It felt as if the daffodils were taunting me when I got to work in the morning, most of the yellow varieties having faded for the season, but the pheasant's eye (Narcissus poeticus) going strong…
Read moreDay 104: splinters
Feeling like a pincushion just now, having spent the morning battling an unruly, neglected climbing rose…
Read moreDay 103: flexing pelargoniums
Bright, eager sunlight, streaming through the glass – uncomfortably warm on my left side and causing me to squint at the computer screen – banishing memories of the snow flurries that began the week…
Read moreDay 102: later sowings
‘Better late than never’ is an epithet whose veracity I’m sure to be testing over the coming weeks, having only just got my first seed order for the year in…
Read moreDay 101: The Grumbling
The greyness of it. The coldness of it and – to top it all – the dampness. Winkles its icy fingers between every layer of your clothing and freezes you to the marrow…
Read moreDay 100: blackbird spring
Early evening, and the blackbird is sounding the alarm from the neighbour’s Bramley apple tree at the end of the garden. She is off her nest (the blackbird, not the neighbour)…
Read moreDay 99: one-trick pony
In a small garden, the sensible advice is to choose plants that have more than one season of interest…
Read moreDay 98: snake's head fritillary
One of those plants that prompts me each spring, on seeing it everywhere as it comes into bloom, to ask myself why I’m still not growing it…
Read moreDay 97: thinning
I’m going to ignore, for the moment, the fact that it’s snowing again, and concentrate on what I originally came out into the garden to talk about, namely, the practice of thinning. As distinct from weeding…
Read moreDay 96: trilliums
When it comes to my ideal qualities for a plant, close to the top of the list would be the ability to thrive under neglect…
Read moreDay 95: purple periwinkle
I think I was virulently opposed to vinca at an earlier point in my gardening life – something to do with having to liberate a dry slope from the clutches of an unappreciated greater periwinkle…
Read moreDay 94: horny goat weed
Just-in-time might be an industrial concept of more historical interest than contemporary relevance thanks to Brexit but it’s alive and well in our garden…
Read moreDay 93: lady's smock
I spent a good while this morning hoeing through weedlings of hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) that were enjoying their first flush of growth in a client’s flowerbed…
Read moreDay 92: don't panic
Tulips popping everywhere, forget-me-nots peeping from the bud – a growing sense of alarm at quite how much of last season remains to be dealt with…
Read moreDay 91: purple gromwell
I left it too late to get to the nursery yesterday and, having a planty itch that needed scratching, threw my principles to the wind and headed to the DIY shed…
Read moreDay 90: plus ça change
A year on to the day and this view is almost unchanged. The tulips might be a day or two behind, the roses a little better attended to…
Read moreDay 89: sun lovin' fun lovin' tulips
All tulips love the sun; it’s in their job description. It’s certainly in their genes…
Read moreDay 88: Angel's tears
The garden makes me wait for Thalia. I think it wants to be sure that I’m going to get through daffodil season without making any disparaging remarks about the colour yellow, though it needn’t worry…
Read moreDay 87: first of the forget-me-nots
First sighting of forget-me-nots in bloom this week. It feels late – but looking back over previous year’s photographs, it seems about right for the end of March…
Read moreDay 86: pricking out
Windy this morning, showery in the afternoon. I dived into the greenhouse at one point, having remembered to bring a couple of module trays from home…
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