Gardening tips: plant Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’

Treat vine weevil and visit the Plant Fairs Roadshow at Borde Hill in West Sussex

Plant this Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ is a stalwart of a “hot” border, producing generous explosions of scarlet flowers against stiff iris-like foliage in late summer. It makes a wonderful cut flower, too. Grow in full sun or partial shade in any reasonably fertile soil. Height and spread 1m x 1m.

Treat this If something is taking irregular notches out of leaf edges, it’s most likely vine weevil. The adults chew on leaves, while the white C-shaped grubs chomp on the roots of everything. Nemasys vine weevil killer (from gardening-naturally.com) is a safe, biological control that’s best applied now while soils are warm.

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Have your plants flopped? Here's how to rescue them | Alys Fowler

Put them in pots and you could save them and improve your garden, too

Last year, I finally admitted that the unsightly middles of collapsing Hylotelephium ‘Herbstefreude’ (formerly sedum) were too much and dug them up. However, I couldn’t quite bear to part with them– I just love those huge panicles of flowers too much – so I invested in some large, handsome terracotta pots and moved them there. I deliberately planted them low, so they couldn’t collapse.

The results are perfect, dense mounds of flowers and, best still, when the inevitable holes appeared in the garden in August from plants that needed cutting back or had failed, I now had the solution. I could even place the sedums in parts where they’d never have succeeded, such as under an evergreen strawberry tree that errs on the wrong side of partial shade. I don’t even mind seeing the pots: I like the height and structure they add to the garden.

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Max appeal: an Amsterdam artist’s apartment that’s bigging it up

This autumn is all about maximalism – rich pattern, metallic accents and opulence. This home is living the look

Little over a decade ago, Dutch artist and designer Mariska Meijers was working in banking and living an expat life with her young family in Singapore. But for her, it was a hollow existence. “I wasn’t enjoying my career, and my personal life wasn’t working out, either,” she says. After getting an easel for her birthday, Meijers took up painting and quickly began to find fulfilment – and recognition. Eventually she realised that a more seismic shift was needed, so in 2006 she quit her job, called time on her marriage and headed home with her two children to the Netherlands, eventually settling in Amsterdam. “It was a radical 180-degree change. But I wanted to do something different with my life, so I jumped.”

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Max appeal: an Amsterdam artist’s apartment that’s bigging it up

This autumn is all about maximalism – rich pattern, metallic accents and opulence. This home is living the look

Little over a decade ago, Dutch artist and designer Mariska Meijers was working in banking and living an expat life with her young family in Singapore. But for her, it was a hollow existence. “I wasn’t enjoying my career, and my personal life wasn’t working out, either,” she says. After getting an easel for her birthday, Meijers took up painting and quickly began to find fulfilment – and recognition. Eventually she realised that a more seismic shift was needed, so in 2006 she quit her job, called time on her marriage and headed home with her two children to the Netherlands, eventually settling in Amsterdam. “It was a radical 180-degree change. But I wanted to do something different with my life, so I jumped.”

Continue reading...

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Gardening tips: plant Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’

Treat vine weevil and visit the Plant Fairs Roadshow at Borde Hill in West Sussex

Plant this Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ is a stalwart of a “hot” border, producing generous explosions of scarlet flowers against stiff iris-like foliage in late summer. It makes a wonderful cut flower, too. Grow in full sun or partial shade in any reasonably fertile soil. Height and spread 1m x 1m.

Treat this If something is taking irregular notches out of leaf edges, it’s most likely vine weevil. The adults chew on leaves, while the white C-shaped grubs chomp on the roots of everything. Nemasys vine weevil killer (from gardening-naturally.com) is a safe, biological control that’s best applied now while soils are warm.

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2xdWb1M
via IFTTT

Have your plants flopped? Here's how to rescue them | Alys Fowler

Put them in pots and you could save them and improve your garden, too

Last year, I finally admitted that the unsightly middles of collapsing Hylotelephium ‘Herbstefreude’ (formerly sedum) were too much and dug them up. However, I couldn’t quite bear to part with them– I just love those huge panicles of flowers too much – so I invested in some large, handsome terracotta pots and moved them there. I deliberately planted them low, so they couldn’t collapse.

The results are perfect, dense mounds of flowers and, best still, when the inevitable holes appeared in the garden in August from plants that needed cutting back or had failed, I now had the solution. I could even place the sedums in parts where they’d never have succeeded, such as under an evergreen strawberry tree that errs on the wrong side of partial shade. I don’t even mind seeing the pots: I like the height and structure they add to the garden.

Continue reading...

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Where to move for… other people

If you like a busy life, head for Barcelona. Back in the UK, a leafy part of London packs the biggest people punch

There is an opinion among some that the UK is overflowing with people– that there is not one square inch of space left. There is a grain of truth in this. Our population has increased over the past 20 years, reaching 66,040,229 in June 2017 (though the growth rate has fallen lately). We have 273 people per square kilometre, according to 2017 World Bank figures: more than France (123)and Germany (237). Among major European countries, only the Netherlands (509) and Belgium (376) have more.

Related: Where to move for… low crime rates

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