News - Page 119
Sow a box of salad now to ease those itchy gardener’s fingers and get growing something, and also provide yourself with a super-early crop to kick-start your grow-your-own year.
It's a bit soon to be sowing salad outdoors – but under cover in a greenhouse, polytunnel or just a bright windowsill lettuces and baby-leaf salad mixes germinate perfectly happily.
One of the most attractive ways to produce the quantities you need for a generous bo...
Tell your loved one how special they are this Valentine’s Day with plants, flowers and gifts from our garden centre here in Lymington.
You’ll find cards for romance and fun, plus unique gifts from deliciously scented luxury pamper sets to hampers of gourmet food and chocolates. Spoil your Valentine with an intimate meal in our restaurant; and pick out a plant to mark your special day, from forget-me-nots to the lovely velvety red rose ‘My Valentine’ for roses...
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Get the kids involved in gardening and you’ll keep them happily occupied outside in the fresh air, spark their creativity and teach them about where flowers and food come from. Plus you get to spend lots of time with them while you do what you love doing most, too.
All you need is a small area, say 1m x 1m, marked off with a low fence, coloured pebbles or railway sleeper edging, which doubles up as comfy child-sized seats.
Let the kids choo...
Force rhubarb for a sweet treat from the veg garden just when you need it most. Fruit can be thin on the ground at this time of year: the stored apples are almost finished and there's a long wait till the first berries appear in May. So tender, sweet forced rhubarb comes as a welcome early spring delicacy.
Choose an early variety such as 'Stockbridge Arrow', and only force plants which are at least three years old and mature enough to cope. Rhubarb need...
It’s snowdrop festival time so join your nearest galanthophiles and enjoy some of the season’s most exquisitely beautiful flowers up close on one of the many Snowdrop Days happening around the country.
Among the most famous are the fabulous collection at Colesbourne Park in Gloucestershire, begun in Victorian times and still evolving today: there are now an astonishing 250 different varieties to see. Hodsock Priory in Nottinghamshire boasts a half-mile walk t...
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The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is celebrating the Queen’s 90th birthday this year with a floral archway and an exhibition of photographs of the Queen’s 51 visits to the show since 1949.
The archway is inspired by a painting in the Royal Collection of a similar arch decorated for Queen Victoria’s visit to Reigate in Surrey. It will be one of the first things the Queen sees when she arrives at the show the day before it opens on May 24.
Also featuring at th...
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Use cloches to protect overwintering crops as the weather turns colder. Even really hardy veg like broad beans, spring cabbage and chard get battered around the edges when it gets seriously windy, cold and wet – so although they’ll survive, your harvest will be unappetisingly shredded. More vulnerable seedlings, like hardy peas and winter salads, can be downright beaten and you risk losing your crop to stem rots or wind damage.
To prevent winter gales w...
Add lime your soil if it’s a little too acidic to help keep your crops healthy and avoid disease. You can find out how acidic your soil is using an inexpensive soil testing kit – available from our garden centre here in Lymington. Your soil can change from year to year, so test regularly.
Acidic soil is a particular problem as brassicas hate it and sulk, or worse, develop clubroot. So if your soil’s pH is less than 7, tip the balance back in favour of y...
Put your Christmas tree to good use instead of taking it down to the tip this year. Most of the six million real trees bought in this country each year end up in landfill – but we’re missing a trick. There are dozens of ways you can turn your real Christmas tree into gardening treasure instead - here are a few of our favourites!
Use the needles for mulch – acid-loving plants like blueberries and rhododendrons love them as they lower the soil’s pH while they r...
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Sow exhibition onions now to give them the longest possible growing season and maximise their chances of reaching whopper size in time to clean up at the local horticultural show this autumn.
Growing giant onions is right alongside super-sized pumpkins and unfeasibly long carrots as gardening challenges that are impossible to resist. You’ll find all you need for your prizewinning campaign at our garden centre here in Lymington, from module trays and pro...