Bindweed is done for the year. Black bryony (Dioscorea communis) too – the strangling, clambering vines with their heart shaped leaves and pretty white bell flowers rendered innocuous by the passage of days…
Read moreDay 309: a peculiar alchemy
A peculiar alchemy occurs when outside meets in. If you’re dead posh, you can remodel your house so the dividing line between indoor living space and garden is little more than a shimmering veil…
Read moreDay 308: garden taming
Give me a wheelbarrow, bright November sunshine and some batteries for the radio and I’m set up for a day of happy garden taming…
Read moreDay 307: beardtongue
The big daisies are over, and any colour remaining in the border now tends to be from the last of the roses, hardy salvias and penstemons…
Read moreDay 306: leopard plant
I cannot for the life of me work out why Ligularia dentata ‘Desdemona’ is known as the ‘leopard plant’. Perhaps someone will enlighten me…
Read moreDay 305: biscuit tones
There’s danger, I realise, in clamouring for the bright colours of autumn (I’ve been getting impatient this year), lest you miss the subtler hues and textures that contribute just as much to the season…
Read moreDay 304: fatsia in flower
The flowers on a fatsia (false castor oil plant, Fatsia japonica) were not something I’d considered – they were just those reliable, shiny leaved shrubs…
Read moreDay 303: ivy-leaved sowbread
One of the wonders of autumn, the delicate and decorative elegance of ivy-leaved sowbread (Cyclamen hederifolium) belies its ruggedness…
Read moreDay 302: the funny thing about fungi
There’s something quite other-worldly about the appearance of mushrooms in autumn, not least the alacrity with which they can materialise overnight…
Read moreDay 301: traffic signals
British summertime bit the dust over the weekend, giving us an extra hour in bed and all the confirmation we needed that the darkest days are coming….
Read moreDay 300: Amsonia hubrichtii
Gazing at Amsonia hubrichtii in its full autum colour is like staring into the heart of a fire – not, in spite of appearances, an actual ‘burning bush’ (that honour goes to Euonymus alatus, the winged spindle), rather a herbaceous perennial …
Read moreDay 299: calathea
Calatheas, some say, make for a fairly trouble-free houseplant, but I’ve always found them to be a little particular…
Read moreDay 298: smoke bush
The purple smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria ‘Palace Purple’) wears its autumn colours well. Bright scarlet travels up the stalk of each leaf, creeps up the veins…
Read moreDay 297: buying bulbs
I should already have bought my bulbs. ‘Should’, however, is a mild triggering word for me, never one to enjoy the experience of being told what I ought to be doing…
Read moreDay 296: canopy’s last hurrah
The woods are in denial, and even the sky joined in today. Together they made a fair approximation of a late summer’s day, only being let down by an October sun…
Read moreDay 295: dock day
Every year contains within its span a handful of days when the weather is perfect for weeding…
Read moreDay 294: whispering corn
Those of us who garden never quite lose that sense of wonder that something as small as a seed can be transformed within the space of a single growing season into a plant as tall as a person…
Read moreDay 293: rose hips
The hedgerows are full of rose hips – the hedges and many shrubs in the garden too, where a tangle of wild rose has romped through them. The shrub roses themselves... not so much..
Read moreDay 292: red mistletoe cactus
Lurking among the ferns in the living room, and doing a very good job of blending in, is Pseudorhipsalis ramulosa ‘Red Coral’…
Read moreDay 291: a favourite acer
Is it possible to have a favourite acer? It seems an especially difficult feat at this time of year, when every maple seems bent on outdoing its relatives in the autumn colour stakes…
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