Erin Benzakein

9 results

Invest in just a few packets of seeds and tubers of summer-flowering varieties over the coming weeks and you’ll be astonished by the abundant beauty they’ll bring you, right through to late autumn. Photograph: Getty Images
From cosmos to dizzy dahlias, the flowers to grow now for summer magic

My young twin sons sometimes ask me which superpowers or magical skills I’d most wish for. Invisibility? Telepathy? Mind control? Superhuman strength?(...)

Jennifer Jewell: “I see hope and value in a self-sustaining cycle of living with plants, loving plants, learning plants, growing plants, knowing plants, interpreting plants.” Photograph: John Whittlesey
Gardening women: meet Fionnuala Fallon’s horticultural heroes

  We all have our heroes and it’s not surprising so many of mine belong in one way or another to the world of plants. They include gardeners, de(...)

Cluain na dTor gardens in Donegal. Photograph: Seamus O’Donnell
The secrets to growing an exotic Irish garden

There are times, surrounded by the gloomy, grey drip-drip of an endless Irish winter, when I wonder what it would be like to live in a country with an(...)

From garden festivals and talks to the hundreds of lovely Irish gardens open to the public, there is plenty to enjoy this month. Photograph: Getty Images
Dig in for summer: 10 things to do in the June garden

It’s officially summer, which means that there’s plenty to see and do in the garden this month plus lots of great garden festivals, talks, workshops a(...)

Take advantage of any dry weather over the coming weeks to tidy up around the garden.
Take a leaf from this new crop of gardening books

If ever there was proof that the very best gardeners are often also the oldest gardeners, then it’s in this year’s crop of gardening books. These off(...)

A mixed basket of tulips from Angela Jupe’s garden. Photograph: Richard Johnston
10 terrific tulips to buy now and plant later for spring

It’s tulip time. Or rather, it’s time to buy or order bulbs of any of the best varieties of tulips if you want to have a snowball’s chance in hell of (...)

Garden flowers from Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms, by Erin Benzakein and Julie Chai. Photograph: Michèle M. Waite
Cutting edge flowers without the airmiles

If you’re a regular reader of this column, then you will know that I have more than a “bit of a thing” about cut-flowers. By this, I mean the seasonal(...)

When it comes to fruit, container-grown fig trees and strawberries are a great choice for small tunnels while for larger polytunnels, consider grape-vines or cordon/espalier/fan-trained peach, apricot or nectarine trees,
Preparations for a polytunnel, from soil to seed trays – and don’t forget the hammock

If you’re one of the many Irish gardeners who has joined the country’s merry band of polytunnel owners in recent months (see last week’s column), the(...)

Growing in an Irish climate, with a little help from a polytunnel
Dig in: the best advice on undercover gardening

A number of books, blogs, Twitter and Instagram feeds are inspiring a new generation of Irish gardeners to push the boundaries of hardiness by experim(...)