glasshouses that are blacked out for long periods, but it is possible to do this at home too. Check the chart to see how to look after your poinsettia over the year so the bracts colour up.

Poinsettias were thought to be poisonous, but the RHS has recently reclassified them as a nonpoisonous plant. However they are still classed as a skin and eye irritant, so to be safe, wear gloves when handling.

Poinsettias commonly die off af...

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Watch out for the evil weevil

Some of my Heucheras in pots have been looking more tired than they should even at this time of year. I know the signs now, past experience tells me that the evil weevil has been at work. It is said that adult Vine Weevils can't fly. If that's true then how come they seem to find every succulent planty morsel that I grow and lay their eggs there. A few weeks later hey presto! look no roots. The answer is that they are sneaky little climbers, crawling along the ceiling is no challenge, they can even clamber up clean dry glass so the side of a pot is all in a days work.

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