Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year
If plants are going to romp unrestrainedly about the garden (and the best ones will, given half a chance), let them do it with style, with panache. Let them bring something beautiful to the space in exchange for the licence we give them to claim the ground. Hedge bindweed (Convallaria arvensis) has its glorious white trumpets, black bryony (Dioscorea communis) festoons with strings of round red berries like Christmas baubles but, while these characters appear to arrive uninvited, there are those we welcome in to our beds and borders with an introductory fanfare. On a frosty winter’s morning I’m grateful for the assertive spirit of Physalis alkekengi, that member of the nightshade family from whose papery orange calyxes, shaped like the Chinese lanterns, its common name is drawn. It might be on the unruly side once it’s made itself at home; it might take a few liberties when it comes to territory; it might end up several feet away from where you’d originally intended, but would I be without it now? I would not.
A year of garden coaching
To find out more about my my 12 month online garden coaching programme, please visit the website, where you can read more details and add your name to the waiting list to be the first to hear when enrolment opens up again in the autumn.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.
