Every fortnight Elaine provides seasonal tips and advice about gardening jobs that we could be getting on with as we go through the year.
There is a certain wistfulness at the start of October about another summer gone by, but this month has its glories too – be sure to stop and appreciate the coming autumn colours and harvests while you are busy cutting-back or making leaf-mould amongst other tasks….. Pruning for protection The usual time for the serious […]
Aarrrgghh – suddenly SO much to do in the garden again! The lazier days of July and August are over, and we must buckle to it with all sorts of propagating and preparing – and shopping! – while we enjoy the soft air and beauty of September. My resident robin has started serenading me loudly […]
I’m struggling to remember an early September when the grass looked greener and the plants (and weeds!) looked lusher. There are compensations to having a summer as we have had in the south, when the sun has been VERY reluctant to put his hat on (although quite fed up with Caroline’s reports of daily sunshine […]
The plentiful August rain round here has kept things green and growing. Disappointing for the high holiday season, but it has meant that the garden has avoided its usual ‘parched desert’ look – hurray! Jobs for August include cutting hedges, supporting late border-stars and planting bulbs as we look forward to the end of the year and […]
High summer and everything in the garden going at full bore – hurray! This is when you really find out how successful your plans were for new plants, new borders, this year’s fruit and veg crop etc. Triumph? Disaster? A bit of each, I expect, like me. There are still some things to do in […]
From the torrential rain to the searing heat and back again – it’s amazing our gardens are standing at all! But they are, and giving us heaps of pleasure (and work and grief, sometimes!).When weather permits, let’s get on with some tasks like cutting back early perennials, feeding rhododendrons and harvesting courgettes………… The next generation […]
This chaotic summer weather is keeping us on our toes, isn’t it! After all the rain, we’ve had howling winds to contend with, ripping our summer plants to shreds. What next, I wonder?! Apart from all the clearing up after the gales, let’s also get on with some pruning, seed-sowing and note-making, amongst other things…………. […]
By George, we’ve had some interesting weather in June, haven’t we! Certainly it’s been too hot between 11 and 5 to do anything much in the garden beyond some gentle weeding under a broad-brimmed hat, followed by rain so torrential that Noah would have been very impressed. Nevertheless, there are lots of jobs to do when […]
Summer’s arrived! Let’s give a cheer for rampant growth, roses everywhere and longer warmer evenings filled with the scent of sweet philadelphus. It’s just as well the days are so long now because there’s a HEAP of stuff to do like grass-mowing, summer fruit-pruning, cutting back Clematis montana etc. So let’s get on with it……… […]
Surely, surely by now we are owed a decently long spell of warm weather – what a treat it will be to potter in the garden without needing my fleece! While we are patiently waiting for that to happen, let’s get on with some tasks like primping the flower borders, giving the lawn some TLC […]
Before I start in on this week’s gardening tips and reminders, we 3Growbags would just like to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all the dozens of well-wishers on all our media channels on the occasion of our fifth anniversary. We were bowled over by your kind comments. All we can add is: PLEASE keep […]
Arrgghhh, we seem to have had a cold dry East wind for weeks now, and it’s taken such a long time for the soil to warm up, despite the sunshine! I think we’ve got there now though, at least down here in the south – just in time for National Gardening Week, ( and the […]
This spring is certainly taking its time to get going! The soil still feels cold, and this week experienced the coldest April night in eight years – even in the the balmy southern counties. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do though, including sorting out your seating areas, tending the roses, and dividing primroses, […]
We’ve arrived at April – probably the busiest month in the calendar for a gardener! Seeds to sow, beauties to plant, shoots to tie in…..at least we now have an extra hour in the evening to get things done! A few tips here to help you, and we 3Growbags also want to tell you about […]
We all know that winter hasn’t finished with us yet, but isn’t it great to be really up-and-doing again. Thank heavens the clocks will go forward soon and we’ll have more time in the evenings to get through the hundreds of gardening tasks clamouring for our attention. Judging by the response to our new pocket-book […]
Arrgghh! So much to do now that it’s March! There’s a shiver in the air, a lovely anticipation that the garden is about to pirouette from the wings onto centre-stage again. We need to get ready! Let’s pot up some summer bulbs, sow some salad seeds, sort out the shed……….. Smashing summer bulbs The garden […]
The snowdrops are in full fig, and even early daffodils are starting to flower down here in the south – praise be! We’ll soon be through this ghastly, frightening winter and into brighter, more hopeful days. Time to start some veg-plot planning, and tackling some deep-rooted weeds amongst other things… Rotation motivation If you are […]
Brilliant! We’ve made it to February! And it really won’t be long now before the early spring flowers will be everywhere to cheer us through these dark times. It’s still pretty quiet in the garden, but we can certainly start getting the beds ready, begin rose-pruning, and sow some broad beans………………… Can you dig it? […]
Don’t you just adore those small and medium-flowered summer clematis – they will enchant for weeks and weeks from mid-summer onwards, if you have a good hack at them now. All that mass of tangled brown top-growth can be cut off entirely now, right down to about 1ft off the ground. I know it’s scary […]
While the world hunts desperately for snippets of good news amongst all the awful stuff, we gardeners still have the little buzz of feeling that spring is not hopelessly far off now. The snowdrops are pushing through, and we can begin preparing our plots for the coming season. Let’s get going on tasks like pruning […]
Back to ‘normal’ apparently but no doubt still very challenging days ahead for us all. We lucky, lucky gardeners at least have an interest that can sustain us. There are early seeds to sow, plans to make, tools to sharpen…………..let’s get going! Early seed-sowing Before we start, I must just share with you part of […]
So. 2020 is just about done, all bar the shouting. Not a year anyone in the world is ever going to forget in a hurry. But Glory Be! At LEAST it’s meant that millions more people love and appreciate plants and gardens now. Let’s escape the knotty and stressful confusion of who’s allowed to go […]
So, we’ve arrived at December in the strangest year most of us have ever known! We’ve needed our plants and gardens to help us stay sane, in a million different ways, and now we need them to get us through a very difficult winter as well…… A bright spark for us has been the publication […]
As the world teeters on the brink of a wild hope that an effective vaccine is on the horizon, it reminds me that Hope is one thing we gardeners are pretty good at. Actually Hope and Patience are the two things we need in abundance, to enjoy our wonderful hobby. To illustrate these admirable qualities, […]
Halloween is upon us! I hope you’re in the mood for clanking skeletons and spooky shenanigans. I might even be tempted to wear my big witch’s hat, as I trim up the rose bushes, plant some lily bulbs and make a bag or two of lovely leaf-mould…. Roses in the wind We’ve had some very […]
Right, so our gardens and outdoor spaces have comforted us through March, April, May, June, July, August and September of this ghastly year, and now they HAVE to help us through the cold, damp months as well. Stop watching the news for a while and immerse yourself in tasks like compost-turning, planting garlic or taking […]
We’ve reached October 2020, and it has to be true that most of us, if not all, stand amazed and appalled each day at how the human world has changed for the worse in nine short months. Even as we move towards late autumn and winter, let’s turn with pleasure and thankfulness to our plants […]
For most of this year, thinking about horticulture has been a blessed relief from the miserable news headlines, and this September is as crowded with grim stories as ever, so let’s turn with a sense of release and solace to some tasks like pruning shrubs, sowing hardy annual seeds, and planting bulbs amongst other things…………………. […]
The year has tipped into September, and the light feels softer, the evenings are chillier….A keen gardener knows that these changes signal a return to action after the less frenetic high summer months, so let’s get busy with the herb garden, harvesting veg and trimming hedges………….. Helping the herbs Many herbs are so easy to […]
Here in the parched south, our gardens were greatly revived by the recent welcome rain – just what was needed! We’ve got lots of treats for you this week including a new Veg Update from Laura, and two reviews of products we have been trialling – see the links at the end of this post. […]
Early August means the highest of high summer! Whatever is on your mind, it can’t halt the corn reaching as high as an elephant’s eye, or the fruit ripening on the branches. Let’s be thankful for that at least, and get on with some tasks like sowing winter salads, make some new sempervivums, and assessing […]
As we move into high summer, most of the country’s gardens, pots and window-boxes are burgeoning with flowers, fruit and veg, proving that no matter how weird and frightening this year has been so far for us all, our gardens will just keep on giving, with a bit of love and encouragement from us. So let’s […]
By mid-July, the spring freshness has usually left the garden, but we can start to enjoy the fullness and scents of the true summer flowers like lilies, salvias and verbena, and begin to harvest the fruit and veg we sowed and tended so hopefully early in the year. Let’s get on with a bit of […]
We’re past the longest day and the nights are drawing in…, but not before we have a glorious summer to follow the lovely weather of spring, we hope! Jobs and tips to get on with this week include drying off the tulip bulbs, utilising some household things in the garden and sowing some poppies, so […]
It’s all going pretty well up till now, as far as the garden goes. A spectacularly hot May, at least here in the south, has brought flowers a-plenty, and Caroline tells me that northern gardens are shaping up nicely too. Welcome rain is now wetting parched soil here, so with less stressed plants, we can […]
June here already with the longest day looming! The year is flying on, and there are gardening jobs a’plenty to keep us from dwelling on all the strange difficulties of the past three months. Let’s tackle things like dealing with whitefly, planting out the tender perennials, and removing excess weed from the pond. (If you […]