What Do Yellow Roses Represent?

What do yellow roses represent is a question asked by people interested in yellow roses and before purchasing these beautiful roses.

Yellow roses were found growing in the Middle East around the 18th century. Wild roses from Afghanistan and Southwest Asia bloomed in pale yellow and a deep sulfur color. They were immediately renounced and grew quickly in popularity. The yellow rose at that time had no fragrant and although extremely beautiful this was a drawback. Also about this time techniques were being introduced in the field of rose cross-breeding and hybridization. As these techniques evolved they were able to add a pleasant aroma to the yellow rose.

In the beginning the yellow rose was associated two ways. The first was a negative connotation as a symbol of jealously and dying love. The positive symbolism was associated more with the color. The color yellow is related to the sun. The sun is known as a source of light and warmth an integral to life on Earth. As time passed the yellow rose was connected more to the color yellow rather than to the negative symbolism. Now they are related to joy and friendship and get well soon.

Yellow roses have different flower shapes. The globular is a bloom possessing many petals forming a ball-like arrangement with a closed center. An open-cupped is a bloom possessing many petals forming a cup-like arrangement with an open center. The quartered has inner petals folded into 4 distinct sections rather than forming a cone.

Yellow roses are available in several varieties. There are seven groups of roses. The classic rose is a long, pointed bud which opens to reveal many velvety or satin-like petals.


The Alpine Sunset is a yellow English bred rose. The flowers are very large and the fragrance is outstanding. These are great for cutting.

The Elina another yellow rose is the healthiest of Hybrid Teas. The flowers are borne singly on strong stems. Pointed buds open to produce porcelain-like flowers. These stand open well to poor weather.

Freedom has yellow pedals that do not fade with age and they fall cleanly. The scent is pleasant and the leaves are abundant.

Goldstar won top honors at The Hague. It has a special appeal for flower arrangers as the blooms are borne on long straight stems. The pure yellow blooms appear freely and the color does not fade with age.

Grandpa Dickson is regarded as the best pale yellow Hybrid Tea. Rose books sing its praises. Superbly formed blooms with long petals. It addition, its good rain resistance, freedom of flowering and late-season blooming makes it an excellent bedding variety.

King's Ransom has straggly growth but has non-fading blooms that are high-centered and rain-resistant. They are beautifully shaped and excellent for cutting.

There are several other yellow roses available should you decide to grow your own.

A bouquet of yellow roses will absolutely bring a smile to the receiver of this exquisite rose.

What do yellow roses represent? They represent warmth and happiness and sunny cheerful feelings. Yellow roses can send the message of appreciation or platonic love. P These are perfect to be given to a great friend either as a bouquet or a plant for the garden.

Plantwatch: Acorn crop dips as climate changes

Oak leaves in Britain are still mostly green. The oak is one of the last trees to change colour in autumn, although many have already dropped their acorns. But the days of finding lots of big acorns may be drawing to a close since they are falling victim to climate change.

A study of acorns has revealed that the warmer the weather the smaller the crop of acorns. Tim Sparks, a professor at Coventry University, has examined more than 160,000 observations of oaks and found that the more the first dates of flowering vary in springtime the poorer the acorn crop. In warmer springs the oak trees flower in a less synchronised fashion over a longer period and this gives a smaller crop of acorns in autumn, a drop of about 20%.

In cooler springs the oak flowers within a shorter period and the blooming is more synchronised, allowing more successful cross-pollination.

These days acorns are ripening about 13 days earlier than they did 10 years ago, a phenomenon that matches a widespread earlier shift in fruit and nuts ripening on British trees.

Another sign of the changes is autumn tree-leaf colours tending to appear later in the year and leaves staying on the trees longer; oak leaves now seem to lose their leaves about a week later than was the case 30 years ago.

The observations of the oaks and other trees came from a yearly survey of spring and autumn called Nature’s Calendar, run by the Woodland Trust. Each year the public is asked to record signs of those seasons in the natural world. It has built up into an invaluable, and timed, record.

Nearly a third of world's cacti face extinction, says IUCN

Nearly a third of the world’s cacti are facing the threat of extinction, according to a shocking global assessment of the effects that illegal trade and other human activities are having on the species.

 Cacti are a critical provider of food and water to desert wildlife ranging from coyotes and deer to lizards, tortoises, bats and hummingbirds, and these fauna spread the plants’ seeds in return.

But the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)‘s first worldwide health check of the plants, published today in the journal Nature Plants, says that they are coming under unprecedented pressure from human activities such as land use conversions, commercial and residential developments and shrimp farming.

But the paper said the main driver of cacti species extinction was the: “unscrupulous collection of live plants and seeds for horticultural trade and private ornamental collections, smallholder livestock ranching and smallholder annual agriculture.”

The findings were described as “disturbing” by Inger Andersen, the IUCN’s director-general. “They confirm that the scale of the illegal wildlife trade – including the trade in plants – is much greater than we had previously thought, and that wildlife trafficking concerns many more species than the charismatic rhinos and elephants which tend to receive global attention.”

The conservation group now judges cacti the fifth most threatened species on its red list of endangered flora and fauna, and is calling for an urgent ramping up of international efforts to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. Three of the IUCN’s five most threatened species to date are plants.

Cacti are almost always succulents but unlike most others, they store water in their stems alone, enabling them to survive extreme droughts. The plants can be as small as one centimetre in diameter and grow above 19 metres in height. Well over half of the species are used by humans for display ornamentation, food or medicine.

Almost 1,500 types of cactus were surveyed by the IUCN specialists over a five-year period, mostly in the Americas, where the plant is endemic.

Some, like the once-ubiquitous Echinopsis pampana, have seen population drops of at least 50% in Peru, due to plunder for the ornamental plant trade. The species is now listed as endangered.

“The results of this assessment came as a shock to us,” said Barbara Goettsch, the study’s lead author. “We did not expect cacti to be so highly threatened and for illegal trade to be such an important driver of their decline.”

Cacti are often dug up and exported off the books to Europe and Asia where rare species such as Ariocarpus can sell at prices of up to $1,000 (£660) a plant, Goettsch said.

Tackling the smugglers is a daunting task as the prickly cargo can be smuggled in suitcases or even socks. While countries such as Peru have made progress in blocking the illicit trade, the IUCN is calling for stricter implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in the ‘hotspots’ of Uruguay, Brazil and Chile. Mexico has made advances but still has work to do, according to Goettsch.

Despite their charismatic flowers, and iconic status in popular culture, cacti are often overlooked in conservation planning. The report calls for a broadening of arid land protection to deal with human activities such as construction, quarrying and aquaculture.

Exeter University’s Professor Kevin Gaston, who co-led the assessment, said that the results showed how important funding for further scientific assessments is. “Only by so doing will we gain the overall picture of what is happening to them at a time when, as evidenced by the cacti, they may be under immense human pressures.”

Osmanthus

Osmanthus is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Oleaceae. Most of the species are native to eastern Asia (China, Japan, Indochina, the Himalayas, etc.) with a few species from the Caucasus, New Caledonia, Sumatra, and North America (Mexico, Central America, southeastern United States)

Osmanthus range in size from shrubs to small trees, 2–12 m (7–39 ft) tall. The leaves are opposite, evergreen, and simple, with an entire, serrated or coarsely toothed margin. The flowers are produced in spring, summer or autumn, each flower being about 1 cm long, white, with a four-lobed tubular-based corolla ('petals'). The flowers grow in small panicles, and in several species have a strong fragrance. The fruit is a small (10–15 mm), hard-skinned dark blue to purple drupe containing a single seed.

Osmanthus are popular shrubs in parks and gardens throughout the warm temperate zone. Several hybrids and cultivars have been developed. Osmanthus flower on old wood and produce more flowers if unpruned. A pruned shrub often produces few or no flowers for one to five or more years, before the new growth matures sufficiently to start flowering.

In Japan, sweet osmanthus (gin-mokusei) is a favorite garden shrub. Its small white flowers appear in short-stalked clusters in late autumn. It has an intense sweet fragrance. A variant with deep golden flowers (kin-mokusei) is also popular.

The flowers of O. fragrans are used throughout East Asia for their scent and flavour, which is likened to apricot and peach.

In China, osmanthus tea (guìhuāchá) combines sweet osmanthus flowers with black or green tea leaves. Traditional Chinese medicine claims that osmanthus tea improves complexion and helps rid the body of excess nitric oxide, a compound linked to the formation of cancer, diabetes, and renal disease.

Osmanthus wine flavours huangjiu or other rice wines with full osmanthus blossoms and is traditionally consumed during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Alys Fowler: the best way to beat weeds

Dandelions are beastly weeds. Photograph: Alamy

Weeds are often thought of as being unpredictable, with an ability to turn up anywhere and take over. In fact, they are quite the opposite: entirely predictable and wholly reliable. Give them bare ground and they will appear; thus, the first rule of weeding is cover your work. If you are not going to be back at that spot for a couple of weeks, cover the soil with cardboard, black plastic, mulch, or sow green manure. Don’t give the weeds a new playground.

All weeds exploit two strategies to reproduce: by spreading stems or roots, or scattering seed. If you can’t get round to weeding out the roots, pull off the flower heads. But be nice; pollinators love weeds that are rich in nectar and pollen. If possible, let them flower, then pull off the flower heads before they set seed. Rot the seed heads down in a bucket before adding to the compost, as immature weed seeds will happily mature on top of the compost heap if they are left with enough flower stalk.

Seeds can travel long distances. They hitch a ride on the wind or a visitor, and arrive unannounced in your garden. Annual weeds rely on this strategy to get anywhere, while perennials can fall back underground to keep marching on. We fear this lot.

The beastly types are brambles (rooting stems), buttercups (runners or stolons – stems that creep along the ground), ground elder and bindweed (rhizomes – subterranean stems), dock and dandelion (tap roots), mare’s tail or Japanese knotweed (both rhizomes) and creeping thistles (spreading roots and seed). If you leave bits of root behind as you dig, they will resprout.

The biggest weeds probably will have to be dug out nonetheless. “Lasagne gardening” – where you layer sheets of cardboard and rough organic matter on top of the soil – can defeat them, or at least loosen the soil, so it makes digging them out a more joyous task. The bigger the weeds, the more layers of cardboard you will need.

Lasagne gardening works better than weed-suppressing membrane because it enriches the soil and doesn’t leach petrochemicals into the ground. Worms love lasagne gardening because it provides them with new food; they don’t feel the same about plastic. Both systems work by weakening plants through lack of light. Some plants with very deep roots keep going for longer than you’d expect, so if in doubt, add another layer. This way you will also bury weed seeds, which tend to need light to germinate.
Advertisement

If that doesn’t appeal, get a goat, rabbits, chickens, or a strimmer. My mother’s battle cry used to be “off with their heads”: eventually, you exhaust the roots.

If your weeds are running through the roots of shrubs or herbaceous perennials, the task is more difficult. Picking at new growth will slow them down, but you must be vigilant to win. Digging up shrubs and perennials in autumn, washing the roots and picking out the offending types is laborious but effective. Glyphosate and the like isn’t nearly as effective as it would like you to think it is.

You should come to your garden in the spirit of generosity to all that grows there.

• Listen to Alys on our gardening podcast at theguardian.com/sowgrowrepeat.

Follow Alys on Twitter

Gardens: what to do this week

Clematis 'Big Brother': 'Its blooms are mammoth.'

Visit this

Whether you’re mad for mahonia or crazy about chrysanthemums, the national collection of your favourite plants is somewhere in the UK. Conservation charity Plant Heritage supports more than 600 national collections, helping to keep threatened plants in cultivation and promote biodiversity in our gardens.

Revive this

You planted a hydrangea, it flourished all spring, but now on hot days its leaves are wilting. Hydrangeas are the first plants in the garden to suffer when the soil dries out. Give them a long drink, then mulch heavily; if they still sulk once established, move to a moister spot come winter.

Plant this

Breeders just can’t leave clematis alone, resulting in ever-bigger blooms that won’t collapse at the first drop of rain. Join the clematis revolution by investing in new variety ‘Big Brother’. At 25cm across, its blooms are mammoth; even better, it flowers twice, in late spring and late summer. Height and spread 1.5m x 90cm. To order one jumbo plug for £14.99, or two jumbo plugs for £19.99, call 0330 333 6856 quoting ref GU359. Or shop online at theguardian.com/offers/plants. All orders include free p&p. Dispatched August to September.

Gardens: seasons in the sun

Drying game: evening primrose. Photograph: Alamy

I am blessed with our soil here – two generations ago the land was market gardens that provided fruit and veg for Bath. When there’s enough rain to keep the hearty south-facing slopes moist, my plants grow athletically, and I have to keep them in check.

In a dry summer such as this, however, our sunny slopes provide challenges. My American swamp lilies are half the height they should be and even though the hellebores are snuggled in the shade of the willows, their rosettes are splayed with thirst.

When building the new vegetable garden, I included a water-harvesting tank to save rainwater from the barn’s roof. Harvesting water is a discipline I encourage my clients to build into their gardens, to raise awareness that it is a finite resource, and also because rainwater is better for your plants.

Bronze fennel. Photograph: Alamy

I made the new vegetable garden by cutting into the land and creating a terraced bank. The steep rubbly slopes that fall away are made with the subsoil from the excavations and sown with a wild-flower mix, which as I write is in its first summer and filled with bees. The wild flowers prefer the poor soil to our rich ground and the grasses are lovely when they dry to tawniness.

Beyond the garden, between two outbuildings, is an area that was backfilled with brash to provide dry access to the compost heaps beyond. The pockets of soil up close to the buildings were given to plants that would do better in good ground.

‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’. Photograph: Alamy

Being hungry for as many different habitats on the land here, I didn’t add any topsoil to the areas either side of the path. I wanted a contrast to the heartiness elsewhere, and selected a range of plants that would thrive in the free-draining ground. Sea kale, with its young foliage the colour of red cabbage and later sprawl of honey-scented flowers, Baptisia ‘Chocolate Chip’, in dusky tones that suit the rusted tin, and a good hybrid Phlomis called ‘Edward Bowles’. This is creamy yellow like its parent P russelliana, but takes on a semi shrubby form from P fruticosa. Euphorbia ‘Copton Ash’ is new to me with low, glaucous foliage and lime-green flowers. Drifting, as if self-sown, crimson Dianthus cruentus, lilac Centranthus locoqi and Beupleurum perfoliatum mingle throughout.

I planted openly to broadcast a seed mix I’d made up of plants that I knew would take to the dry, loose shingle. Evening primrose, bronze fennel, sweetly scented Matthiola incana ‘Alba’ and ‘Miss Willmott’s Ghost’, Eryngium giganteum. Beth’s poppy, a gift from Fergus Garret at Dixter, passed in turn to him from Beth Chatto from her dry garden was already up and rejoicing in the stony ground this April. It is a nice reminder of Beth’s mantra: the right plant in the right place, and you can enjoy a dry summer.

Get growing

When planting a dry position do so when there is moisture around, in the spring or autumn. Soak the pots in water until the bubbles stop rising to the surface, and try to have courage to let the plants find their way thereafter.

Green-fingered teachers: how to grow fruit and vegetables in school

Photograph: Green Bronx Machine

There’s nothing more satisfying than harvesting your own crops at school. As the first plums of the season ripen on trees and tiny cabbages appear between leaves, students can feast both their eyes and their bellies, on the fruits of their labour.

But there are also a wide range of educational benefits to going green, from teaching about photosynthesis and the life of a plant to seasonal poetry and creative writing, the topic can be explored in a variety of classes.

If you’re interested in greening up your classroom or designing a wild space somewhere on the school grounds, there’s a lot to consider. Here’s our guide for getting started:

When growing plants indoors keep it simple and start small, according to teacher Stephen Ritz from Discovery high school.

Ritz, who is famed for his pioneering indoor farming project the edible classroom, recommends easy-to-grow crops such as lettuces, beans or peas, or growing your own classroom herb garden. These vegetables are the best choice and are easy to take care of. They can be grown in pots on windowsills where they can get plenty of sunlight and need regular water.


Beckie Taylor, a teacher from Manor primary school in Coseley, grows pumpkins which can be planted from April onwards in small disposable cups. They also need regular water and sunlight. Once they are large enough they can be moved to growbags outside.

Cups and pots are great to grow in, says Ritz, but he also recommends the Tower Garden by Juice Plus – a vertical aeroponic growing system that lets you grow upwards, saving space.

To make sure your crops are tended to, Taylor suggests putting up a chart to keep track of what the plants need and when. “Children can mark off when they have been watered in order to avoid neglect or over watering,” says Taylor.

It’s also vital to make sure there’s someone to watch the plants over the holidays. Ritz plans ahead so things sprout during term time. However, if this doesn’t work out he says there’s nothing wrong with sending plants home for eager young gardeners to look after.

Taylor has some words of warning: “You will need to ensure the space chosen [to grow plants] is away from important work in the classroom, such as books and displays of work. It also may be hard to control the conditions needed in the classroom.”


First find a good growing spot. This isn’t always easy but by law schools must have suitable outdoor space for playing team games. “If schools are committed to growing vegetables then they are not going to mind losing bits of their sports field for veg beds,” says Mel Jacob, who works for the outdoor education company Poppies & Parsnips.

If your school does lack space, Jacob recommends quick-crops such as carrots that can grow in old welly boots, buckets and containers.

She adds: “I think that schools can apply for allotments and the council can be supportive of this but they need to be close by to the school or else too much time is taken up walking to the allotment .”

Once you’ve got the land sorted, she says, you cannot be too precious about the growing bit. “It’s not going to look like Chelsea flower show; children tend not to plant in straight lines.”
Fruit is a good choice for outside growing, and berries of various kinds (strawberries and blueberries) grow well.

Felicity Plent, head of Education at Cambridge University Botanic Garden recommends a new dwarf raspberry from Thompson & Morgan called “Ruby Beauty” , which is suitable for growing in small spaces or a container and is likely to give crops before the end of the summer term.

Don’t worry too much about when to start planting because different vegetables grow at different times, says Jacob. Even when the growing season ends you can get active with things like minibeast hunts or making garden structures and Christmas wreaths with children in winter.

There’s lots of ways to link all this with the curriculum. With younger gardeners, key stage 1 and 2 English spoken language can be practised and vocabulary developed. “Encourage the use of adjectives to describe plants and objects around the garden, taste, sound, texture. Use of descriptive vocabulary as a class to create poems,” advises Plent.

She adds that you can use it in science class too, identifying living things and their habitats with primary students, getting your class to name a variety of plants and discuss simple food chains.
Gemma Cahill, a teacher at Blackburn Central high school, says that you can teach older students skills that can help their future job prospects.

For example, you can teach about science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) careers by getting your secondary class to run their own blind test of organic and non-organic foods to see if they can tell the difference between the two. Explore what it would be like to work as a product manager for a company growing herbs for major shops and supermarkets. Science & Plants has more information about this investigation here, and other resources for secondary students on their website.

Lots of organisations offer free tools to help you get started. Get in touch with Grow Wild to get free wildflower seeds – they have currently run out but will have more in the autumn next year. The Woodland Trust also has a free school tree pack. Thompson & Morgan, one of the UK’s largest mail order seed and plant company have put together some top tips on getting the most from a small space.

If you’re looking for teaching resources to help you link growing with the curriculum, you can find useful resources for teachers on the Royal Horticultural society’s website. Garden Organic also has lots of useful resources and tips for getting started as does Food for Life. If you’re keen on using the topic in science class then check out Science and Plants for Schools.

Let’s move to Dedham Vale, Nayland and East Bergholt, Essex and Suffolk

What’s going for it? Every day, crowds of Reggie Perrins pour out of commuter trains at Manningtree. London is just – just – about commutable from here if  the job at one end, and the paradise at the other, are worth the slog. Dedham Vale, they have judged, is worth it. Those commuters have been bred on a fantasy of unchanging English rural life in the lower Stour valley since John Constable picked up his paints: lush, juicy watermeadows, gnarly oaks, rampant wisteria and ickle villages painted like a jar of boiled sweets in Suffolk pinks, oranges and custard yellows. Constable’s paintings have seeped so much into the collective unconscious that everywhere your eye rests seems vaguely familiar. It has all been preserved just – just – the right side of twee, which, of course, is ironic, as Constable’s paintings were shocking for their depiction of the humdrum, ordinary working landscapes of their day. Dedham Vale is now a modern working landscape, of sorts, a kind of reverse Dorian Gray. The perfect picture remains the same, as those commuters, home at last, slowly age.
The case against Crowds. Come May, the coach parties from Shenzhen arrive and stay until autumn. If you commute, think of it as a daily timeshare: you go, they arrive, they go, you get home. But you can find quieter spots, westwards. I have a problem with perfection, but that’s just me.
Well connected? Yes. Trains: four an hour to Liverpool Street (65-75 min), three to Ipswich (13 mins) and two to four to Chelmsford (around 30 mins). Driving: the A12 passes through, making Colchester and Ipswich 20 mins; the coast at Walton or Felixstowe is 40 mins.
Schools Primaries: many rated “good” by Ofsted, with Nayland, Boxford CofE, Bures CofE and Dedham CofE “outstanding”. Secondaries: East Bergholt High is “good”.
Hang out at… The Sun Inn at Dedham is a stunner. For quieter pints, The Crown in Stoke by Nayland.
Where to buy Anywhere. There’s timber-framed manors, Georgian farmhouses, thatched cottages, Queen Anne. Dedham is especially pretty. East Bergholt slightly more ordinary. Nayland, away from the crowds, rather a gem. Not everything is cute: 20th or 21st century is cheaper. Detacheds, £250,000-£1.85m. Semis, £200,000-£400,000. Cottages and terraces, £180,000-£375,000. Rentals: few, but a three-bed house, £750-£1,200pcm.
Bargain of the week You’ll be lucky. This three-bed house in Dedham is a little old-fashioned, but it’s vaguely affordable at £300,000 with Palmer & Partners.
From the streets
Michael Munt “Dedham is an Essex gem. My pet hate – snobbish people pretending that the whole area is in Suffolk.”
Cathy Smith “Walk from Manningtree station along the river through Flatford to Dedham, and stand on the spot where Constable painted The Hay Wain. Try Dedham’s Essex Rose tearoom for a cuppa.”
• Do you live in Dedham Vale, Nayland and East Bergholt, Essex and Suffolk? Join the debate below.
Live in the Meon valley, Hampshire? Do you have a favourite haunt or a pet hate? If so, email lets.move@theguardian.com by Tuesday 2 June.

How does your garden grow: Pia Östlund of the Chelsea Physic Garden, London

I grew up on the west coast of Sweden. In Scandinavia, people see the whole of nature as their extended garden. Foraging for berries and mushrooms, fishing and wild swimming are part of daily life.

When I moved to London to study graphic design at Central St Martins, I missed all that. After college, I won a competition to design a garden that demonstrated geological history. With only a small space, I had to engage people’s imagination. I was inspired by William Blake’s line, “To see a world in a grain of sand”. One of the judges was Rosie Atkins, who was then curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden.

I came here 14 years ago, and I still work at least one day a week as a freelance design consultant for the garden. I don’t have a garden at home, but I think of the Chelsea Physic Garden, along with Hackney Marshes, Colombia Road Flower Market and Hampstead Heath, as my extended garden. My role is all about representing the reality of this historic place in interpretive signage, guidance material and merchandising. I have to epitomise what is out there in images.

The garden has given something back to me. One day Rosie showed me an 1855 volume, Ferns Of Great Britain & Ireland, by Thomas Moore, the Victorian curator responsible for our Cool Fernery area. The curious, lifelike – as well as life-size – representations of ferns looked like nothing I had seen before. They were too detailed to be drawn by hand, yet clearly not photographs. Even stranger was the texture of the plants, which could be felt by running one’s finger across the image. Despite having quite a lot of experience of different types of printing, I was at a loss. The only clue was a small caption in the corner of the page that read “Nature Printing”. During the 19th century, there was a hunger for a form of scientific image-making, free from the artist’s hand. A plant was pressed into a sheet of lead under high pressure. This highly detailed impression was copied on to a copper printing plate and used for the mass printing of botanical works. I am close to reviving the method and hope to have an exhibition before long.
My favourite spot

I love the Atlantic Islands greenhouse with its 1930s structure and cast-iron and slate shelving. The plants are strange. They cast beautiful shadows and are totally unsuitable for nature printing, so I can appreciate them without thinking what I can make from them.

Gardens: what to do this week

Chop this

If you have a buddleia threatening to take over your garden, now is the time for action. Be stout of heart; this is a rugged plant that will regenerate quickly, so prune it back to just above ground level, leaving two or three buds on each stem for regrowth to start.

Discover this

Across the Thames from Tate Britain lies the Garden Museum; this exhibition space, garden and place to learn is a retreat from the capital’s hustle and bustle. On 10 March, join no-dig gardening guru Charles Dowding to find out how to grow more veg with less backache; on 17 March florist and grower Georgie Newbery reveals her secrets of the cutting garden.

Plant this

If you’re looking for unabashed glamour and colour this summer, begonias are the ultimate annuals for sunny spots. Truffle begonia ‘Peach’ and ‘Cream’ trail to 30cm and look great in patio containers or hanging baskets. Buy the begonia Truffles collection of 10 plug plants for £17.98, or 20 for £24.96 (including UK mainland p&p). To order, call 0330 333 6856, quoting ref GU296, or go to our readers’ offers page. Dispatch next month.

Office plants can make workers 15% more productive, says study

The office pot plant has often been criticised as a symbol of corporate or government waste. Taxpayer, ratepayer and shareholder-funded foliage has regularly been stripped from offices by efficiency or cost-cutting crusaders.
But that might be short-term thinking, as leafy-green offices enriched with plants can boost productivity by 15%, according to Alex Haslam of University of Queensland’s School of Psychology.
An international study assesses the long-term impacts of plants in an office environment and the findings challenge the belief that money spent on plants is money wasted.
Prof Haslam, a co-author, said the research team examined the impact of “lean” versus “green” office space on employees from two large commercial offices in the UK and the Netherlands.
Their results challenge modern business philosophies that suggest a lean office is a more productive one, Haslam said.
“Modern offices and desks have been stripped back to create sparse spaces – our findings question this widespread theory that less is more – sometimes less is just less,” he said.
He said that investing in office landscaping may pay off through an increase in office workers’ quality of life and productivity.
“Lean, it appears, is meaner than green, not only because it is less pleasant but also because it is less productive,” concludes the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Garden planning: how to plant combinations of flowers

Singing the blues: the inky flowers of Ceratostigma willmottianum. Photograph: Alamy
It is a wonderful interlude when the season tips from summer into autumn, leaving behind the need to keep everything prim and proper. A well-planned garden will have plenty that is now at its best, for a host of plants have spent the summer preparing for just this moment: aster, black-eyed Susan and Joe-Pye weed soar head and shoulders above us, with rioting nasturtiums ascending where they have got away and autumn crocuses breaking their summer dormancy.
The term "well-planned" might engender fear, gloom or indeed a smile, but good planning is no different from putting together a meal. You need complementary ingredients, with contrasts and a sequence of events from start to finish. Pacing a planting is the greater part of understanding how to combine plants, and though I might initially think about a mood or a colour scheme when I am planning, it is ensuring that there is continuing seasonal interest that ultimately makes a planting scheme earn its keep.
Right now we are spoilt for choice, with a palette of autumn-fruiting shrubs and trees waiting to colour up. Hip-bearing roses and euonymus, rowans, hawthorns and ink-berried elders are a fine backdrop and will provide some structure. Underneath their limbs you might plant spring bulbs and early summer perennials, but out in the open you need to leave yourself room for a range of perennials to cover the several months of the growing season.
Think about how plants appear in a meadow: cowslips first, buttercups rising above them, moon daisies next with the ascending grasses and finally wild carrots, scabious and knapweeds – one covering for the next. Planning a perennial planting benefits from much the same approach: aim to create a knit of companions so that in any one space you might find plants for at least three seasons.
Many late-flowering perennials are lofty and will sail above their neighbours to cover for them once they are finished. You need to leave them enough room to build up strength over the summer, and pairing them with perennials that come up early but are happy to sink into their shade once the others ascend will see you through the summer. Take, for instance, a combination of early geraniums and peonies, interplanted with asters to rise above them after they are over and you're halfway there. Add bulbs for spring and a sprinkling of annual "Fairy Wings" poppies to seek out the gaps.
To ensure that you have good cover for this late in the season, you should reserve up to a third of your space for late perennials and their allies. It might seem like space taken from the summer garden, but the wait will be worth it. A hot spot among early nepeta and stachys might give rise to late-flowering Ceratostigma willmottianum, with its inky-blue flowers and red in the foliage. Add some Amaryllis belladonna in a really warm spot and you will gain the company of "Naked Ladies" that rise up out of nowhere.
Rudbeckias are not backward in coming forward and will wash the late summer garden with colour. I use mid-sized Rudbeckia fulgida deamii, with dark cones that last well into winter, the delicate R subtomentosa and R laciniata "Herbstsonne". I love this rangy plant where there is room – and you will need it, as it towers above head height. To soften the blow of the rudbeckias, team them with late-flowering grasses to throw a bronzed veil over the daisies. Molinia caerulea "Windspiel", Panicum strictum or Miscanthus nepalensis will take this long to look their best but will be worth the wait. They will have remained smart the summer long, waiting for their fast and furious early companions to come and go.
You will forget the bulbs that lie in wait at their feet ready to reappear in six months' time, and the perfume of the Valeriana officinalis that made its home among their stems in early summer, and be happy that you planned for the finale.
Get growing
Simple combinations make the best ones. Choose two or three plants that like the same conditions and you are more than half way to striking the right balance.