grit - Bath Garden Design

House Leeks

Garden Design, Gardening, Leisure time in the garden, Planting, Summer beauty, bedding, bedding schemes, camomile, compost, dry stone walls, glaucous, gravel, grit, hardy, House Leeks, Italian Renaissance, leaves, mint, mulch, ornamental plants, pink flowers, planting schemes, pleasure gardens, pot, Sedum, Sempervivum, soil, sunshine, tarragon, violets

Houseleeks or Sempervivum (meaning live for ever) are succulent ornamental hardy plants that have been used in pleasure gardens since around the thirteenth century. Later during the Italian Renaissance these plants were adopted for use in planting schemes as a solid massed groundcover, which also included camomile, mint, tarragon and violets.

Creepy Crawlies

Edibles, Gardening, Pests and Diseases, Planting, Spring, Summer broccoli, cloche, copper ring, dandelions, eggs, grit, lavender, lettuce, nematodes, pellet, pests, plants, shells, slugs, snails, sprouts

The war being waged between gardeners and slugs and snails is a never-ending one. I have been known to obsessively go out after dark during the summer months with a torch and bucket and pick the critters off my plants, much to the amusement of my family. They are then swiftly dispatched in the lane […]