Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Grow your own food with confidence: raised beds, tomatoes, leafy greens, roots, peppers and kitchen herbs.
Half-hardy perennial The Ranunculus can be grown either from seed or from roots. The seed is thinly sown from January to March, in boxes four to six inches deep, filled with good soil. A cool greenhou...
Rheum hybridum RHUBARB is so much valued that we need not recommend it. There are some remarkably fine sorts in cultivation, adapted for early work, main-crop, and late use. Although an accommodating...
Castor-oil Plant. Half-hardy annual Although this plant flowers freely, it is grown in the sub-tropical garden principally for its noble ornamental foliage, and also in the shrubbery border, either al...
Phaseolus multiflorus Runner beans need generous cultivation and will amply repay for the most liberal treatment. The main point to be borne in mind is that the plant possesses the most extensive root...
Greenhouse perennial A very remarkable perennial, only four inches high, obtained from eastern tropical Africa. The plant has fleshy leaves, and the flowers, which are produced in clusters, somewhat r...
Although the art of making Salads is to some extent understood in this country, it must be admitted that much has yet to be learned from the masters of Continental cookery, who utilise more plants tha...
Half-hardy annual A highly ornamental half-hardy annual. The finest strains have large, open flowers, exhibiting extraordinary combinations of colours which range from the palest sulphur-white to oran...
Tragopogon porrifolius Salsify may be sown from the end of March to May, but two sowings will in most cases be sufficient. Drill the seed in rows fifteen inches apart and one inch deep. Thin from time...
Hardy annual and half-hardy perennial From a genus including 450 species a small number of Salvias have won deserved popularity for beds and borders. In summer and early autumn the long spikes of bril...