Subscribe now and SAVE up to 35% Give Amateur Gardening as a gift Subscribe to the Amateur Gardening Newsletter
12 ways to make your garden as pretty as Claude Monet picture:
1 AIM FOR EXUBERANCE
Let one or two flamboyant, large-flowered hybrids provide the backbone to the garden, and then choose three or four subtler varieties as the ‘supporting acts’. In a late spring border for example, this could be: bearded iris, oriental poppies and peonies together with dame’s rocket, forget-me-not,…
AG news editor, Marc Rosenberg, shows how to plant hyacinths for indoor winter colour
Ag news editor, Marc Rosenberg, shows you how to protect tree ferns from the worst of the winter weather
Val Bourne has successfully grown Christmas roses for over a decade. She says the secret to growing perfect flowers is to plant them up into containers. Here’s how…
Start off by buying cheaper ‘tester’ Helleborus niger in smaller pots. If possible, buy them in flower, looking for rounded blooms and plenty of healthy foliage.
Pot them into slightly larger black plastic containers.…
Ag gardening editor, Kris Collins, shows how to pot up amaryllis bulbs for indoor winter colour
Grapes vines need a hard prune in winter to encourage heavy cropping, but how you grow them will determine how you prune them, says AG garden writer, Michelle Wheeler
Rod and spur system:
For fence/wall/trellis trained vines and those grown under glass:
If in its first year, prune out two thirds of the trunk (the rod) and cut the side branches (spurs) to…
Amateur Gardening video: AG garden writer, Michelle, shows you how to plant up a hanging basket for a winter display
1. Eranthis hyemalis
The golden glow of this charming low-growing winter perennial is a heartwarming sight indeed. The winter aconite will thrive in any soil that is well-drained during the summer. They prefer dappled shade, reaching up to about 6ins (15cms) and growing so thickly that the vigorous leaves soon cover every piece…
Get plants started now, for bigger plants and bigger crops, says AG garden writer, Michelle Wheeler
If you have a heated propagator or a space on a warm, bright windowsill, sow tomatoes seeds this weekend. Here’s how:
1 Fill a 3in (9cm) pot with good quality seed compost; level the surface, firm down and water in. Pots are better than modular trays…
AG gardening editor, Kris Collins, shows how to bring a large tree back down to size
If a tree has out grown its space in the garden, you don’t have to get the chainsaw out and shout ‘Timber’. Try the ancient method of pollarding instead. Some timely hard pruning while the tree is in its dormant phase will bring it back…
