The lilac is on the point of bursting into bloom; I can’t help sticking my nose into each candle-shaped inflorescence…
Read moreDay 133: woodland floor planting
There’s a subtlety to the way that Mother Nature plants that eludes the human gardener, so far from the grids and patterns of our planting plans…
Read moreDay 132: scented sentries
A building without plants by the entrance always seems a little austere – doubly so when it’s a home…
Read moreDay 131: droopy Tuesday
My tulips are flopping, and I rather love them that way. Of course I’ve not cut them from my own garden – these glorious beauties are from a kind friend…
Read moreDay 130: Erythronium
The dog’s tooth violet isn’t a violet at all, but a member of the lily family, and closely related to the tulip…
Read moreDay 129: dog violet
I’m not sure you’re supposed to laugh at your flowers. But in all honesty, I’ve seen the violets look better…
Read moreDay 128: black and blue
Always the first of the geraniums to appear, the mourning widow (Geranium phaeum) sneaks into the borders while everyone’s making a fuss of the tulips…
Read moreDay 127: the bashful bluebell
The Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) have arrived at last – though it might be that I’m the only person in the country who’s been waiting for them.
Read moreDay 126: planting combinations
The flowers have been cosying up to one another, but they needn’t think they’ve gotten away with it…
Read moreDay 125: suddenly the sun
Ok, now this feels like April. Just as we arrive in May which, when you come to think of it, is about right for a year that’s already revealed an inclination toward the tardy…
Read moreDay 124: the resilient garden
The garden is resilient, in spite of the wind howling around the house and buffeting every plant not nestled into the shelter of a hedge or shrub…
Read moreDay 123: black currant in bloom
Things are happening on the blackcurrant, the flowers appear to have survived the strange April weather, and in this we’re fortunate…
Read moreDay 122: an angry rhubarb
The rhubarb is shaking its fist at the sky. I think I know how it feels, though it’s interesting that this particular crown is always that much more cantankerous than the more mature clump by the greenhouse…
Read moreDay 121: send rain
Caught between being cross at the forecast for leaving me mentally unprepared for a soaking, and delighted that the sky was finally breaking after weeks without rain…
Read moreDay 120: arugula bolting
The brassicas are bolting! It sounds alarming – something that should be shouted by a panic stricken messenger bursting into a roomful of concerned villagers…
Read moreDay 119: garden overwhelm
There’s a degree of garden overwhelm around just now, inescapable in casual conversations with friends, exchanges with folk on social media…
Read moreDay 118: the miniaturist
These last few days of April are something of a delight for the miniaturist. Buds bursting in agonisingly slow motion …
Read moreDay 117: fashionably late to sow
And we’re off! Sauntering up to the starting block several moments after everyone else has sprinted around the first corner…
Read moreDay 116: changing of the guard
Clouds chasing each other in front of the sun while April blows and blusters in the garden, and even the rumour of rain later in the week…
Read moreDay 115: the thin blue line
The thin blue line that runs tentatively through the gardening year has experienced an interruption here. Typically by now the Spanish bluebells would be in flower…
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