Hedges new and old
For screening, securing, hiding, or emphasizing an area, there is nothing quite like a living hedge to do the job. Hedges have to be worked on regularly to be a success when used for any of these purposes. In Guyana there is an ideal climate and growth can be rapid for most of the time. So much [...]
Bottle gardens are back
Many new gardeners (and quite a few older ones) get confused about the terms ‘annuals,’ ‘biennials’ and ‘perennials.’ I hope what I am about to say doesn’t worsen the situation for any of you, for these terms have a certain elasticity in Guyana because of the climate and the fact that there isn’t the low [...]
There is merit in raised beds
All gardeners know that water evaporates from the garden during hot dry spells. We put it on and in no time at all it has evaporated into thin air. We go to a great deal of trouble to reduce this loss of water by watering at the coolest time of the day to avoid losing [...]
Getting rid of your enemies
When I was a child gardeners all over the world spent a great deal of time in the garden on their hands and knees pulling out or digging out weeds. It was time-consuming and time-wasting work, not to mention back-breaking for the tall ones. Annual weeds could then and can now be easily controlled and [...]
Good gardening depends on good planning
Oscar Wilde is reported to have said that the man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one, for it is the only thing for which he is fitted. I am not at all sure I agree with that, but in any case in Guyana one can overcome that little problem [...]
Growing boulanger
Consider Solanum melongena, known as the aubergine. The aubergine, also known as the egg plant, the boulanger, the melongene, or the brinjal was first introduced into Britain in 1597, recorded by John Gerard in his great Herbal. Thought to be poisonous, the aubergine (the French word for the plant) is believed to have originated in India. Someone [...]
A Gardener’s Diary:’Perfect when cut and rolled for 400 years’
Lawns in the tropics are created by planting grass – not by sowing it. The perfect lawn as articulated above by a Cambridge college groundsman is impossible for us to create. So forget your Wimbledon-like tennis court and Headingly-like square (ouch), and lawns-like King’s College, Cambridge, cut and rolled for hundreds of years – but don’t [...]
Wean plants grown in soil-less compost
Some people always have difficulty remembering which plants like to pretend they are still living in the Sahara from those which prefer life in a puddle. Golden rule number one is that succulent plants (including cacti) need far less water to survive than the rest. Golden rule number two is that plants grown in [...]
A Gardener’s Diary: Men of clay
During the past fifty years there has been a quiet revolution in the commercial production of pot plants. Nearly every task has been automated, as commercial growers, needing to make a crust in the face of increasing labour shortages and consequent high labour costs, have converted nurseries into highly efficient plant factories. This has meant savings [...]
A fascinating area of horticulture
The propagation of plants is one of the most fascinating areas of the science and art of horticulture, and has increased immeasurably the ability of gardeners throughout the world to maintain, extend and share their collections of plants. In theory there is no part of a plant which cannot be used to propagate a species, [...]
A moving little story
When you are planning a garden it is nearly always the case that in order to get a fuller and more mature look in a short time you naturally (and rightly) plant more thickly than normal and thin out as plants begin to establish and grow. Always the question is when to do it and [...]
Mildew can be a real nuisance
Most house plants are grown for their foliage and most, including the ever popular African Violet, prefer shade to bright sun, and some moisture at the roots and in the atmosphere to dry conditions. This is because most house plants come from the relative shade of the tropical rain forest. They are popular of course because [...]
Sexy scarlet, sexy pink and beefsteak
The Bougainvillea ‘Mary Palmer’ is attractive, sometimes stunningly so, but when variegated can be wayward and unpredic-table. Nevertheless it is really worth having. She is strictly speaking a chimera, like quite a few bougainvilleas I know. This means in simple terms that a single plant can produce two distinct flower ‘colours.’ In this case they are either pink or [...]
Growing bromeliads
There may not be too many readers who could name a lot of plants belonging to the plant family called the Bromeliaceae, and yet it is one of the most important groups of plants in the Central and South American tropics. In some parts of the world one member of the family is of major [...]
Palms make the tropical landscape distinctive
It is the palm tree which gives the tropical landscape its distinctive look and along with beautiful sea and sand beaches features in the brochures enticing people to holiday in the West Indies. The trees you see in the literature are nearly all coconut palms, but there are dozens of other palm varieties gracing [...]