How to plant nasturtiums

Our gardening expert on how to add 50 shades of tropical to your garden

Ah, the simple joy of nasturtiums: surely no one has ever failed with them, with their easygoing nature, and their relentless desire to flower their socks off, all for the price of a packet of seeds. They can be dismissed as ordinary, but if you want to cover up something unsightly or just spend a summer cheered by their frilly flowers, now is the time to sow them.

Nasturtiums belong to the genus Tropaeolum found in South America. The two most popular species – the semi-trailing bush, orange flowering T. minus and the taller, sprawling, red flowering T. majus – come from Peru, brought to Europe by Spanish conquistadors and Dutch explorers respectively. They did a seed swap and the result is a smorgasbord of tropical colours in between.

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from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2H04GBH
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Gardening tips: plant Euphorbia ‘Mrs Robb’s bonnet’

Then find out how to help a wisteria that refuses to flower, and visit Toby’s Garden Festival in Devon

Plant this Dry shade – every gardener’s achilles heel – is no problem for Mrs Robb’s bonnet. Ignore the Downton-esque common name – Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae is a tough old boot of a plant that produces beautiful lime green flowers in spring atop glossy evergreen leaves. It will spread, but is far more picturesque than dry bare soil. Handle with gloves to avoid its milky sap which is a skin irritant. Height and spread 1m x 70cm.

Check this One of May’s finest pursuits is spotting fine wisteria specimens in full flower. But if you are unlucky enough to have non-flowering wisteria, this RHS video should help: https://is.gd/wisteria.

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from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Vf1dJ9
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How to plant nasturtiums

Our gardening expert on how to add 50 shades of tropical to your garden

Ah, the simple joy of nasturtiums: surely no one has ever failed with them, with their easygoing nature, and their relentless desire to flower their socks off, all for the price of a packet of seeds. They can be dismissed as ordinary, but if you want to cover up something unsightly or just spend a summer cheered by their frilly flowers, now is the time to sow them.

Nasturtiums belong to the genus Tropaeolum found in South America. The two most popular species – the semi-trailing bush, orange flowering T. minus and the taller, sprawling, red flowering T. majus – come from Peru, brought to Europe by Spanish conquistadors and Dutch explorers respectively. They did a seed swap and the result is a smorgasbord of tropical colours in between.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2H04GBH
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Gardening tips: plant Euphorbia ‘Mrs Robb’s bonnet’

Then find out how to help a wisteria that refuses to flower, and visit Toby’s Garden Festival in Devon

Plant this Dry shade – every gardener’s achilles heel – is no problem for Mrs Robb’s bonnet. Ignore the Downton-esque common name – Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae is a tough old boot of a plant that produces beautiful lime green flowers in spring atop glossy evergreen leaves. It will spread, but is far more picturesque than dry bare soil. Handle with gloves to avoid its milky sap which is a skin irritant. Height and spread 1m x 70cm.

Check this One of May’s finest pursuits is spotting fine wisteria specimens in full flower. But if you are unlucky enough to have non-flowering wisteria, this RHS video should help: https://is.gd/wisteria.

Continue reading...

from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Vf1dJ9
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Ethical housing – reaping the benefit while helping out

If you’re keen to invest your cash but want to be sure it’s doing some good, Reap is worth a look

It’s described as an ethical alternative to buy-to-let aimed at those keen to invest in housing but who want their money to do good.

Reap (it stands for “real estate annuity plan”) allows people to lend money to a social enterprise that specialises in providing affordable rented homes for people in housing need, including those at risk of homelessness. Investors will receive a fixed 3% a year interest, with the income paid monthly.

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2IYwtWs
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About to view a property as a potential buyer? Nine tips to make the most of your visit Nottingham Estate Agents

Redbrik’s residential property valuer, George Gordon, has compiled some top tips for potential home buyers to put into action when thinking about viewing a property. 1. Check out ALL the marketing material provided by the estate agent. Study the photos of course but also look at the floor plans and photos to check the layout […]

The post About to view a property as a potential buyer? Nine tips to make the most of your visit appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

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Let’s move to Oswestry, Shropshire: chocolate-box pretty with skeletons in its past

It has seen battles aplenty and the scars are there, if you care to look

What’s going for it? With its red-brick Georgian townhouses, porticoed coaching inns, award-winning bookshop and black-and-white half-timbered cottages, Oswestry looks harmless, as pretty as a picture, as if it had peeled itself off the lid of a box of fudge fancies. Don’t be fooled. We are in border country here, and any border country hides a sizable cupboard of skeletons in its past. Oswestry has seen battles aplenty, horrifying dismemberments (don’t even think of Googling the tale of poor Oswald of Northumbria’s arm), pillaging, and regular burnings to the ground. It’s a wonder there’s anything left of the place and its people. The scars are there, if you care to look, deeply incised in the landscape beneath the undergrowth, like the mammoth iron-age fort of Old Oswestry, looming at the city limits (and home to Guinevere – yes, that Guinevere), and Offa’s Dyke, a few minutes further. This is a place that has been fought over for millennia. It’s happy in its slumber these days. Don’t mention the wars. Let sleeping dogs lie.

The case against It’s a trek away from anywhere (but a lovely trek), and there’s no train station in town (though there is one nearby, at Gobowen). It suffers, like so many places, from a spot of town-centre blues, although there are plans afoot for revitalisation. Culture-wise, it could do with some rocket fuel; the less easily entertained and those with metropolitan habits should look elsewhere.

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