Gardeners' Heaven

If you’re serious about raising your own plants from scratch, there’s one piece of kit you’ll find incredibly useful – an electrically heated propagator. But there’s no need to invest in a great big elaborate one that costs a fortune. Nowadays most garden centres sell small economical versions about the size of a standard seed-tray [...]

by Alan Titchmarsh Midwinter isn’t the time you’d usually be thinking of doing some serious plant propagating, but its perfect for tip-layering – an old but effective way of propagating all sorts of cane fruit (blackberries, loganberries etc) and ornamental rubus species such as Rubus thibetanus and ‘Benenden’; also the unusual dual-purpose Japanese wineberry which [...]

by Alan Titchmarsh When you’ve cut your teeth – so to speak – on the usual radishes, lettuce, courgettes, carrots and perhaps a tub of tomatoes on the patio, most novice veg growers like to branch out into more exotic territory. And there’s plenty of scope. A lot of veggies that are rather pricy to [...]

Achimenes, also known as hot water plants, were once a great favourite with Victorian gardeners and they deserve to be better known now. Distantly related to gloxinias and African violets, they are showy, short, bushy pot plants that are ablaze with exotic busy-lizzie-like flower in a huge range of colours from early summer through to [...]

by Alan Titchmarsh When you want masses of colourful pot plants to fill your conservatory or indoor windowsills this season, keep costs down by growing your own – from seed. Nowadays all sorts of popular annual species are available in economical packets, which will produce more than enough for your needs, and probably provide spares [...]

A century or so ago, a hotbed would have been one of the vital tools in any self-respecting head gardener’s armoury, along with several acres of walled garden, a huge range of glasshouses and dozens of helpers. You might have to pass on the rest, but a hotbed is entirely do-able even in today’s tiny [...]

Any mature garden generates a certain amount of woody waste every year, and it needs getting rid of. But prunings can’t be composted, and with bonfires off-limits and trips to the municipal tip costing a fortune in petrol, disposal is becoming a problem. Well, try recycling your twiggy garden rubbish instead. Elderly bamboo plants yield [...]

If anyone needs a crystal ball, it’s a gardener. It would be so much easier to plan for the gardening year ahead if we only knew what the weather will do, which particular pests, diseases or disorders will run riot next season, and which new fashion-trends will emerge. As it is, we can only make [...]

by Alan Titchmarsh Oh, we have a lot to thank plants for – but perhaps more so now than at most times of year. It’s plants, after all, that make Christmas merry. As you knock back a glass of your favourite festive tipple, consider – it’s all thanks to grape vines that you can enjoy [...]