Right, enough of the chilly starts. The apple blossom is out – the pear has been in bloom for a while now…
Read moreDay 113: hints of wisteria
The first blossom on the wisteria is out. A hint of what’s to come, the merest breath…
Read moreDay 112: Melianthus major
As gardeners, we probably shouldn’t take comfort in how bloody awful other people’s plants look, but when they’re in a posh garden, this kind of thing can often be a source of comfort…
Read moreDay 111: hoop petticoat daffodils
Talk about blowing your own trumpet. There’s not much more to the hoop petticoat daff (Narcissus bulbocodium) than its great long schnoz…
Read moreDay 110: the weirdness of weeding
Running my eye across the borders now, I’m reminded of what irks me most about our approach to gardening – our attitude to the plants we call ‘weeds’…
Read moreDay 109: ash
The ash isn’t a popular tree in suburban gardens. Mine certainly isn’t greatly beloved by the neighbours who…
Read moreDay 108: frozen sambuca
It’s disappointing to discover that, of all the ingredients essential to for a liqueur to be sold as Sambuca, the extract of elderflower (from the species Sambucus) is merely an optional inclusion…
Read moreDay 107: dandelion time
Time is a tricksy character. We measure it in all situations by the appearance of regular markers and, in the garden, we use plants; the first snowdrop, the first blossom…
Read moreDay 106: snowy mespilus
Not every plant got the memo about spring being late this year – and that really shouldn’t be surprising…
Read moreDay 105: pheasant’s eye
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…
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