Gardening tips: plant cyclamen

Then trim your roses and make plans for your plot

Plant this Liven up tricky, shady spots under deciduous trees with a sprinkling of ivy-leaved Cyclamen hederifolium, their pastel flowers like the icing on a fairy cake. Clusters of heart-shaped leaves with silver markings follow. Will cope with dry shade but keep moist till established. Height and spread: 12cm x 12cm.

Trim this If your shrub roses have shot skyward this summer, it’s time to trim their sails a little so winter storms don’t catch hold and do damage. The main pruning season is not until late winter, so for now just cut back whippy stems and any lingering flowering that has turned to mush.

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How to grow orchids | Alys Fowler

Good winter light, careful watering, and feeding will ensure a rewarding crop of flowers, says our gardening expert

My first loves, when I was young, were epiphytic orchids; their often brash otherness seemed to speak to me. I dreamed of hothouses dripping in exotic blooms and joined the Orchid Society of Great Britain. Then I went to work in one of those hothouses, and those glamorous flowers suddenly seemed a little uptight, with all their demands and high humidity needs. Slowly but surely, orchids disappeared out of my life, until a couple of years ago when my neighbour gave me a moth orchid, Phalaenopsis x hybrid, when she was moving house. I thought it was a loan and then it turned into a gift, and just when my indifference was peaking, it flowered in great profusion.

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After Grenfell, homebuyers told their flats are worthless

Thousands of property owners in tower blocks are unable to sell or remortgage in the wake of the disaster

Lucy Stevenson is one of a new breed of “mortgage prisoners” – trapped in an unsaleable home, rejected by lenders when trying to remortgage – because her flat is in a tower block caught up in the fallout from the Grenfell disaster.

“I’m trapped... I’ve had to completely change all my plans because of this, and the stress has been unbearable,” says the NHS worker. And she is far from alone – it was claimed this week that there may be as many as 500,000 flat owners in a similar position.

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Top tips to ease the house buying process Nottingham Estate Agents

Buying a house, it is often claimed, is one of the most important decisions you ever take. Buying a home is a decision which, thanks to the difficulty of getting on the housing ladder, more and more people are taking later in their lives. But buy the right house at the right time and the […]

The post Top tips to ease the house buying process appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

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Let’s move to Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex: it has seen off the sea for centuries

The waves, I should add, do not need encouragement. The soft marshy sludge and crumbly fudge of the land is disappearing

What’s going for it? The Naze, since you’re asking, is the promontory or “ness” of land, colonised by seals and barely above sea level, curled come-hither into the North Sea like a finger beckoning the waves. The waves, I should add, do not need encouragement. The soft marshy sludge and crumbly fudge of the land round here is fast disappearing, with bungalows lined up like King Canutes before the sea with nought but a strip of green, promenade shelters and beach huts as the first line of defence. Not that the town itself seems overly concerned, yet, and on the plus side, you can find fantastic fossils fallen from the cliffs. It’s a lovely, jovial spot, with the air of a seafaring community that has seen off the sea for centuries. It’s the unpretentious twin to hoity Frinton next door, all bric-a-brac shops, caffs and purveyors of buckets and spades, oddities like the Naze Tower, glossed over with a becoming 1950s sheen, as if Telstar were still high in the hit parade, and the climate emergency was a worry decades into the future.

The case against The original town of Walton is miles out at sea. You have been warned.

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Let’s move to Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex: it has seen off the sea for centuries

The waves, I should add, do not need encouragement. The soft marshy sludge and crumbly fudge of the land is disappearing

What’s going for it? The Naze, since you’re asking, is the promontory or “ness” of land, colonised by seals and barely above sea level, curled come-hither into the North Sea like a finger beckoning the waves. The waves, I should add, do not need encouragement. The soft marshy sludge and crumbly fudge of the land round here is fast disappearing, with bungalows lined up like King Canutes before the sea with nought but a strip of green, promenade shelters and beach huts as the first line of defence. Not that the town itself seems overly concerned, yet, and on the plus side, you can find fantastic fossils fallen from the cliffs. It’s a lovely, jovial spot, with the air of a seafaring community that has seen off the sea for centuries. It’s the unpretentious twin to hoity Frinton next door, all bric-a-brac shops, caffs and purveyors of buckets and spades, oddities like the Naze Tower, glossed over with a becoming 1950s sheen, as if Telstar were still high in the hit parade, and the climate emergency was a worry decades into the future.

The case against The original town of Walton is miles out at sea. You have been warned.

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The best lamps for your home – in pictures

Quirky lamps to brighten any table

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