This ornamental cabbage is grown for winter colour. For a Red Cabbage with heart try Kalibos, Red Drumhead or Red Jewel varieties grown from seed.

Cabbage Tips

• Red cabbage usually stands well in the ground from summer to early winter.
• Solid hearts with fewer wasted leaves are also normal with Red cabbage.
• Pickled or ’shredded raw’ are two favourite ways of eating these Red cabbages.
• If you grow 2 rows in your veg garden is it a dual cabbageway?

The flamboyant Hibiscus senensis is now readily available as a housplant from garden centres. This yellow flower was growing on an Italian road side.

In a conservatory this evergreen is a neat rounded shrub. Good drainage and light are required for good flowering but plants can have a very long life.

If you want to know more about the species of Hibiscus you could do worse than read a book ‘Hibiscus Hardy and Tropical Plants for the Garden’ by Barbara Taylor Lawton extracts of which can be found here.

RHS Seed Distribution 2009

One of the joys of RHS membership is the annual free seed distribution. A 24 page listing of available seeds, collected from the RHS gardens, provides a wide and unusual selection.

The descriptions are short and the official Latin names send me off to look up the species in books or the internet before deciding. At the beginning of next year I will receive the 20 packets together with a germination guide. In addition to recommended temperatures and likely germination times there are many tips on covering seeds, chilling to break dormancy and other influencing factors.

I have just ordered my 20 packets from the catalogue of over 500 different options. Half of my selection this year are trees or shrubs as I like to have something different and taller than usual from the RHS. This was my selection:

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November is a great time to plan next years plants for your conservatory. I would go for ’shock and awe’ with some bold colours.

Lantana camara is worth the space in your cool conservatory where it will bloom from spring to late summer. It is evergreen and flowers best with good light. You will often see it in  Mediterranean gardens. There are numerous colour forms for this plant but my favourite is an orange flower changing to red.

Jasminum polyanthum is a favourite evergreen, twining climber. It has big clusters of white flowers tinged pink throughout summer. The heady scent permiates the conservatory especially in the evenings.

For winter interest Correa harrisii is a small evergreen shrub with an abundance of scarlet flowers during late winter. The leaves are narrow ovals with hairy undersides. Fragrant pink flowers are grown on Luculia gratissima.

Good partners for next summer are Cassia obtusa with deep yellow flowers contrasting with the purple-blue flowered evergreen Brunfelsia pauciflora.

Brunnera Tips

• Heart shaped variegated leaves followed by blue, forget-me-not look alike, flowers make this a very attractive plant.
• Brunneras like a moist soil
• Brunneras also like shade and are useful in a woodland setting
• Grow in containers or as ground cover these 18inch high plants are versatile.
• A new golden leaved form is available www.parkseedjournal.com/2008/08/brunnera

Tips for growing Honeysuckle

• A twining, climbing plant most honeysuckles need some support as they shoot skywards for up to 30 feet. Try trellis or and old tree for support.
• Most varieties of the honeysuckle are famous for the scent of the flowers which is sweet and powerful. Aim for a red Lonicera tellmanniana or L.fragrantisima rather than the Belgica.
• Left to trail the plants can still be effective in a semi woodland enviroment
• Lonicera nitida  honeysuckle can be pruned and shaped like topiary. I can recommend Baggesens Gold a small yellow leaved variety.
• Plants root easily from summer cuttings. I have a plant that has moved house at least 5 times.

Parsley Tips

• I have grown this parsley from spring sown seed. Germination can be a bit erratic as warm temperatures are needed.
• After a summer in the herb bed I have potted a clump up in the greenhouse.
• Before the worst frosts I will bring a pot into the house for snipping onto potatoes and garnishing fish.
• The flat leaved variety is one of my favourite herbs but I am not very successful at growing it. Fortunately there are  many varieties that seem to be within my compass.
• Parsley is a hungry feeder so if growing in a container add some bone meal

Coloured Hydrangeas

• Top mophead Hydrangea Macrophylla ayesha is purple on this neutral London soil and flowers on previous seasons wood.
• Most neutral and alkaline soils produce pink Hydrangeas whilst an acid soil will have a blue flower.
• White Hydrangeas remain white or the bracts get tinged pink as they age.
• These colour rules apply to Lacecap hydrangeas where the bract-petals don’t all open and have a looser more subtle effect.
• To turn a pink Hydrangea blue add aluminium salts. You can add by powder or colourant mixes.
• A Pink hydrangea needs no aluminium and lime is used to restrict its uptake of metal salts.

Other Hydrangeas

• Hydrangea arborescens is smaller than many hydrangeas, they are around 3ft  height and spread. One of the best varieties is ‘Annabelle’ which is a mound forming shrub which is compact and requires little pruning. The flowers are a very showy, large and white.
• Hydrangea paniculata are generally larger and have a large cone or pantical of flowers
• Hydrangea quercifolia has large lobed leaves like oak leaves
• Hydrangea anomala is a climbing plant that has attractive mahogany brown stems and lush, bright green, deciduous foliage. The lacecap flowers last just a few weeks in summer.

Verbena bonariensis looks to be a special purple in the fading light of autumn. It is strange how flowers look different in different lights.

When laying out a garden for colour consider the position of the sun, in spring and autumn, which will dictate the colour temperature and saturation of the light.

This verbena is very attractive to butterflies

Anemone Japonica looks pink in the shade of the house. In full sun the colour is burnt out to a less attractive lighter shade of pink.

What Tomatoes to Grow

• New growers need to select reliable varieties to grow to develop their enthusiasm.

• If you are a regular grower you may be tempted to something different and there are 280+ varieties of Tomato at Totally Tomatoes

• Moneymaker crops so well and regularly in my greenhouse that I will be growing it again.

• Thompson Morgan have over a dozen varieties with the AGM so if I was looking for a new variety I would try one or two of them.

• Personally I do not grow tomatoes outdoors perhaps I am missing something .

• Get your seed selected for germination in late February.

Selection

Tumbler for containers or hanging baskets

Beefsteak for large 1lb tomatoes

Gardeners Delight for sweetness and abundance of smaller fruit

Ailsa Craig an heirloom variety tried and tested through the years

Golden Cherry F1 thin skined as it says on the label