Whoa! Chelsea in the autumn! How are you feeling about it? A lot has happened in the last 18 months (three million new gardeners, working from home, mental health concerns, climate change fears, the joy of being together again….) How have these impacted on the Show? We Growbags can report that the impact was frankly […]
Sunflower ‘Carine’ There are some gardeners who try to avoid yellow, and I will admit that there are many less than subtle shades; but it’s almost foolhardy to try and manage without any in September, so when it comes to Helianthus, take a bit of time, and choose carefully from the many different cultivars that exist. Helianthus ‘Carine’ is very like H ‘Lemon Queen’, but more refined; it is slightly shorter, has the palest yellow flowers, and noticeably dark […]
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 […]
With Chelsea Flower Show now in our sights we will no doubt be wowed by the dazzling array of sun-loving late summer prairie plants and grasses that are now so popular (and don’t worry, we’ve all three got CFS tickets so prepped to bring you our personal highlights, and we’ll try to keep Caroline away […]
Golden Oats Sourcing and buying Stipa gigantea is not a problem, for this magnificent grass is a tried and tested old favourite but do please take a bit of time to position it. This is not the occasion to walk round the garden, pot in hand, desperately looking for a gap. To enjoy it at its best, bear in mind that it needs sun […]
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 […]
Now come on, be honest: when did you last take a long critical look at your patch, with a view to sorting out (by which I generally mean GETTING RID OF) some of the eyesores? When you’ve been looking at a gruesome mistake in your garden for a long time, you end up barely registering […]
American pokeweed Is this a ‘Marmite’ plant? I mention it, because as a child I remember my parents having heated discussions about its contribution to the garden scene. My mother was not a fan, and after my father died, I did notice that the American pokeweed mysteriously disappeared one day: but it came back in the form of a self-sown ghost, to […]
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 […]
WORX WG186E.9 36V (40V MAX) Dual Battery Brushless Multi Garden Tool The move from hydro-carbons to electricity has reached garden equipment big time this year – and we don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I was delighted to take up the offer by Worx to try out their electric strimmer this summer – specifically the Dual […]
Most of our chosen garden trees will be blossom trees such as cherries or crab apples which will flower in spring and be followed by berries or fiery leaf colour in autumn. So it’s actually a rare and precious thing to come across a tree that saves its flower power until high summer. We three […]
Hungarian sea-lavender I am on the north Cornish coast this week, and walking along the cliff tops this morning, my eye was caught by a tiny rock sea-lavender growing in the most inhospitable location imaginable: facing the wild Atlantic Ocean with all its accompanying salt winds and spray, it was growing in a crevice in the slate. Then I thought of our own sea lavenders at home. Unlike Monty […]
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 […]
Yes, yes, we know that high summer is all about bright flowers, and the zingier the better, but foliage has its place too. We want to sing the praises of some of our favourite summer leaves this week and encourage you to consider incorporating a few among all the dazzle of an early August garden. […]
This time three years ago, dodging the unrelenting rain showers, an intrepid group of plant and garden enthusiasts from the Sussex Hardy Plant Society came to visit: first to Laura’s garden and then ours in the afternoon. I had already been impressed by this beautiful mullein, so taking a cue from the exclamations of delight from our visitors, decided to make it my plant of the moment, the people’s choice! […]
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 […]
Most of us have a bash at a few annuals each year, and in some gardens they are the colourful mainstay of summer beds and pots. The hardy ones can be sprinkled outdoors in early spring whilst others benefit from a head start indoors until they can brave the English climate. I went for the […]
opium poppy The profusion of flowers and abundance of lush foliage in our midsummer garden has never been greater than this year. It could be something to do with its maturity, but I’m sure that weeks of rain have been the main factor. So, as I wandered round, marvelling at the floral bounty, and wondering which plant I might choose to write […]
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…………. […]
No one can call themselves a gardener if they don’t have at least a couple of clematis, and because you can have one in flower in any given month of the year, this could easily creep to 12. But they don’t succeed with everyone and a certain oneupmanship creeps in with us 3 Growbags, as […]
Red-hot poker ‘Sunningdale Yellow’ It seems to me that June has never been as floriferous and exuberant as this one just past, and although we could probably all have done with a little more sun, the recent rainfall has just added to the lushness of it all. Gentle constant rain, not plant flattening torrents! And in amongst the wild […]
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 […]
It’s peak ‘iris’ at the moment, but with so many different ones to choose from which would be best for your garden? As usual we three growbags have differing opinions…..Elaine is in full-on ‘English bearded’ mode, it’s go large or go home as far as she’s concerned. For the more botanically curious and patient amongst […]
I have often thought that if I was only allowed a single rose on my desert island, this is the one that I would choose above all others: its ethereal beauty simply cannot be matched. This slender China rose blends seamlessly with perennials in a mixed border, it is perfectly hardy but probably gives of its best in a sheltered […]
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……… […]
Succulents, those plants with fleshy leaves or stems that store water to see them through drought periods, ought to be on all gardeners’ radars as our climate heats up, but they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. There is a sliding scale of succulence from full blown cacti, through aloes and echiveras to chubby stonecrops, small […]
Clematis ‘Vyvyan Pennell’ was raised by Walter Pennell of Pennell and Sons nursery in the mid-fifties and was named after his wife. Pennells was founded in 1780 and is still in the ownership of the same family – quite a record! So, Walter Pennell not only raised one of my favourite clematis, (which incidentally is probably the best known of all the […]
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 […]
Do you fancy having a go at growing some veg this summer? Getting out-of-doors makes us feel so much better and with ‘food miles’ and plastic packaging on everyone’s minds, what better project than growing some of your own produce this year. It might be good to get some basics in but they don’t cost […]
So in a week where we might have been heading to the embankment in London for the Chelsea Flower Show, Elaine and I instead found ourselves heading north to Caroline’s new abode in the Highlands. We thought we’d been invited up to sip cocktails in her glasshouse and marvel at the progress she had made […]
I’m sure I’m not the only gardener who tries to stick to the rule of three: a plant that you so desperately want to grow in your own garden but that after three unsuccessful attempts, you have to admit defeat. Well, this hebe is one of those plants that I really had to have, and thankfully on my third go, it worked! Before the last […]
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 […]
It’s the FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of the 3Growbags blog – WHAAAA!! Thank you so much for coming on this journey with us. As a little gift we’ve partnered with lovely Hayloft Plants, (another start-up gardening business set up by mums) to give you a chance of winning one of ten £10 Hayloft vouchers in a free […]
Morello cherry When I was a child, my parents grew a Morello cherry tree up against the north wall of our house, and even then, all those years ago, I remember thinking how amazing it was to see the beautiful snowy white blossoms looking so happy in their shady corner, to be followed by so […]
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 […]
Three sisters, three types of peony, so we’ve taken one each. The most normal sister (me ..lol) will be taking you through the most commonly grown ‘herbaceous’ peonies, whilst Elaine will be cooing over her stunning collection of the more rarefied ‘tree’ peonies (whilst making us all feel a bit inadequate). And Caroline, the most […]