Variegated Dragon Plants – Dracaena

Variegated Dragon Plants – Dracaena

Many house plants have leaves of green and cream or white combinations but a red edge to the leaves of Dracaena marginata tricolour makes it stand out.  This plant is also called variegated silhouette plant and is one of the family of Dragon plants.

Hints and Tips on growing Dragon Plants

  • These slender pointed leaves have attractive dark and lighter colours edged red running along the length of the leaves.
  • Do not feed in winter and only modest fertilizer is needed next spring or summer.
  • Keep the soil on the dry side and do not leave the plant roots in water
  • Remove the growing tip to encourage branching once the plant is 18 inches tall
  • Dracaena is a fine family of house plants  liking temperatures of 15-22°C such as …

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5 Top Pot Herbs

5 Top Pot Herbs

Herb Society Pot

Pot Herb is a term coming down from primitive cooking when everything was put into a pot. Vitamins and mineral salts  from herbs boost our immune system and help balance today’s diet. Many old, edible vegetable substances have been lost to the modern diet but the remaining ones are worthy of cultivation.

Top Pot Herbs

Basil has many varieties and is easily grown from seed on the window ledge or in the summer garden. Sweet or common basil has a clove-like scent when bruised and is great with tomatoes. There are other varieties that are lemon scented or smell like tarragon or Fennel. Grow a red leaved variety in the garden border like Red Rubin or Purple Ruffles.

Corn Salad (Valerianella olitoria) was cultivated in monastaries as a salad crop. It is also know as Lamb’s Lettuce or White pot herb and is reputed to go particularly well with game.

Fennel is one of the nine herb charms with Camomile, Thyme, Wormwood, Watercress, Betony, Plantain, nettle and wild apple. The warf ‘dulce’ has white stalks about one foot high like celery with a huge ball at the base. The stalks bulb and even the seeds can be eaten.

Onion needs no introduction as a vegetable and addition to all forms of pot cooking.

Thyme is the 5th in my list and is known as the herb for courage. Grow it in dry rockeries or in paved walks where it can be trodden to release the scent.

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Tree Preservation Orders in Your Garden

Tree Preservation Orders in Your Garden

Local Authorities can issue a Tree Presevation Order (TPO) making it necessary for the owner or occupier of any land to obtain prior consent of that authority 6 weeks before any lopping, pruning or felling is carried out.

A TPO is designed to prohibit the cutting down, uprooting, topping, lopping, uprooting, wilful damage or destruction of protected trees or woodlands. TPO’s are issued to conserve and protect trees from development but the cost and excessive control is leaving some trees to die of neglect.

TPO’s can protect individual trees, hedgerow trees, groups, areas or woodlands buy not hedges shrubs or bushes.

Nearly all trees in a ‘Conservation Area’ are automatically protected by this legislation. The Forestry Commission have the right to prevent woodland being destroyed and issue licenses for thinning out and felling on your own land.
Tip – check with your local authority before embarking on a major tree uprooting scheme. Conviction in a Magistrates Court can lead to a fine of up to a £20,000.

Trees

Tree Planting Tips

Tree Planting Tips

Planting Deciduous Trees

Tree planting isn’t difficult as long as you remember a few top tips. Find out how tall the tree will grow so you can plan and allow enough space. Do not plant trees with big root systems too close to buildings. Focus on getting good root systems in the first year. I prefer bare rooted trees to container grown trees to help root growth.

Season for Planting

Choosing the right season is important for your tree’s health. The best season to plant just any all tree is Autumn or early winter when the weather is cooler but not yet freezing. The roots will develop in the cooler weather, and by spring, the tree will be ready to put on leaves and take up nourishment.
Trees grown in pots can be planted as soon as they have been purchased. Avoid pots where the roots are pushing through or are tightly twisted around the pot.

Trees

Planting Your Tree

Prepare the soil where you want your tree by adding some compost and drainage material, if the soil is too water logged. Trees will be in the same position for a long time so I add some slow release bone meal fertiliser at the bottom of the hole. An old saying is dig a £30 hole for a £10 tree or make it a large, deep, well dug hole so the roots can spread. The tap root helps hold the tree in place and the hair roots help feed and water the tree. Spread the roots out cutting off any damaged roots. Tease out the root ball from a pot grown tree to avoid roots curling back on themselves.

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Favourite Ornamental Grasses

Favourite Ornamental Grasses

Grasses including bamboos can introduce different shades, shapes and textures to your planting scheme. Grasses produce long narrow leaves that contrast well with other plants or shrubs so they are worth growing in mixed and prairie planting schemes. Many grasses have luxurious seed heads and are worth growing for that feature alone.

Top 5 Favourite Grasses. …

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Growing Cornflower from Seeds

Growing Cornflower from Seeds

These pink cornflowers are two feet tall. In a vase cut 12 inches long they last 6 or 7 days and are attractive on there own or with simple foliage. They were bought from Wallis seeds and sown broadcast in late spring.

I didn’t even bother thinning the plants out and they are robust and full of bud and flower, one of the successes of this slow summer so far.

Seeds for Next Year

  • New catalogues have started arriving so I have started to list a few plants I have seen around that I want to try growing next for year.
  • Cornflower are available in more than the powder blue of the fields. There are Pink, Red, White, Black and Blue in packets from 50p up to 25gms for less than £2.50 which will equate to a heck of a lot of flower power.

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Perfect Penstemon Growing

Perfect Penstemon Growing

Penstemon is also known as ‘the beard tongue’ and belongs to the family Scrophulariaceae, which contains over a hundred genera including Antirrhinum and Foxgloves. So it is no surprise that the tubular flowers spiral round each stem.
Penstemon are reliable perennials with fibrous roots that do not stray. They are relatively trouble free and resistant to slugs and other garden pests. Keep growing young plants to increase your stock.

Perfect Penstemon Growing

  • Penstemon flower for six months from May to November in a wide range of colours. Reds and pinks are my favourite but purples, blues and white come a close second.
  • They hate cold, wet feet in winter and will die as a result
  • Penstemon mixed hybrids make good cut flowers. Briefly expose the cut end to a flame,   harvest in the morning and condition the stems by soaking them for several hours in warm water
  • Penstemon are happy as bedders in borders, pots and containers in sun or part shade in virtually any well-drained soil. There are varieties for most situations.
  • Border types Penstemons  are more satisfactory when grown in masses rather than individually
  • Penstemon is a good Bee plant attracting pollinating insects into the garden .
  • Dead head regularly by removing the whole flower spike.
  • Top Tip – In the spring when all danger of frosts have passed cut back the old foliage down to the new green shoots. Penstemons can become woody and leggy if they are not pruned annually
  • As plants are not very long lived propagate from cuttings in September (or May) by plunging into gritty soil or compost see Mixed Penstemon

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Plug for Jersey Direct Plug Plants

Plug for Jersey Direct Plug Plants

wall flower

Plug plants are an excellent way to acquire plants without the risks, time, space and effort needed with seeds. They are a fantastic way to buy annuals, perennials or bedding plants to fill your garden with colour or get some part grown veg plants.

July is a good time to order spring-flowering wallflowers, primroses, pansies and bulbs amongst others. I have just used Jersey Direct for my wallflowers that I want to get in early this year so they have a chance to get bushy. Generally I leave them to get a bit straggly so I must remember to pinch out the growing tip before they start their winter slumber.

If you wish to see what other plants are available as garden ready plugs for delivery from now until October from Jersey Direct click on our button on the bottom right.

March Jobs

Floribunda Roses

Floribunda Roses

Tips Growing Floribunda

  • The term ‘floribunda’ meaning large clusters of flowers has been taken over by rose trees with these floral characteristics.
  • The flowers are usually borne over long periods and are more tolerant than Hybrid Tea roses from which they were crossed with polyantha varieties.
  • When planting prune the roots back to 8 or 10 inches.  It encourages new root growth of the fibrous kind that do the feeding and watering.
  • Prune floribunda roses to a bush shape rather than hard as you would an HT rose. New growth will never be stronger than the stem it grows from so prune out weak stems that are over a year old.
  • With over 20 buds to open on this tree in October this rose has earnt it’s keep this year.

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