Three, er, maturing sisters, talk about plants and gardening and a bit about how we’ve been sisters for over 60 years. Our gardens are in England, Scotland and Normandy.
Nothing gets the Growbags’ juices flowing like an early preview of all the new horticultural innovations coming our way this year. So an invitation to the annual Garden Press Event even flushed Caroline out of her Highland hideaway and down to Islington this week (although she nearly got sent straight back to Scotland when she […]
Still too cold and wet to get stuck into any serious practical work outside, now is the time for dreaming up new features for your garden. Our advancing age (now combined 207 years) appears to have engendered a certain dottiness in our respective plans for 2025, but we’ll let you be the judge of our […]
What a pleasure annual flowers can be! From seed to glorious blooming in one year, they represent one of the miracles of plant growth. If you’re planning what to grow this year, we have 10 ideas for you…… No, I love the simple pot marigolds, with their bright cheery faces and their propensity to spread seeds […]
Hands up if you’ve ever bought a plant simply because of its name…….not just us then! This week we’re owning up to being seduced into plant purchases based largely on what’s written on their label. Expect a proliferation of Greek goddesses and literary national treasures from Elaine, some eclectic offerings from Laura. Caroline? No doubt […]
It’s Christmas! Here at last after all that crazy build-up! As usual, we have temporarily hung up our writing quills and devised a quiz for you. Pour yourself a cuppa (or a glass of mulled wine), snaffle a mince pie or three, grab a pencil and paper and have a go at these puzzlers. And if you […]
Here are the answers to our Christmas Gardening Quiz. A. ANIMAL WORD SAFARI: (Mole,) MALE, HALE, (Hare,) HALE, GALE, GALL, (Gull,) CULL, CULT, COLT, (Coot), COAT, GOAT, GOAD, (Toad), WOAD, WORD, (Worm) (13 marks) B. GARDENS IN A MUDDLE: C. GARDEN TRIVIA D. PLANT ID: E. CROSSWORD: Hope you all did fantastically well! MERRY CHRISTMAS […]
What do you wear when you head out to the garden? If only our hobby was like fishing or cycling with a ‘go to’ uniform, we’d know far better what to put on our Christmas list, although frankly The3Growbags in skin-tight lycra? 🫣 That said, the floral, floaty outfits often favoured by Gardener’s World presenters […]
Help! Our gardens have descended into a wintery mess haven’t they? We can’t be the only ones wandering around dismal piles of sodden vegetation where once our summer garden was in rollicking full sail. It’s now that evergreens can come to the rescue. Like the bowls of cheese’n onion crisps that you don’t notice till all the chilli […]
We gardeners are generally a resourceful lot when it comes to eco-friendly recycling, and here are a host of the tips and tricks we use. Some of them are a touch weird (- mostly Laura’s judging by the presence of a banana skin on a fern in our feature picture above) , but you’d expect that, […]
Are you finding your inbox is full of all sorts of spring bulb offers at the moment? Dazzling dwarf daffs, bags of crocus corms for a fiver, mix n’ match tulips, all that sort of thing? There are several spring bulbs that don’t cut the mustard – with 3Growbags at any rate – though as […]
Wildlife is under threat*. In the UK alone we’ve lost a third of our birds in the last 70 years. How can we help as gardeners? Although most of us are already stocking up on winter bird food, it’s worth reviewing our ‘feathered friend’ strategy because there are new things to consider. Sharing your garden […]
Oh no! The summer is fading. The September equinox has been and gone. We have nothing to look forward to but Halloween Strictly and Christmas musak. But hang on, the garden still has some cockle-warming flowers and foliage out there, and we’d like to tell you about a few that we really rate for bringing sparkle […]
Why do we garden? Ever since the pandemic lockdowns we have rightly heard bucketloads about Gardening for Well-being. But what does ‘Well-being’ actually mean to you? Is it something about control over Nature, or the very reverse? We 3Growbags have differing views, as you no doubt expected………. There are a myriad of reasons why we’re […]
More than a biscuit but not as indulgent as cake, and just perfect with your morning coffee, rock cakes have, over the years, become a quasi-mythical currency with us 3 Growbags. I rarely travel on any visit with or to my sisters without a little Tupperware box with a few in (especially to Caroline’s where the […]
Did you all take last week’s blog message to heart? The one that said make some notes about what you’ll do differently next year? We 3Growbags have all resolved on at least three changes we’ll make – maybe they’ll spur you into action on your own patch! Good old George Bernard Shaw said: ‘Those who cannot […]
Which plants have the most evocative scents of summer? This week we have been sniffing our way around our gardens, and come up with a few suggestions for plants that provide wonderful fragrance in high summer.. At the risk of being called an introverted nerd yet again by you-know-who, gardening is so much more interesting […]
Late-blooming climbers are a great way to give your garden a real fillip in August! Dozens of perennial flowers are turning into a mass of seed heads, but there are some climbing and rambling plants that will revel in late summer sunshine. We all have our favourites, of course, and we chat about eight of […]
If the extent of your forays into vegetable cakes only stretches to carrot cake, then here is another yummy creation to add to your armoury. This is a moist, tangy cake, wonderful served straight from the fridge on a hot summers day. I’ve tried several different courgette cake recipes over the years and this is […]
Gardens need a bit of structure (as do we all, at times!), but many of these features cost a small (or large) fortune. This week we have come up with some ideas for ways to add garden infrastructure without needing to sell off the children or eat bread and gruel for a year……… Yes, you can […]
Today we’re talking about some of our favourite summer shrubs. Everyone knows about the spring beauties – philadelphus, spiraea, azaleas and the like, and of course, they are lovely. But somehow the summer bushes get overlooked amongst all the mad floweriness of perennials, annuals and bedding. Let’s redress that balance now (I warn you, Laura’s are particularly […]
Oh, it’s been WET, hasn’t it! What a damp start to the summer! There have already been so many events affected by the rain – even the Trooping of the Colour didn’t get through unscathed. We know that Caroline is quietly thrilled that we Southerners have been getting Highland weather for months now. But some plants have […]
We are chatting about our favourite lilies this week, those glorious additions to the summer garden. But there are actually dozens of flowers with ‘lily’ in their common name, so Elaine and Caroline have had a somewhat looser approach to the topic than pedant Laura… When the topic of lilies was first mooted by the […]
As much as the plants, the big news at Chelsea this year was.…water. As if there wasn’t enough falling from the sky earlier, it was tinkling, eddying or tumbling down rusty pipes, from galvanised tanks and over pebbled streams so universally we had to make several ‘wee’ stops within two hours of arriving. It’s clear […]
Who doesn’t love some gorgeous pots of plants around their door or patio through the summer? Well let’s get going! There are a few simple rules regarding container, soil/compost, aspect and maintenance, and then the world is your lobster! Naturally, we don’t all agree about what to put in our pots… First of all, a […]
So you’ve bought your ticket /sucked up to an RHS member to get you a discounted one; you’ve nodded off to Monty & Joe’s blissful nightly coverage, and now it’s the big day – you’re off to Chelsea Flower show – so what’s it like? Getting to Chelsea Flower Show Well first off, getting there […]
As we lean into the horticultural excitement of Chelsea Flower Show, one of its leading exhibitors, Kevock Garden Plants, has partnered with The3Growbags, to share their insights into the specific joy of alpine plants. This Scottish nursery has won Chelsea gold eight times in the last 10 years and took the show’s President’s medal last […]
You can spend a fortune on garden supports nowadays but which are really worth the money? And what can you make yourself to do the job just as well? In this blog we’ll be sharing some of our tips. Elaine has an ingenious hack with upturned hanging baskets, Laura will be doing some civil engineering […]
Some flowers are just horrible in a vase, aren’t they! For a start off, some smell AWFUL – flowering currant (Ribes) smells of cat’s pee, crown imperials (Fritillaria imperialis) smell of foxes, and sea hollies (Eryngium) smell of …..poo! But there are some blooms that are perfect for a vase indoors and we 3Growbags […]
If you’re cutting flowers for a vase we’ve got a few tips to make them last longer and more beautifully:
Surely we ALL know by now that plastic is harming our precious planet? But the horticultural world is still full of it! How can we, as responsible citizens of our beleaguered environment, reduce our reliance on plastic in the garden? We 3Growbags have come up with nine ideas for you……. The Royal Horticultural Society has a sustainability […]
How many plastic pots have you got in your shed? Dozens, hundreds, thousands?  When did you last buy a plant that was in a properly biodegradable container?  There has been in recent years a quantum shift in the way other retail outlets issue plastic packaging – you must pay a premium for a plastic bag almost […]
Suzie Dewey, from the Hardy Geranium Nursery shares her top tips on geraniums with The3Growbags, and makes a great offer just for our gang (at the end of this post). Hardy Geraniums are herbaceous perennials and for the most part they are fuss free and super easy to grow. They require minimal maintenance, and, in […]
Are you charging around your patch like a demented chicken trying to get on top of all the jobs crying for attention? No? Well, you jolly well should be! We 3Growbags have compiled a handy list for you to work through before you get to wine-o’clock… Now here’s the thing – DON’T prune any of the […]
Are plant catalogues thudding through your letterbox thick and fast right now? Most have pages and pages of petunias etc guaranteed to flower non-stop all summer long. What are your thoughts? (please do let us know!) We think the same flowers all summer is a bit dull but then neither do we want a mid-season lull. No, […]
I always have to keep a very tight rein on Elaine and Caroline at the Garden Press Event. Despite their advancing age, they have a habit of trying to flirt with the stallholders instead of paying attention to the new products the Horticulture Trades Association (HTA) and Garden Industry Manufacturer’s Association (GIMA) have been kind […]
I was so sure ornamental grasses and classy seedheads were the ‘it’ girls of winter these days, that I fully splashed out on them – stipas, calamagrostis, pennisetum …you name it, I’ve got it. Good heavens, I’m only one unwise purchase away from pampas grass. You can, then, imagine my dismay this week when Elaine […]