News - Page 13
Searched for "roses", click here to show all the news.
June's plant of the month is the rose, and this elegant and much-loved beauty needs little introduction: it's well known for being Britain's favourite flower, and 49% of our gardens have at least one.
What's less widely known is how versatile they can be. There's a rose for every situation and every type of garden. If you like gardening for wildlife, there are simple, natural-looking roses like Rosa spinosissima or the sweetbriars like Eglanteria.
Rose...
Read more...
Most people agree that a garden wouldn’t be a garden without a rose or three!
And of course they don't have to be rose bushes - they can be climbers, ramblers, ground-hugging roses and miniatures that can stay in pots all year round.
Many of the traditional problems with roses have been addressed by rose breeders and experts in recent years, and there are many varieties now that have been bred specifically for resistance against some of the common pest...
Read more...
Train climbing roses as they start to grow, so you end up with a lovely even screen of foliage and flowers across your wall.
Roses flower most prolifically when their stems are held horizontal, as that encourages them to send out lots of smaller flower-bearing sideshoots. So aim for a series of branches arching out on each side from the main stem, tied in to their supports at regular intervals up the wall.
If you're growing your roses up a pillar or ob...
Read more...
It's Valentine's Day this Thursday and there's no better way to say 'I love you' than with flowers. You'll find a wonderful selection of cut blooms in your favourite garden centre to choose from, whether it's the traditional dozen roses you're looking for, or something more unusual. Look out for seasonal flowers with a romantic meaning: they include camellias (pink for longing and white for adoration), forget-me-nots for true love, and if things are...
Read more...
February's plant of the month is the camellia, a real garden favourite at this time of year for its colourful, showy blooms in every colour from pure white 'Alba Plena' to the deep red of 'Crimson King'. The flowers look rather like flattened roses, single, cup-shaped and about 7cm across. They're often scented, too – cut a few to perfume the house when there's little else around.
Camellias are evergreen, making big, handsome shrubs up to 3m tall, so give the...
Read more...
Start looking after your feathered friends from this month: as the nights draw in and the temperatures drop, they'll need all the help they can get. Birds are your natural pest control in the garden, stripping aphids off roses and devouring caterpillars, slugs and snails – so look after them and they'll look after you.
The best way of feeding birds through winter is also the easiest: they adore berries, especially red ones, so plant lots of berrying shrubs to...
Read more...