The Genus Garden

It’s as though someone has thrown a big switch in the Genus garden.  One week nothing.  The next week WEEDS - a rash of green.  In all of the beds,...

We had reason to be happy this week when conditions finally enabled us to cut the grass in the orchard.  A few days with no rain and a nice westerly...

Hidden behind our showroom at Genus HQ is our nuttery.  Planted three years ago, the clumps of hazel (Corylus avellana) are maturing well with some of the shrubs (or are...

Every March we look forward to our toads returning to the pond where spotty necklaces of gelatinous morse code are intricately woven around the Elodea and emerging lily stems.  A...

From skin care and sore throats to healing wounds and insect bites, witch hazels (Hamamelis) have been used for centuries as natural remedies or available as over the counter products...

Anyone who’s been following us on Instagram recently will know it's been a busy start to the year for Genus.  This week the cameras came to the garden to catch...

Walk into the Genus garden at the moment and spots of gold will catch your eye in the subtle shade of our hazel and sycamore copse.  Beautiful Eranthus hymalis have...

We all wait in anticipation for the first tulip, the first snowdrop or the first daffodil but many plants will already be flowering, advertising their presence with scent and colour. ...

As stocks in the Genus vegetable garden start to dwindle it’s encouraging to see 2024’s produce already underway starting us off on an encouraging footing for the new year.  Onions,...

Happy new year and a wonderful start to 2024 for all our readers.  For most of us the start of January has been decidedly and unforgettably wet with the conditions...

Strong winds in the week before Christmas blew through the garden like a roaring jet engine, littering the lawns with tree limbs and rotten branches, and creating a giant game...

Winter is a great time of year for us to tackle many of the climbing plants that clothe the walls of Genus HQ.  It’s always a surprise how much growth...

Gardeners with smartphones will probably know that they entertain us with random photographs on the home screen every day - a picture more often than not we’ve totally forgotten taking. ...

With the first day of December just gone, it would be traditional to say “a pinch and punch, first day of the month” to any friend we might have encountered in...

Last week we talked about cutting back the borders and planting them up for a much needed injection of spring colour.  Wallfowers, foxgloves, and tulips were planted and now mulching...

There’s much controversy these days about the merits of cutting back garden borders in the autumn.  We do cut back and there's a number of reasons that we do it...

We don’t grow a lot of grasses in the Genus garden but those we have play an important role, acting as a foil for the Dahlias, Rudbeckias, and perennial sunflowers...

While storm Ciarán ploughed its way along the south coast wrecking homes and gardens, Genus HQ remained relatively unscathed, just catching the tail end of the spiralling pressure system.  We...

With little prospect of our tomatoes ripening any further we decided to clear all the vines in the greenhouses and turn the fruits into chutney and sauces.  Stripey ‘Tigerella’, good...

While most of the garden has been slowly winding down, other areas have been seeing some intriguing activity.  Fungi!  From puffballs in the meadow, to shaggy ink caps on the...

In recent years we’ve been quite organised with our late summer or autumn sown seeds.  Biennials such as wallflowers are often sown as early as August, and our foxgloves too.  Many...