Care Guides
Care guides by Rupert Foxton-Smythe
426 guides

How to Plant and Cultivate Garden Trees
A somewhat depressing, although fascinating, aspect of trees in the garden is the fact that they will probably outlive their planter! They have an air of permanence about them.

How to Set Up a Vegetable Garden
There’s always room for a vegetable patch in every garden. What you must decide is what space is available and what is to be grown.

Zantedeschia Abthiopica (Mum Lily, Calla Lily)
The arum lily or calla lily is a beautiful South African plant, hardy in mild moist places out of doors, and even in colder areas may sometimes be grown as an aquatic plant if covered with water in…

Clematis – The Queen of Climbers
Clematis are amongst the most prized of all climbing plants, and the large flowered hybrids can be most spectacular when well placed m the garden.

How a Toadstool Keeps Its Balance: An Engineering Achievement
In spite of the fact that the shape of toadstools seems so peculiarly to suit the function of spore discharge it must not be too hastily assumed that this function brings about their shape.

Luring a Germ to Destruction: How Inoculation Works
Animal diseases are not so commonly caused by fungi, unless we count the diseases of the human body produced by bacteria; such diseases as tuberculosis, diphtheria and indeed the majority of the…

A Destroyer of Food and Fortune: The Great Rust Scourge
The effect of the fungus is to produce a lesion on its host, which becomes in the course of time, filled with spores of the fungus that, because of their colour, show like patches of iron-rust on the…

How to Grow and Cultivate Bonsai
The word bonsai simply means a plant in a container. This can be a tree or a shrub or even forms of grass.

Shrub Growing Simplified
The term ‘shrubs’ covers a wide range of plants. You can buy those which grow to a few inches to those growing to thirty feet or so.

Tips for Planting Roses
When the trees arrive give them a good drink. Put them into a bucket or tub of water. Never allow the roots to be exposed to drying winds.

Caring for Your Houseplants Properly
Providing the proper treatment and correct cultural conditions for a plant will take you three parts of the way along the road to successful growing.

Routine Work on Rose Gardens
Towards the end of April it may be necessary with bush roses to do a certain amount of dis-shooting, the aim being to remove young growths that look as if they are going to overcrowd the centre of…