GARDENER'S WORD

When I was at the Royal Horticultural Society garden centre the other day, mooching around, looking for violas to plant in a trough under my living-room window, I spotted this insect house, or insect hotel, built into a wall.   It's a good idea if you want to attract a lot of insects into your garden.  Personally, my garden is crawling with them and they have lots of places to hide out but if there is nowhere in your concreted, flagged, paved, gravelled, tarmacadamed outdoor space, you might want to give insects a chance. Insect house / hotel at RHS Garden centre, Harlow Carr If you want more ideas of how to design one, just do an internet search for insect house, insect home, insect place in garden.  Lots of images will come up for you to inspect an insect place. :)  There are some good ideas here: Insect houses (Growveg.com - external link).

I got quite a surprise when visiting the RHS garden centre at Harlow Carr the other day.  I saw these strange but architecturally interesting plants.  I suppose you would call it topiary although they did have a bonsai look about them.  They are actually Junipers:  Juniperus squamanta 'Blue Carpet'.  They were very expensive at over £40 for this size.  Larger ones were about £75.  Juniperus squamata 'Blue Carpet' at RHS garden centre, Harlow Carr Bonsai training Juniperus squamata (guide.makebonsai.com link) Juniperus squamata 'Blue Carpet' (RHS link)

I visited the RHS garden centre in Harlow Carr the other day and bought some violas for planting in the trough under my living-room window.  They seem to be surviving the strong breezes and rain we have had these last two or three days.  RHS gardens, Harlow Carr, October 2015 I only carry my iPhone with me when out and about, rather than my larger Canon EOS 6D.  For the above shot of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) gardens I had to zoom in somewhat as the image was taken from the garden centre.  iPhone images aren't the best for that, but I think the photo turned out quite well (albeit rather pixilated) and shows how beautiful autumn can be.  The colour combinations are quite inspirational and the over all appearance made me think of what a garden border in autumn can look like on a much smaller scale. Below, the RHS garden centre where I buy many of my plants and pots.   RHS garden centre at Harlow Carr, October 2015 ...

It's a while since I last posted.  Almost a month.  Little is happening now in the garden except preparations for winter.  I'm no winter gardener, I'm afraid.  I've bought two new mini-greenhouses (my old one was collapsing with age) and put them side by side at the top of the garden, facing south.  The lovely red pelargoniums have now been removed from the trough at the front of my home, under the living room window, cut down and potted into large pots.  For the moment, they are out of the wind in a mini-greenhouse which has been left open for the time being.  The Italian parsley (a biennial, said to be hardy) is in there too, as well as some pots of herbs, like lemon thyme - just to get them out of the way of my feet on the top patio for now.  The front trough has now been replanted with tulips for next spring and on top of them some little viola plants (like the ones I grew in a pot last year, shown below) which I am sincerely hoping will...