Potting Plants

Hydrangea are easy to grow, voluminous shrubs with long lasting flower-heads. They can grow to be handsome 6 foot high and wide shrubs.

Growing Hydrangea Early autumn is the best time to plant new Hydrangeas. If planting in spring take more care with watering and mulch the plants to keep the soil damp. Hydrangeas grow best in semi shade in rich moist soil. Trim off old flower heads and dead stems in spring. Give them a balanced fertilizer in spring.

Hydrangea colouring. Alkaline soil produces pink flowers and acidic soil blue flowers. You can add Aluminium sulphate to get blue flowers or lime to change to pink flowers. White varieties will not change colour.

Choose the Right Variety Mophead or Hortensia hydrangeas are the type that have pompom like heads that open into a globe shape such as ‘Blue Bonnet’ or ‘Forever Pink’. Lacecap varieties have flat heads who’s flowers do not open at the same time.
Quercifolias often have pyramid shaped white flowers and oak shaped leaves. Annabelle is the best known and well liked variety of Hydrangea arborescens.

Where to Plant Hydrangeas are good seaside plants tolerating salty air. Grow in shade or full sun but avoid early spring sun after frosts. Hydrangeas resist wind and only request a moist soil. Their characteristics make Hydrangeas good on the edge of woodland or as an informal hedge. Pot grown varieties are popular as house plants that can be planted in the garden when they are finished in the house.

Drying Hydrangeas can provide decoration out of season and tips can be found on the Hydrangea web site.

See Thorp Perrow Hydrangeas

RHS hydrangeas including climbing hydrangeas

These Iris  bulbs are a series of low growing, early spring flowering plants named after people like George, Natasha, Joyce, Pauline, and Katherine Hodgkin.
Iris reticulata are early flowering Iris that usually appearing from late winter to early spring. The blooms vary from pale blue to deep violet with central yellow splashes down the middle of each petal.

Growing Iris Bulbs The preferred method is to plant the bulbs in October 5-10cm (2-4in) apart at twice their own depth in well-drained, moderately fertile soil in sun or partial shade.
Most types of soil will suffice for one year for these bulbs. The flowers are already inside the bulb waiting to escape.
Divide plants July to September after the narrow leaves have died down

Choose the Right Variety Mixed bulb packs can give you a good show but look for Iris reticulata a bright blue, J S Dyt reddish purple or Natasha white with green veins and a yellow blotch.
Iris danflordiae flowers bright yellow, Iris Histroides ‘George’ flowers are a plum purple and Katherine Hodgkin light blue with yellow crests and dark spots

Where to Plant Iris will grow well in pots or containers but if you want them to flower successfully the following year they need a deep root run to build up strength 8 inches.
Pot some up to bring into the house when they flower. The dark blue goes well with snowdrops and they flower at about the same time. Iris look good in rockeries and the top of walls.

This group of Katherine Hodgson look good in the sun but there is a Joker in the pack. In this case it is a small pansy called the joker and it adds the orange and deep blue colour almost by accident.

Tip for summer flowering Iris bulbs look for Dutch Iris that grow taller and mke good cut flowers

Useful Links

BBC Gardeners World – Gardening site of BBC

Royal Horticultural Society

Getting up close and personal is one of the main ways to enjoy Alpine plants and succulent species.

Houseleeks seem to grow for the sake of making patterns from Hens and Chickens through to this rapidly reproduced colour scheme.  Other images on Google

Bukiniczia cabulica makes a strange pattern with a mottled effect in  blueish-greenish shades. Despite a couple of leaves that are going over on this plant even more extreme patterns are found on Google.

Rodents including Gerbils are said by the Pacific bulb society to sip the nectar of Massonia depressa and there are lots of rodent droppings to the left of the flower stalk in the second picture on this site.

If you grow heathers you will know the answer as these recommendations come from other Heather growers.

Reasons for Growing Heather

1. Heathers can provide a rich and changing variety of colour from both foliage and flowers all year round.
2. Many of the easiest heathers are at their best in the drabbest months.
3. Heathers are versatile, evergreen, inexpensive, long lasting and easy to grow.
4. They can provide a weed free garden which needs little or no maintenance and provides great ground cover even on a sloping bank.
5. Heathers are carefree and thrive on poor soil, in windy places and even near the sea.
6. There are 100’s of varieties in many colours shapes and sizes and they are very hardy.
7. Heathers are easy to propagate to increase your stock for free.
8. Many varieties make good cut flowers and dry well for indoors.
9. Attractive forms can be found in the wild or beg some cuttings from friends and relatives.
10. Heathers and their cousins Heaths soon capture the imagination and hold you fascination.

So I hope you can see Heather is not just for the wild moors and the singing of folk songs but for serious gardeners.

“Erica silberschmelze”

White heather flowering in March  with a light green leaf.

White heather flowering in march with a good mulch of pine bark chippings to help the soil acidity.

Contact the Heather Society

Gazanas are brightly coloured flowers that are easy to grow on dry sunny sites. Many of the plants flower with a striped effect on the petals that open to resemble a 6 inch daisy. The leaves are a narrow grey-green or silvery and the plants grow 6-10 inches tall.

Choose the right variety. Seed is available in a range of varieties like Mini-star White, Tiger Stripes and the Kiss seriessuch as the ‘Kiss Rose’.
Harlequin are slightly larger, growing to 15” tall spreading 18” and come in a mix of colours.

How to Grow Gazania. If buying plants choose healthy well formed clumps of lower leaves. You can buy when at least one flower is open so you have an idea of the colour you are buying but a mix of hot oranges, yellows and reds is quite popular. If you grow from seed, sow 8 weeks before the last frost is expected and keep in the warm, then gradually acclimatise them outdoors.
Whilst the plants may survive British winters, you could take cuttings in Autumn and protect from frost, however, I would treat them as annuals. The plants produce lots of flowers but you can deadhead (cut off faded flowers) to encourage more blooms.

Where to Grow. Gazania is a bright filler plant for in between shrubs or any hot dry part of the garden. They grow happily at the seaside as they are not affected by salty air. Sandy, well drained soil, that Gazanias get in there native South Africa, is best. They are  also fine for window boxes, tubs or planters and can survive if you occasionally forget to water them.
The flowers are borne on short stems making them excellent for windy sites.
Aka the Treasure Flower, Gazania have delicately cut, silvery-white foliage which makes the plant a pleasure  with the bright blooms, opening in the sun and closing at night.

Useful Links

BBC Gardeners World – Gardening site of BBC

Royal Horticultural Society

Gardeners Tips Gazania gaz-ain-‘ere

Thompson Morgan Seeds to consider buying.

Photo by mama pyjama CC

To help celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity, The London Vegetable Garden has teamed up with The Royal Horticultural Society to offer one lucky winner a year’s free membership!In order to enter this fantastic competition, simply email us a photo of your garden and tell us in 100 words what you are doing to promote biodiversity in your garden. The winner will be chosen on {insert date

For many, the concept of ‘urban gardening’ is limited to filling a flat with foliage, placing pots sporadically on the balcony, or even pottering around Kew Gardens one afternoon. As the London Vegetable Garden project prepares to celebrate its first birthday, I hope that many of these blinkered views have at the very least, been allayed; the simple truth however is that city dwellers remain