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Growbag Blog

12 jolly flowers for Easter!🐣

A late Easter can be a joyous thing, especially if it’s preceded by a fortnight of gorgeous weather!  All the spring flowers are leaping up and we each have our favourites to enchant us while we munch Hot Cross Buns and shameful amounts of chocolate.. Ah, spring is such a lovely time of year – […]

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10 Best veg to grow

This week we three are picking out the vegetables that we think are really worth the effort of growing. Elaine, as a great all-round gardener, is speaking from personal experience, Laura finds vegetable-growing a bit too mundane, but still has opinions on what is most rewarding for her long-suffering husband to grow. And Caroline – […]

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What’s for the chop this year?

This week we are all primed for action! Not for planting things though, but digging things out! Are there plants or features in your garden that need a severe culling before you achieve that dream? We 3Growbags have certainly got a few and are ready to harden our hearts and wield that machete…… First up […]

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Hellebores: a tale of lost innocence?

We’re all about hellebores this week! We have our favourites of course, but in amongst the hundreds of varieties now available, we have also found some horrors (though of course we don’t always agree on which ones!)…. Did you know the latest fad is to have freckles tattooed over your nose? I hated mine when I was young but freckles […]

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Sweet Peas – all you need to know

Whoo hoo it’s nearly time to get cracking on your sweet pea journey! There must be a reason why sweet peas beat roses in a recent poll on the UK’s favourite flower.  Personally I think it’s because there is a degree of skill needed to grow them, (which would also explain why Caroline has varying success […]

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The3Growbags at the Garden Press Event

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 […]

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Five garden plans for 2025

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 […]

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10 annuals we can’t live without

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 […]

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Ever fallen for a plant’s name?

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 […]

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The3Growbags Christmas Quiz 2024

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 […]

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Answers to The3Growbags Christmas Quiz 2024

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 […]

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Gardening clothes – what to ask for!

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 […]

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Evergreens – friend or foe?

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 […]

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Eco-Friendly Gardening: Recycling Guide

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, […]

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Spring bulbs – are they worth it?

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 […]

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Are you doing enough to help garden birds?

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 […]

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10 stunning plants for early autumn

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 […]

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What does Gardening for Well-being mean to you?

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 […]

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Rock Cakes recipe

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 […]

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Time to plan our garden upgrades

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 […]

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Seven heavenly scents of summer

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 […]

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The ups and downs of late summer climbers

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 […]

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Courgette Cake

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 […]

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DIY gabions, steps and French drains – garden projects on a budget

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 […]

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10 stunning summer shrubs

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 […]

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10 plants for a soggy summer

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 […]

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Lilies galore!

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 […]

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Say cheese! – it’s Chelsea

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 […]

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Summer pots – what’s hot and what’s not

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 […]

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What’s it like to go to Chelsea Flower Show?

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 […]

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Top nursery’s tips on how to grow alpines

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 […]

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Garden supports the Growbag way

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 […]

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10 of our favourite plants for cutting

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 […]

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Tips for cut flowers

If you’re cutting flowers for a vase we’ve got a few tips to make them last longer and more beautifully:

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Fantastic – it’s not plastic!

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 […]

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Stop the pots!

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 […]