The bench outside the back door has taken on something of the character of the waiting room or way station – a limbo where plants come to rest, temporarily, before going to their long-term homes…
Read moreDay 289: violas and pansies
When is a pansy not a pansy? When it’s a viola, of course. Or something like that – truth is, all pansies are violas, though not vice versa, and there’s some waffle about pansies having one downward facing petal and four upward…
Read moreDay 288: woodland floor
The woodland floor in October has something of the lucky dip, or raffle about it, booted feet shuffling through an al fresco tombola drum, stick your hand in and pull out a prize…
Read moreDay 287: spindle berry
From the soggy remnants of summer, the rich colours of autumn are just beginning to appear. Most notably outside my kitchen door, where a golden carpet of Oriental bittersweet leaves has appeared overnight…
Read moreDay 286: ice and fire
Rarely moved to deprive the garden of flowers, I now feel duty bound to cut what I can for the house. Autumn has turned filthy, and shows no sign letting up for at least the next week…
Read moreDay 285: a time to sow
In spite of the weather doing its best to bluster, here in Kent October continues relatively mild. There is warmth yet in the soil, and a fresh crop of seedlings and weedlings has appeared over the last few days…
Read moreDay 284: remember your place
Clusters of bright berries are here already, bathed in golden October sunshine, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that the guests for your evening’s dinner party have turned up just after lunch…
Read moreDay 283: recording progress
The importance of keeping a visual record of the garden over time is so conspicuously apparent, I can only wonder why for so long I’ve been indifferent to its practice…
Read moreDay 282: Virginia creeper
The problem with creepers is that, when growing well, they don’t so much creep, as lollop, haul, claim and conquer. All plants defy gravity to a greater or lesser extent in their aerial parts…
Read moreDay 281: a greenhouse for all
A glasshouse is a glorious thing. A greenhouse – which might be largely glass, but could just as well have windows of polycarbonate – is the next best thing, and there’s something rather wonderful about cramming them full of frost-tender plants at this time of year, a kind of fuggy Aladdin’s cave of barely-snoozing plant life…
Read moreDay 280: a tangle of twine
Simple pleasures, they say, are invariably the best, and if like me you’re no stranger to the joy occasioned by a new spool of garden twine, you’ll probably agree that they’re right…
Read moreDay 279: Japanese hydrangea vine
When is a hydrangea not a hydrangea? When it’s a Schizophragma integrifolium, of course…
Read moreDay 278: spider silk for breakfast
It’s that time of year when each early-morning excursion down the garden will inevitably result in a face full of spider silk. I’ve learnt to march with arm stretched in front of me…
Read moreDay 277: houseplants and heating
We’re so used to tracing the passage of the seasons by the signs we observe out of doors – what the trees or the leaves or the sky is doing…
Read moreDay 276: under cover
Day 275: Michaelmas daisy
Weeks of waiting are over, and the asters I was impatiently anticipating back in August (Day 224 Waiting for Asters) are bursting into flower…
Read moreDay 274: a saturation of watering cans
I’m wondering what would be the collective noun for watering cans. A splash? A sprinkle? A drizzle, or perhaps, a saturation of watering cans? I quite like the latter option…
Read moreDay 273: the Houseplant Festival
I’ve just been to a houseplant festival. It was billed in one of the London mags as one of the ten coolest things to do this weekend. But that’s not why I went…
Read moreDay 272: American pokeweed
I’m always a bit envious of gardens that have made room from American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). It’s a great brute of a thing, six to eight feet high with thick green stems blushing to a kind of neon pink…
Read moreDay 271: the random raspberry
The raspberries are not very purposeful in my garden. I think one year they might have been – I’ve a vague memory of posts and lines and tying in…
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