I’ve had a nagging doubt these past couple of months that something was missing in the garden…
Read moreDay 224: the houseplants' final push
At last, the garden is bathing in proper summer sunlight. As it streams through my window, making it almost too uncomfortable to sit at my desk and write, my thoughts turn to winter…
Read moreDay 223: Lindheimer’s beeblossom
Lindheimer’s beeblossom, or gaura to many of us, was reclassified as Oenothera lindheimeri back in 2007…
Read moreDay 222: Stromanthe sanguinea ‘Triostar’
Almost certainly I’m on a hiding to nothing with this plant. But... just look at it. I was powerless to resist…
Read moreDay 221: summer weeding madness
High summer in the garden, and the bindweed continues its conquest of our beds and borders…
Read moreDay 220: Hot Lips
Some salvias are tender and require winter protection, but ‘Hot Lips’ – a cultivated variety of Salvia x jamensis – manages to survive the whole year through planted outdoors…
Read moreDay 219: horseweed
Canadian fleabane, or horseweed (Erigeron canadensis), seems to be the poor relation to its Mexican counterpart…
Read moreDay 218: rose campion
Right around now, as August arrives and many of the plants in the borders – congratulating themselves on another good job done – are beginning to get seedy and a little tired…
Read moreDay 217: montbretia
Two things are undeniably true about montbretia, that pernicious crocosmia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora)…
Read moreDay 216: hogweed
When the hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) starts to go to seed, you know that summer’s days are numbered…
Read moreDay 215: seedy and weedy
Two words in the horticultural lexicon receive short shrift when transferred into everyday parlance…
Read moreDay 214: lavender snip
Nobody likes me for suggesting the lavender needs cutting back in August. It’s looking glorious right now…
Read moreDay 213: raspberry thief
Here in the southeasternmost corner of the UK, we’re all still waiting for the summer that’s yet to arrive with anything like conviction. Today, we tumble into August…
Read moreDay 212: hemp leaved hollyhock
Not really a hollyhock, but like a hollyhock, a mallow, with leaves distinctly reminiscent of the naughty wonder-plant…
Read moreDay 211: globe artichoke
A peachy violet fuzz has appeared overnight on the globe artichokes, letting me know that I’ve missed harvesting them for another year…
Read moreDay 210: globe thistle
Summer here would be incomplete without the lavender blue lollipops of the globe thistle, Echinops ritro, just coming into flower…
Read moreDay 209: Lucifer lately
The weather this year has been surpassing odd, but never more than in the way that it’s delayed the appearance of Lucifer, the tall crocosmia…
Read moreDay 208: summer growth
Everything is growing like it’s going out of fashion, that last push to bulk up before the light truly begins to fade…
Read moreDay 207: Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty'
Thunder rumbling from a threatening sky and the first heavy drops of intent falling on me, I’m squatting in a border, entranced by the heleniums…
Read moreDay 206: wild teasel
I think I’d almost grow the teasel for its botanical name alone – there’s something very satisfying about intoning ‘Dipsacus fullonum!’, loudly, as if it were some kind of Potterish incantation…
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