Every now and then, you should treat your garden to something a little out of the ordinary and, unless you’re particularly up for a challenge, not too hard to grow…
Read moreDay 91: gorse
Gorse (Ulex europeaus) is possibly one of the most useful plants you’ll ever meet…
Read moreDay 90: company while gardening
Do you prefer to garden in solitude, or in company? And, if the latter, does that company have a physical presence (human, canine...surely not piscine?), or a less corporeal form?
Read moreDay 89: anticipating tulips
I’ve marvelled at hellebores, paid my respects to snowdrops, learned to love daffs and greated my favourite narcissus with joy , but all the while, I’ve had this sense of anticipation in the back of my mind, and the waiting is almost done…
Read moreDay 88: Oxalis triangularis
This purple-leaved beauty is the big-brother to our native wood sorrels – the creeping, yellow-flowered little shamrocks with the lemon scented foliage that winkle their way into walls and paving cracks…
Read moreDay 87: pruning buddleia
Time for the buddleia to get the chop. Not the whole plant, you understand, just last year’s growth…
Read moreDay 86: beneath a hellebore
The ground beneath a hellebore is an interesting place to be in mid to late March…
Read moreDay 85: Narcissus 'Thalia'
There comes a day towards the end of March when all my waiting pays off, and the pure white flowers of Narcissus ‘Thalia’ open, two to each long, slender stem…
Read moreDay 84: divide and conquer
Plant enthusiasts have a tendency to buy too many different plants, and not enough of them. It’s a phenomenon particularly marked soon after being bitten by the garden bug…
Read moreDay 83: dahlia tubers
It’s time to start potting up dahlia tubers. Another of those wonderful, mindful tasks you can get lost in for a few hours…
Read moreDay 82: grape hyacinth
Once you have muscari (grape hyacinth), you’re probably not getting rid of it, due to its enthusiasm for colonising areas by both self-division of its tiny bulbs and by seed…
Read moreThe Wild Remedy; How Nature Mends Us
Lavishly illustrated with Emma Mitchell’s instantly recognisable sketches, paintings and flatlays of found objects, The Wild Remedy offers a whole year of hedgerow observations, walks among rockpools and country rambles, while demonstrating how the author turns to nature to assist in navigating her mental health.
Read moreDay 81: mulch
Nothing quite finishes off the beds and borders as winter turns to spring as a good thick covering of well-rotted organic mulch – which sounds disgusting, but looks rather better…
Read moreDay 80: magnolia
Every garden, every street, should have a magnolia of some form or another. The various hybrids of Magnolia x soulangeana are the most commonly planted, and perhaps the small-tree’s most Insta-famous incarnation ever-since social media developed a love affair for this flamboyant symbol of spring’s arrival…
Read moreDay 79: wood squill
Only a few inches high, the blue of a single wood squill (Scilla siberica) is enough to stop you in your tracks – a carpet of them would challenge our native bluebells…
Read moreDay 78: poet’s daffodil
Poet’s narcissus, or Pheasant eye (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus) is not your typical daff – although it has a strong claim to being the oldest…
Read moreDay 77: Hydrangea pruning
‘Off with their heads’. As if channelling the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, I find myself just now in the mood for a spot of decapitation, and I have the hydrangeas in mind…
Read moreDay 76: ground elder
The emerging leaves of this humble relative of the carrot are enough to strike fear into the heart of many a gardener. Ground elder, or goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) has a reputation as a tricky, invasive customer…
Read moreDay 75: daffodils
I have to ease myself in gently to daffodil season. I find many of them hard to love in spite of their unpretentious bonhomie, but I’m learning to appreciate an elongated trumpet here, a graceful, recurved petal there…
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 1 Episode 8
Having a fascination with the relationship between gardens, words and language, I was delighted when garden designer and poet Sean Swallow agreed to appear on the podcast. In this episode we talk about his garden at Scatterford, his poetry, and the relationship between the two.
Read more