Things have taken a turn for the inclement over the past day or two…
Read moreDay 273: acanthus again
There’s a kind of harlequin thing going on with the acanthus right now…
Read moreDay 272: salad burnet
Raspberries on sticks. That’s the rather prosaic description that springs instantly to mind when I see a sanguisorba in flower…
Read moreDay 271: lipstick plant
Bright scarlet, tubular flowers are promised on the latest addition to the indoor jungle…
Read moreDay 270: deadhead or die
A friend asked me a few days ago when she should stop deadheading her plants…
Read moreDay 269: Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Firetail’
If you don’t like a knotweed, you’d probably be a bit frustrated with the planting at Chelsea this year…
Read moreDay 268: meadow-rue
‘Airy’ is the word that springs to mind when thinking of meadow-rue in the garden…
Read moreDay 267: yellow coneflower
When it comes to yellow daisy-type flowers, there are more of them in the garden than you can shake a stick at….
Read moreDay 266: bog sage at Chelsea
Nothing bog standard about the show gardens at Chelsea Flower Show this year – bog sage, though, was popping up everywhere…
Read moreDay 265: flat-stalked spindle
If it’s too early in the year for you to read about autumn colour, you might want to skip today’s post…
Read moreDay 264: crocosmia rationalisation
The crocosmia always presents itself as a prime candidate for removal, splitting and rationalisation at this time of the year
Read moreDay 263: calico aster
I’ve yet to work out quite how asters get around a fairly reliable garden design principle…
Read moreDay 262: neon pothos
Opinion is divided in our house over the neon pothos (Epipremnum aureum ‘Neon’), a controversy second only to that which rages over the colour of the pot…
Read moreDay 261: making new wood
It doesn’t seem to matter how much I know about what happens when you cut a plant, or how many times I’ve carried it out…
Read moreDay 260: the last petunia
The last of the petunias, confirming that I’ll be winning no prizes either for deadheading or container watering this year…
Read moreDay 259: Panicum virgatum 'Warrior'
Of the many reasons to like a plant, its ability to make you smile should surely be close to the top…
Read moreDay 258: Cosmos
The garden’s beginning to take on the tired, satisfied air of one who’s run a hard race and now feels entirely deserving of a stretch, a rest, and a slap up fish supper…
Read moreDay 257: traveller’s joy
Among the many surprising relatives of the humble buttercup, traveller’s joy (Clematis vitalba) is probably one with few pretensions to grandeur…
Read moreDay 256: sea kale
Cabbages get everywhere, from the tiny hairy bittercress in your flowerbeds, to the yellow rape blanketing the countryside in summer, to the mustard leaves in your salad. Here on the beach…
Read moreDay 255: Persicaria capitata
A wander through the streets of Rye where I encounter a persicaria I’d not before met…
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