It’s important to divide your bearded irises every few years to keep them floriferous and healthy, and to make new plants. The traditional technique is to dig up the iris…
How to
Ideas to take home from Chelsea Flower Show 2012
Chelsea Flower Show is always about lavish displays, fantasy and drama, but if you ignore the noise above and focus in on the quieter details of the gardens, there’s often…
Palm in a pot
Palms make an elegant addition to patio container displays. Get the look with Kris’s simple 5 step planting guide. Palm used: Canary Island date palm (Phoenix canariensis) 1) Place an…
Potting on plug plants
Other than larger ‘Garden Ready’ plugs which can go straight into garden soil, the potting on process is the same for all plugs, the only difference is the pot or…
Potting up auriculas for a spring display
AG garden writer Michelle Wheeler, explains how to pot on your new auriculas for a summer display. When young plants arrive (pictured), fill a 3in (7.5cm) pot halfway…
5 choice summer bulbs
Summer bulbs can be planted out in UK gardens in spring, as soon as the soil begins to warm. Ideally, the soil temperature should be no lower than 13C, otherwise…
How to grow: Acacia (mimosa)
While visiting milder parts of the country or passing a sheltered inner city garden during February and March, you’ll occasionally come across a filigree-leaved tree covered in a haze of…
Spring pruning: what to cut back now
As winter performers finish and before summer performers put on growth, it's time to get shrubs back in shape. Here is a list of common garden shrubs that should be…
How to grow: wood anemones
Wood anemones and windflowers are the unsung treasures of the spring garden, and the perfect ground cover…
Give chillies some heat
AG garden editor, Kris Collins, is dusting off the heated propagator to gets his favourite summer crops underway Fill cells with seed and cuttings compost. I sieve mine first, to…