Making a Willow Wigwam.

- How to use willow in the garden - Telegraph:

Roses trained by weaving through pliable hazel domes.
Arne Maynard’s rose-covered domes at Chelsea.

- The English Gardener: Making a Willow Wigwam is Easier Than it Looks (Promise) Gardenista:

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Rose "Pink Peace".

Medium pink Hybrid Tea.
Registration name: MEIbil
Exhibition name: Pink Peace
Bred by Francis Meilland (France, 1958).
Introduced in France by URS (Universal Rose Selection)-Meilland as 'Pink Peace'.
Hybrid Tea.
Pink. Strong fragrance. 58 petals. Large bloom form. Blooms in flushes throughout the season.
Height of 3' to 5' (90 to 150 cm). Width of 28" to 4' (70 to 120 cm).

Stanwell Perpetual rose.

How to grow: Stanwell Perpetual rose - Telegraph:

"Growing tips
'Stanwell Perpetual' adapts to any soil, even thriving on chalk. It tolerates some shade and is so hardy that it grows well in Scandinavia. It can be grown as a specimen, a hedge, in a container or up a pillar.
Thorny 'Stanwell Perpetual' is best grown away from paths and steps. Dig a large enough hole to allow you to spread the roots out, shortening any really long ones, and mix in a handful of bone meal. Place the rose in the hole and cover with soil making sure the union - the bumpy part at the bottom of the stem - is an inch below the surface. Press down firmly, water if necessary, then cut the rose down hard, reducing each stem to 3in to 5in long at an outward-facing bud. This will prevent wind rock and make the plant stronger and less leggy.
If you grow it as single specimen try to preserve the arching shape. Remove any dying, diseased and damaged wood and shorten the thorny stems by up to a third during winter. You can cut it back hard in spring if you want a shorter rose, as it flowers on the new wood.
When planting a hedge, leave a 3ft gap between each rose and trim to the desired size in winter.
Feed sparingly; sprinkling an organic fertiliser round the roots at the beginning of the growing season will be plenty.
If you do get an attack of black spot gather the fallen leaves and destroy them - don't add them to the compost heap. This robust rose should shrug off the disease the following year. If it does return, gather the leaves again and water the plant and surrounding ground thoroughly with a strong tar-wash solution in winter.
Good companions
Its shell-pink flowers mix well with other old-fashioned varieties or shrub roses. These can be interspersed with violas or campanulas and edged with the silvery leaves of Stachys byzantina. 'Stanwell Perpetual' also suits a woodland planting."

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How to make a bug box.

How to make a bug box - Projects: Wildlife gardening - gardenersworld.com:
Thanks to Pinterest, I have discovered an amazing little “insect hotels”.

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RHS Grow for Flavour (Hardback): 9781845339364

RHS Grow for Flavour (Hardback): 9781845339364:

"By following his groundbreaking scientific tips and techniques, your fruit and veg yield will benefit from measurable improvements in flavour and supercharged quality and health value of all your home-grown harvests. Plus, you'll find 36 simple recipes for making the most of your new flavour-packed produce.

Published in association with the Royal Horticultural Society, James Wong's new book, Grow for Flavour, gives you the techniques to maximize flavour while minimizing the effort involved."
...no potatoes, cabbages, onions or cauliflowers but still plenty left to try your hand.

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Flowers. Dahlia. Peony.

I bought and ready to plant!
The dahlia is named after the 18th century Swedish botanist Anders Dahl, a student of Carl Linnaeus. Around the same time, in Germany, it was also named ‘Georgia’ after the Russian botanist Johann Gottlieb Georgi, and some still know it by this name.
This cultivar was so-named in 1924 to honour Joshua Pritchard Hughes who was the Bishop of Llandaff (a Diocese in South Wales) from 1905 to 1931.

How to grow dahlias:
- Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff' (P)
Genus Dahlia are tuberous rooted perennials with pinnately divided leaves and showy flower-heads, double in many cultivars, in summer and autumn. Tender Perennial Tuber.
Family Asteraceae / Asteraceae
Details 'Bishop of Llandaff' is an herbaceous perennial to 1m in height, with deep blackish-red foliage and semi-double brilliant red flowers 6cm in width.
Plant 30cm (12in) deep, 75cm (30in) apart.
Propagation Propagate by softwood cuttings taken in spring from shoots from stored tubers, or divide the tubers ensuring each division has a viable bud.
Cuttings should root within twenty days.
Pruning Deadhead to prolong flowering. Cut back to near ground level in the autumn, before lifting and storing for the winter.
Feed with a potash-rich plant food, either home-made comfrey tea or liquid tomato feed, once buds appear.

Monty Don: Call it a dahlia | Life and style | The Guardian:
Love them or loathe them - even the most fervent anti-dahlia gardener can't resist the Bishop of Llandaff.
The parent plants can be put outside in mid-May, when the risk of frost is past. If you are not going to take cuttings, plant the overwintered tubers out about 15 cm deep in early April, in rich soil in full sunlight. The new shoots appear above ground about a month later.
In most well-drained urban gardens I think it perfectly safe to leave them in the ground over the winter as long as they are cut back to the ground and mulched thickly. But if you are likely to get ground frosts of -5ºC or below, or if you have heavy soil – both of which we have here – I would strongly recommend lifting them after the first frost.
Slugs will graze a scar along the length of the stems as well as eating the foliage, while earwigs are very fond of eating the petals.
The best way to stop earwig damage is to place an empty flowerpot on a cane – ideally the one supporting the dahlia – and stuff it with some torn-up paper or straw; the earwigs will crawl inside during the day, when they can be found and taken away.
In the spring mulch them with some rich organic matter (eg well rotted compost or farmyard manure) and feed them with a general purpose fertiliser when growth begins.(Here!)
Growing Dahlias at the Villas - for the very first time! - Sow and So: How to PLANT dahlias (with pic!).

Companion Plants: Foeniculum vulgare 'purpureum' Fennel (bronze fennel-) or verbena bonariensis and Dahlia 'Bishop of Llandaff'.
The bronze or purple form of garden fennel (not to be confused with sweet or Florence fennel, an annual vegetable grown for its swollen bulbs) is a handsome and popular perennial, often planted on its own for impact or combined with bergamot in flower borders.

- Paeonia officinalis 'Rubra Plena' (d)

Other common names - peony 'Rubra Plena'
Genus- Paeonia may be herbaceous perennials or deciduous sub-shrubs with large, divided leaves and showy large bowl-shaped flowers, usually in early summer.
Family- Paeoniaceae / Paeoniaceae.
Details- 'Rubra Plena' is a robust herbaceous perennial to 75cm in height, with dark green, divided leaves and fully double rich crimson flowers 15-20cm across.
Planting depth - 3 cm.
Time to maturity: 5-10 years.

How to Grow Asparagus.

Just 100 grams of asparagus contains 2.2 grams of protein and at least 900 units of vitamin A and beta carotene, a component that many people feel has great potential as a cancer preventive.
I bought and ready to plant!

How to Grow Asparagus - Vegetable Gardener:
"Plant crowns early.
Crowns should be planted while they are dormant.
That can be as early as late winter.
They should be planted when the ground is workable, between frosts.
As long as the crowns are covered with about 2 in. of soil, they won’t suffer in hard freezes.
They can be planted as late as mid-spring, if plump, healthy roots are still available."

- Asparagus Cultivation:
White, Green and Purple Asparagus.

White asparagus is green asparagus which has been grown in the dark, usually by mounding the beds to cover the crowns with some eight to twelve inches (30.48 centimetres) of light sandy soil so as to exclude light from the developing spears.
It is highly esteemed in continental Europe.
White asparagus is generally peeled before being eaten as it has been grown underground, but with purple asparagus varieties this is not necessary.
Optimum planting density is a little lower for white asparagus than for green.

Purple asparagus is a variant of green which originated in Italy.
It turns green if boiled, but retains its colour if steamed.
Purple varieties of asparagus have a sweeter flavour and are less fibrous making them superior to green cultivars for eating raw.
The original purple variety gave low yields and was very susceptible to disease, but modern purple hybrids have gone some way towards addressing these problems.
It should be stressed that the lack of fibre in the stems means that purple asparagus is less weatherproof and should be avoided in exposed situations.
Purple asparagus is particularly suitable for eating raw.

Cropping Season.
The traditional season for UK asparagus starts on St George's Day, 23rd April, and ends on 21st June.
The season can be extended earlier by growing forcing varieties under protection, and later by planting suitable varieties.
Under cold glass, early asparagus varieties can be cropped from mid March.

- How to grow asparagus plants:

- How to grow Asparagus: A complete guide to growing Asparagus in beds, allotments and large containers:

- How to plant asparagus crowns - Projects: Video projects - gardenersworld.com: "Watch Monty Don's video demonstration of how to plant asparagus crowns, with advice on the soil preparation, aspect and aftercare."
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Marrows and Courgettes.

I bought plants and ready to plant!

Courgettes belong to the same family as cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins and marrows; in fact they are baby marrows.
Courgettes and zucchini are exactly the same plant but they acquired the different name from Italy from where it has found its way to America.
Although courgettes are small marrows the seed companies have been hard at work breeding plants that will only produce the smaller fruits that we want and not show bench monster marrows.
How to grow:
As the courgette plant grows it will produce a mass of white roots on the surface of the soil. Cover these with potting compost, garden compost or well-rotted manure. Keep covering the roots as they appear and gradually over the course of the summer the moat will disappear and the mound will spread outwards.
Jemmer F1 (AGM) - highly prolific on compact plants, bright yellow in colour.
El Greco – early cropping, excellent flavour, mid-green courgettes, RHS Award of Garden Merit.
Marrow Long Green Bush is the true traditional Marrow.
Has all the attributes of Green Trailing, but with a bush habit for more limited space.
Excellent flavour and highly productive.
Summer heading.

Handy Tip: Marrows and Courgettes prefer a deep humus rich soil for both the goodness and its water retention qualities.
Nutritional Value: A good source of pro-vitamin A, vitamins C and E.

Tomatoes.

I bought plants and ready to plant!

'Black Russian' - a large, dark skinned variety
‘Golden Crown’ - An early-maturing cherry tomato producing sweet, yellow fruit.
‘F1 Peardrops’ - Peardrops is a yellow fruited trailing variety with highly attractive pear shaped fruit and a delicious flavour. Peardrops is a traditional green shouldered variety that has a good flavour balance of sweetness and acidity. Plants are useful for planting in mixed baskets and containers or even hanging baskets.
F1 Peardrops - Tomato Trailing | Vegetalis:

How to grow cucamelons.

How to grow cucamelons:
I bought plants and ready to plant!
CUCAMELONS: GRAPE-SIZED CUKES

Doll’s house-sized ‘watermelons’ that taste of pure cucumber with a tinge of lime. These little guys are officially the cutest food known to man & oh-so-easy to grow even for real beginners. Let me show you how to get started…

HOW TO GROW CUCAMELONS:
Cucamelons can be grown in pretty much the exact same way as regular cucumbers, only they are far easier.
They don’t need the cover of a greenhouse, fancy pruning or training techniques and suffer from very few pests.
Sow the seed from April to May indoors and plant out when all risk of frost is over.
Give them a support the scramble over, keep well watered and that’s pretty much all you will need to do!
Harvest them when they are the size of a grape, but still nice and firm.
They make pretty, high-yielding vines that can be planted really close together to get the most out of a small space – as little as 15cm between plants around a trellis.
HOW TO EAT CUCAMELONS:
The fruit can be eaten straight off the plant, or tossed with olives, slivers of pepper and a dousing of olive oil. Perfect for a quirky snack with drinks – or even popped like an olive in a cheeky martini.

PICKLED CUCAMELONS WITH MINT & DILL (cm WEB)
—————————————
Melothria heterophylla (Lour.) Cogn.
The roots are edible!
Botanical name: Melothria heterophylla (Lour.) Cogn.
Synonmous name:Zehneria umbellata Thw.
Family name:Cucurbitaceae
Genus:
A large genus of annual or perennial climbers or herbs occurring in the tropics of the world. Leaves polymorphous. Flowers are small and yellow. Some species are medicinal and in some species the fruit is edible.

Species:
A herbaceous plant with tuberous root occurring throughout India.
The plant bears polymorphous leaves and small yellow flowers coloured unisexual flowers.
Fruit is brown coloured with many sub-spherical, smooth seeds.
The roots, leaves and fruits are edible.
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