Growing sunflowers

Sunflowers are easy and quick to grow and are spectacular when they flower.

Sunflowers are great for children to grow because of their fast growth and amazing flowers.

You can sow sunflower seeds directly into a sunny spot in the garden or into deep pots if you don’t have much garden space.  Water gently and wait a week or so for the shoots to appear.

Be prepared to stake the plants as they get taller, especially if you live in a windy area.  Or if you have them on a balcony you can tie the stems to the balustrade or a pole to help them stand up straight.

How to prune roses

A rose bush, unlike a tree, does not grow by producing shoots which steadily increase in size every year. A rose stem grows actively and bears flowers for only a few years, after which the upper portion becomes exhausted. A new shoot then appears from a bud lower down the stem. The part above the new shoot dies.

This means that a bush left unpruned becomes a tangled mass of dead and live wood bearing flowers of poor quality on spindly stems. Read more

Growing roses

Many people think roses are really hard to grow so they don’t put them in their garden.

But roses will bloom in an ordinary garden for eight to ten months in the year with very little attention.

Yes – they do get bugs and they can appreciate a spray from time to time to keep them looking good and to stop bugs from eating the leaves.

Over the next while we are going to have more posts about growing roses – written by en expert who is passionate about them, has grown roses for more than 30 years and who wants to share his love of the rose.

Keeping cut flowers fresh

Cut flowers enjoy a good rest and soak in a cool dark place to help keep them fresh.

If you buy flowers, re-cut the stem when you get home and stand the stems for several hours or overnight in a bucket of luke-warm water. Read more