Do you prefer to garden in solitude, or in company? And, if the latter, does that company have a physical presence (human, canine...surely not piscine?), or a less corporeal form?
Read moreDay 89: anticipating tulips
I’ve marvelled at hellebores, paid my respects to snowdrops, learned to love daffs and greated my favourite narcissus with joy , but all the while, I’ve had this sense of anticipation in the back of my mind, and the waiting is almost done…
Read moreDay 88: Oxalis triangularis
This purple-leaved beauty is the big-brother to our native wood sorrels – the creeping, yellow-flowered little shamrocks with the lemon scented foliage that winkle their way into walls and paving cracks…
Read moreDay 87: pruning buddleia
Time for the buddleia to get the chop. Not the whole plant, you understand, just last year’s growth…
Read moreDay 86: beneath a hellebore
The ground beneath a hellebore is an interesting place to be in mid to late March…
Read moreDay 85: Narcissus 'Thalia'
There comes a day towards the end of March when all my waiting pays off, and the pure white flowers of Narcissus ‘Thalia’ open, two to each long, slender stem…
Read moreDay 84: divide and conquer
Plant enthusiasts have a tendency to buy too many different plants, and not enough of them. It’s a phenomenon particularly marked soon after being bitten by the garden bug…
Read moreDay 83: dahlia tubers
It’s time to start potting up dahlia tubers. Another of those wonderful, mindful tasks you can get lost in for a few hours…
Read moreDay 82: grape hyacinth
Once you have muscari (grape hyacinth), you’re probably not getting rid of it, due to its enthusiasm for colonising areas by both self-division of its tiny bulbs and by seed…
Read moreDay 81: mulch
Nothing quite finishes off the beds and borders as winter turns to spring as a good thick covering of well-rotted organic mulch – which sounds disgusting, but looks rather better…
Read moreDay 80: magnolia
Every garden, every street, should have a magnolia of some form or another. The various hybrids of Magnolia x soulangeana are the most commonly planted, and perhaps the small-tree’s most Insta-famous incarnation ever-since social media developed a love affair for this flamboyant symbol of spring’s arrival…
Read moreDay 79: wood squill
Only a few inches high, the blue of a single wood squill (Scilla siberica) is enough to stop you in your tracks – a carpet of them would challenge our native bluebells…
Read moreDay 78: poet’s daffodil
Poet’s narcissus, or Pheasant eye (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus) is not your typical daff – although it has a strong claim to being the oldest…
Read moreDay 77: Hydrangea pruning
‘Off with their heads’. As if channelling the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, I find myself just now in the mood for a spot of decapitation, and I have the hydrangeas in mind…
Read moreDay 76: ground elder
The emerging leaves of this humble relative of the carrot are enough to strike fear into the heart of many a gardener. Ground elder, or goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) has a reputation as a tricky, invasive customer…
Read moreDay 75: daffodils
I have to ease myself in gently to daffodil season. I find many of them hard to love in spite of their unpretentious bonhomie, but I’m learning to appreciate an elongated trumpet here, a graceful, recurved petal there…
Read moreDay 74: rabbit attack
Gardeners and rabbits rarely coexist in harmony, and while there’s no denying their cuteness, they don’t half munch through your plants…
Read moreDay 73: paeony buds
All winter long I’ve been galumphing merrily across the borders, working from boards most of the time…
Read moreDay 72: wild primrose
There’s a lot of pizazz about the primula family…
Read moreDay 71: the mark of cane
In the borders, we’re enjoying the calm before the storm – old stems cut down, shabby leaves pulled away, all the remnants of last year’s garden carted off to the compost…
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