The tatting fern is back. There are many splendid things about this particular plant, not least it’s botanical name…
Read moreDay 233: the persistence of the field poppy
Possibly lacking the glamour of their near relatives the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) and the oriental poppy (Papaver orientale), the field poppy (P. rhoeas) could be considered the scrappier cousin …
Read moreDay 232: thug life
I’ve been talking with friends about thugs today. The kind in whom you identify a certain promise that perhaps no one else quite sees…
Read moreDay 231: Hydrangea 'Zorro'
Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Zorro’ is not having a great year. Handsome foliage and deep, black stems to die for…
Read moreDay 230: solidago
Someone, it seems, has been splashing mustard about the garden. Even on this lamentable excuse for a summer’s day…
Read moreDay 229: brushing Melissa
Of all the unlooked-for encounters in the garden this week, the accidental brushing up against Melissa is perhaps the most invigorating…
Read moreDay 228: embracing hollyhocks
I was confounded earlier by some advice on how to make sure your hollyhocks don’t self seed…
Read moreDay 227: ban urban pesticides
A petition has been doing the rounds; created by Professor Dave Goulson, it aims to put an end to the indiscriminate spraying of chemical pesticides in urban areas…
Read moreDay 226: let it go and let it grow
Lovers of neat edges might find the garden a particular challenge at this time of year…
Read moreDay 225: a roll-call of plants
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…
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