Height and volume. It’s what everyone wants in a newly planted garden…
Read moreDay 204: turks cap lily
A couple of years I got confused by the lilies at Great Dixter…
Read moreDay 203: off the ledge
Gravity and physics took a toll on my study today. Throw in some slightly suspect DIY skills and a recent growth spurt…
Read moreDay 202: purple party in the herb patch
There’s a party going on in the herb bed, which is alive with pollinating insects and resplendent in shades of purple and lilac…
Read moreDay 201: an alligator in the shed
Not an ad, but an enthusiastic response to the oddest looking bit of gardening kit that came in genuinely handy at the weekend…
Read moreDay 200: Hydrangea 'Annabelle'
A day, if ever there were one, to make like a hydrangea and head for the shade…
Read moreDay 199: the big butterfly count
Summer has arrived in time for this year’s Big Butterfly Count in the UK, which began on Friday and runs until 8th August…
Read moreDay 198: purple toadflax
The notion of the uninvited guest carries with it an air of something annoying, even perhaps sinister; the character who turns up looking to subvert events to their own agenda…
Read moreDay 197: daylilies
I’m conflicted about daylilies (Hemerocallis spp.). With their bright colours and flamboyant display they should surely be the cause of a roiling passion within me and yet…
Read moreDay 196: Rodgersia pinnata
Here’s the confusing thing about rodgersia: I can never decide whether I’m growing it for the foliage, or the flowers…
Read moreDay 195: magical combinations
I was preparing one of my lovely coaching clients earlier in the week for what to expect in the second year of a newly planted garden…
Read moreDay 194: not weed
One of those meetings where you can’t quite place the individual before you, though something about them seems so familiar…
Read moreDay 193: gardening opinions
We can often find ourselves frustrated with the crowds at plant shows or gardens; so many people, getting in the way of our photographs…
Read moreDay 192: across the divide
On and on the garden grows, the sky continuing to irrigate the beds and borders so that the path requires pushing through at one point. Black and white meeting across the turf…
Read moreDay 191: the usefulness of beardtongues
It took me a while to cotton on to the usefulness of penstemons (also known, rather wonderfully, as the ‘beardtongues’)…
Read moreDay 190: Spiraea japonica 'Gold Mound'
When I look after Spiraea japonica for other people, I tend to keep it fairly tightly clipped. Mostly grown for foliage rather than flowers it will happily take regular snipping…
Read moreDay 189: big plant, small plant
There’s no denying that giant scabious (Cephalaria gigantea) is a big plant – it’s right there, in the name. Twice…
Read moreDay 188: Rose ‘Lady of Shalott’ – update
Two years on and this glorious orange rose has settled in, though the short-lived perennial wallflowers that bobbed and chattered about her feet have shuffled off…
Read moreDay 187: closely planted
Following a model of close planting, or ‘cramming it all in’, as I like to think of it, can often yield a pleasant surprise…
Read moreDay 186: surprised by chicory
One advantage to being slightly slapdash in the garden (and there are several that I could enumerate, and probably shall, another time) is the gift of unexpected flowers…
Read more