Plant Minder cones hold about a pint of water and will water the average container or small hanging basket. They are placed in the centre of the planting and the water is automatically drawn through the cone as required.
They look great.
www.plantminder.com £7.49 or £15.49 for 3
Euonymus Harlequin
Harlequin is a stunning ground cover plant with fresh green leaves and white speckles. The foliage is pink tinged when young. It is a must for yards but also balconies and roof gardens as it is hardy and resilient. Keep it compact and bushy by tip pruning in mid-late spring.
www.jacksonsnurseries.co.uk £3.80 3ltr pot
Spring bulb are now starting to appear for sale in garden centres. Look for Tulip viridiflora or Tulip Spring Green.This has the same colouring as Euonymus Harlequin and would look amazing stylish planted above a block of it.
Vertical Garden by Joost Bakker
Joost Bakker is a sculpter who uses a wide range of materials from leaves & flowers to discarded objects.
"Vertical Garden is a sculptural almost architectual form, allowing leaf and flower to inhabit spaces, to create spaces, with a natural raw beauty"
What a great idea as a simple yard divider that would allow light through yet create an amazing green wall. Could become a salad machine if planted with salad leaves, salad onions, Tumbler tomatoes and herbs.
Dianella nigra Marg Pringle
A superb New Zealand plant that looks a bit like a young phormium. Dianella Marg pringle has tufts of variegated cream and white foliage that the edges can tend to turn pink. It has white flowers in the summer that are followed by viridescent blue berries on a long stalk in autumn. Dianella makes a great container plant or plant in large groups in a sunny position.
It is so difficult to find stylish pre-constructed raised beds. They are usually made of untreated timber or white plastic panels - not what you are looking for in your lifestyle statement yard.
These raised beds are from www.citysquared.co.uk and are really for public realm applications.
Available in a variety of standard and bespoke sizes, the Basic Planter is tough, attractive and easy to install. The Planter consist of a stainless steel frame with heavy duty hardwood panels & a galvanised steel liner.
It is not cheap at £1299.00 per unit (excluding VAT & delivery)
http://www.citysquared.co.uk/products/basicPlanterP1.html
One benefit of our constant bad weather, I can't remember that last day we had without rain, is that our rhubarb has been amazing.
I planted Rhubarb Red Champagne last year and only pulled a few sticks. This year we have had so much and the quality has been so good that we have frozen large amounts.
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2713524/27245996
Last year I planted a 'Russian Vine', Fallopia baldschuanica, against one of my yard walls. I knew that Russian Vine was a rampant bully that grows at a 'mile a minute' but I had a new small garden and very bare 8' brick walls.
This month, having covered a large area of those walls, tried to throttle any tree or shrub within its extended reach, and now heading for neighbouring gardens, you would think I would be reaching for the spade to dig it out!
But no, wait, it is justing starting to flower, beautiful blush white flowers covering its growth along the length of its growth and it looks superb. I will keep it - but I will have to make sure it knows who's master and prune and clip it back as required.
www.crocus.com £7.99 3ltr
Inspired by English needlework patterns, Knot Gardens originated in the Tudor period. Today they are once again becoming popular as features in ornamental vegetable gardens. Using old gardening methods the low knot garden hedges were formed using individual plants grown and clipped until they had reached the required size.
Today, though, www.boxknot.co.uk have made the process simpler with their Boxknot kits. These kits contain a pattern, there are some great contemporary patterns, hedging plants already grown to size in metre long troughs and all the equipment including a spade and pruners to plant and look after your knot.
Looks great idea for a new look yard that will be reasonably low in maintenance needs and stunning to look at.
Sedum cauticola 'Coca Cola'
Wondeful ground cover that forms a grey blue mound. The foliage darkens with age and it produces starry pink flowers in late summer. Loves sun and prefers a well-drained soil.
Gay Feather - Liatris spicata Kobald
My Liatris is just about starting to flower. It has superb long lasting spikes of magenta flowers that will carry through to the end of September. Birds and butterflies love them. They give a great vertical accent to container planting or grow them between blue grasses such as Festuca glauca. You can buy them as ready grown plants or as I did by them as dry corms in the spring.
