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Low-maintenance outdoor plants for busy gardeners
Plants are beautiful decorations for your garden, and luckily there are many of those which are easy to care for if you have a busy lifestyle. There are plenty of varieties that don't need staking, frequent deadheading and dividing, complicated pruning, or excessive watering. Below we've listed the…
How To Grow Potatoes
Potatoes are one of the most popular vegetables to grow in your garden. You can grow potatoes either in the ground or you can grow them in potato bags or containers and it really couldn’t be easier with our expert advice on how to grow potatoes.How to Plant Potatoes in the Ground?Potato…
Make a change to your plant choices
Make a positive change to your plant choices this spring – new from Michael PerryPerhaps you’ve become used to growing the same plants each year, regardless of whether they perform well for you or not! You may even doubt your own gardening skills when those plants fail or succumb to…
Garden pests and other wildlife!
[et_pb_section bb_built="1″][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type="4_4″][et_pb_text] Early summer is the perfect time to step out in the garden with a nice cuppa, and bathe in the satisfaction that all of that hard work this spring was worth the effort. And so it was that whilst surveying my…
Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’™ – knocking out traditional varieties
Raspberry ‘Ruby Beauty’™ is an innovative concept that allows you to grow raspberries on your patio. This space saving raspberry retains its sweet flavour, which we’ve come to expect from modern varieties, but you no longer need a big garden to accommodate rows of towering…
Why is Sustainable Gardening so Important These Days?
In essence, sustainable gardening is not a new term, but the practice has started gaining traction recently. What gardening sustainably means, what does the process involve, and what makes it so important today? What is Sustainable Gardening? It is vital to make one crucial distinction. Cultivating…
Behind the scenes at Chelsea Flower Show 2013 (press day)
Behind the scenes at Chelsea Flower Show 2013 (press day)The RHS Chelsea Flower Show celebrates its centenary birthday this week, and I was very lucky to receive a press pass for Monday 21 May for a sneak preview and behind the scenes look at the most prestigious event in the gardening calendar…
Top tips for Instagram-ready gardens
Get your garden grid-ready with these top tipsImage: leungchopan Instagram gardening is huge these days. This social media app is a great virtual place to make friends with like-minded growers, swap advice and grow an online audience as you grow your own. But if you're not sure how to get started,…
Wild flowers – our top 10
Autumn is the perfect time to sow a hardy annual wildflower display. The soil is still warm for quick germination, and resulting seedlings will be watered by autumn rain. Come winter they’ll be tough enough to face the cold weather, quickly waking up in spring to put on a much stronger show…
Dahlias masterclass: best expert content
Dahlias come in a range of colours and stylesImage: Dahlia 'Sunset Shades' from Thompson & Morgan Here's a masterclass on growing dahlias courtesy of some of our favourite gardening bloggers, YouTubers, and Instagrammers. When it comes to dahlias, not only do these growers know their stuff, but…
Home-grown fruit & veg is back on the menu
More and more people are keen to get their hands into trying home-grown fruit & veg in order to cut down the cost of their weekly shop. Combined with healthy eating campaigns such as Jamie Oliver in schools, the appetite to become more self-sufficient is higher than ever.Growing your own fruit…
Raspberry masterclass: best expert content
Grow raspberries in beds or containersImage: Raspberry 'Polka' from Thompson & Morgan If you want to grow your own raspberry plants, take a look through this selection of the best independent articles and videos from the internet. These garden bloggers, YouTubers and Instagrammers show you how…
From Rake To Bake - Curried Cauliflower Crunch
Welcome to Baking Blog. Each month will feature an in-season fruit or vegetable dish to make with a little bit of grow-your-own information on the side. March is perfect for making Curried Cauliflower Crunch. Cauliflower doesn't have to be boring, there are many different varieties to sow, grow,…
12 more gardening YouTubers
Get your gardening questions answered by some of the best green-fingered YouTubersImage: Elnur Are you always on the lookout for inspiring and informative gardening YouTube channels? Last time we featured some of the best gardeners of the vlogosphere, we were overwhelmed by your response. Here…
Richard Mulcahy
Guest blogger Richard Mulcahy has a shady plot in Co. Antrim and writes here about his allotment and growing early rhubarb.Shady plotsIn the winter months, I get a chance to think and reflect upon my plot. Leaning on the allotment fence today, I thought back two years to when I first got the…
How to Plant a Bareroot Hedge
Now is the time to plant your bareroot hedge. Don't leave it too late! The bareroot planting season is from November to March, when plants are dormant, and the sooner you get them in before bud burst the better. Getting out into the garden in the winter can be a challenge but planting a hedge is a…
How to use hardy fuchsias in the garden
Hardy fuchsia 'Hawkshead' produces delicate white blossomsImage: Fuchsia 'Hawkshead' from Thompson & Morgan Hardy fuchsia plants are excellent all-rounders, showcasing a fabulous range of flower forms throughout the season. From delicate four-petalled blooms to blowsy giants, they're a great…
Wet start to the year – unruley weather
Despite the wet start to this year I have still managed to finish my winter digging. Despite the allotment site being clay soil, my plots have had so much organic matter added to it over the years that it makes digging easy. I hardly have to put my foot on the spade to get it into the soil.The last…
Edible Flowers – useful in any garden
Edible flowers can make a useful and delightful addition to any garden – whether big, small and practical or pretty – they can help boost any garden in question. Edible flowers can be used in a variety of ways and grow easily and quickly for a fast harvest.I decided to use an old tin…
How to store vegetables
Which vegetables will store and how long will they keep? This is an annual dilemma faced by many gardeners. Often the need for storage is caused by gardeners being too generous in their sowings and planting and creating their own ‘gluts’ and ‘surpluses’. Why plant 200 onion…
My garden is thriving
Due to the wet winter and mild spell in April my garden is thriving! The perennials and shrubs are looking so advanced in my borders and the lupins are trying to flower already. What is most unusual for this time of year; I have delphiniums in bud. Not that I am complaining!Due to the amount of…
Good companions in the veg plot
Plant vegetables, herbs and flowers together for optimum resultsImage source: Irina Fischer Companion planting is the art of growing different plants together to achieve certain benefits, such as helping with pest control, encouraging pollination or increasing crop yields. With a little thought,…
Our Summer Display – by Pam Gray
I am really looking forward to writing some blogs for Thompson & Morgan and as this is my first piece, I will tell you a little bit about our garden and myself. Our garden isn’t huge, 40′ x 27′ at the front and approx 80′ x 30′ at the back, with a very small garden…
An Amazing May
Hi Everyone, What an amazing May, so hot and dry! Hope this isn't our summer. I have a confession to make - I've not done half as much in the greenhouses as I would usually do. Don't get me wrong, I love being in them, or in my garden, but with limited energy, mobility and dexterity I have not been…
Gardening is a waiting game
Gardening isn’t one of those hobbies that we can just roll out of bed and do such as running or dancing. It requires a considerable amount of time to carefully plan what to sow and when. Therefore, gardening is a bit of a waiting game, and sometimes our patience is put to the test, but the…
Oca – the taste test
Oca – the taste testIn January one of our guest bloggers wrote about oca, a vegetable originally from South America that’s grown very much like potatoes. The knobbly tubers need a relatively long growing season before being harvested in the autumn, about 2 weeks after frost has killed…
New flower and vegetable seed range available online
Our new 2013 seed range is now available and we’ve added more than 140 new seed varieties!Sweet Pea PromiseSweet Pea ‘Promise’With its unique red and white bicolour blooms, this fragrant beauty is perfect not only in exhibitions, but also as a cut flower. It was bred by Roger…
Plants for a small garden – by our customer Amanda
We moved to our house in September 2003 and decided to dig up our front garden to allow parking for three cars. It’s made it very low maintenance because although I love lawns they do tend to look parched in hot weather, and being on a water meter I didn’t want to use excessive amounts…
Under the Weather
‘Under the Weather’As I sit here at noon on a Wednesday, my home has been enveloped by a huge dark cloud once again and the rain is misting out the houses across the street. It is utterly miserable and I am going to have to turn the daylight stimulation bulb on any minute before I give…
Wild Ferments!
Wild Ferments!Most of us tend to view the world of microbes with some suspicion, convinced that these bugs can do us harm or make us unwell, in fact there is a whole world of beneficial organisms out there that can help us unlock additional nourishment from our food, and at the same time populate…
What's new in the garden?
Are you stepping out of your comfort zone this year to try something new?Image source: Tom Gowanlock Are you looking for fresh inspiration? It's easy to get stuck in the trap of repeating successful plants, flowers and crops year after year, rather than trying new things. We caught up with a few…
The seedy side of rose growing
The seedy side of rose growingBy Jane ScorerRose ‘Garden Party’I’m rose-obsessed and I admit it! I love them all, from the teeny, weeny miniatures to the towering giants, and my intention is to cram as many as I can into my garden. So, how happy was I, last year, to see plug…
Thompson & Morgan Takes Third With Agapanthus ÔÇÿFireworks'
Agapanthus Fireworks We're so pleased to announce that its Plant of the Year entry Agapanthus 'Fireworks' has been placed third today at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It was one of six plants that we heard this morning were on the final shortlist of 20 entrants. Agapanthus 'Fireworks' is a world first…
Variegation across the nation…
Guest blogger Jane Scorer has gardened the same half acre plot for over 30 years and has opened her garden for the NGS (Yellow Book) scheme. She has an RHS qualification, but feels that her main qualification is the years she has spent with her hands in the soil.Variegation across the…
Dazzling new plants with a twist
Following on from my post last week, here are two more dazzling new plants, each with an interesting twist…Rose ‘Waterfall Collection’Rose ‘Waterfall Collection’The hanging basket rose idea has been bouncing around our plant-soaked heads for the last few seasons, but…
10 bloggers who review gorgeous gardens to visit
Spend your time in some of the nation's best gardens Image: Yolanta Did you know that the gardens at Chatsworth are being transformed? Have you always wanted to immerse yourself in the jungle at The Lost Gardens of Heligan? Visiting gardens is something of a national occupation for us Brits. And…
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