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RHS London Rose Show 2016
It’s a good sign when the Royal Horticultural Society show schedule is growing rather than shrinking. Last year an early summer London Rose Show was added to the programme; this November the...
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Rhododendron Rebound
Although I’ve never been able to grow them well, rhododendrons have always held a special place in my heart. I grew up visiting the gardens of Cornwall in the school holidays – Trewidden,...
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Daily Flower Candy: Crinodendron hookerianum
Crinodendron hookerianum: Chilean lantern tree, Tricuspidaria lanceolata There are some trees that you don’t come across very often, but when you do they are guaranteed to blow you away. Crinodendron...
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Stourhead Revisited
“We reached Stourhead at 3 o’clock. By that time the sun had penetrated the mist, and was gauzy and humid ….. Never do I remember such a Claude-like, idyllic beauty here. See Stourhead and die.”...
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A Tale of Two Gardens
Nurturing two gardens eighty eight miles apart is mainly a blessing, but sometimes a curse. The task becomes tricky if we want to take a holiday, spend more time in one place than the other, or if we...
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Daily Flower Candy: Catalpa bignonioides “Aurea” AGM
I am deep into writing two or three lengthy posts, each of which is defying me when it comes to crafting a satisfactory ending. Rather than torture myself, experience tells me to write about...
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Castle Park Physic Garden, Bristol
As I alighted from the train at Bristol Temple Meads station on Saturday, I worked out that it had been 25 years since I had last set foot in the city. Whilst it’s a fine place, and not without its...
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Standing Room Only
With the garden at Polegate Cottage temporarily occupied by builders and tradesmen, I am experiencing an explosion in the plant population next door at The Watch House. Having cuttings, seedlings and...
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Going to The Chapel
When a new garden opens for the National Gardens Scheme in Thanet it’s a major event, principally because there are only three others, one of which is my own. And this year’s newcomer, situated in an...
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Daily Flower Candy: Hosta “Halcyon” AGM
Alright, enough now, all this wet stuff has been marvellous but where’s the sun? This time last year it was scorching – so scorching in fact that my day at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show was made...
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Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2016: Show Gardens – Part I
I am not a negative individual by nature, but I had misgivings about this year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Some of the design drawings on the RHS website looked positively ghastly and I am...
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Dazzling Disas
Being a man of the world, it takes quite a lot to impress me. Yet Dave Parkinson’s display of South African disa orchids at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show never fails to take my breath away....
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Il Giardino di Boboli, Florence
The Medici of Florence were not only one of the richest families in Europe for a time, but also phenomenal garden makers. They laid out the grounds of their multitudinous palaces and villas to...
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Daily Flower Candy: Clematis “Étoile Violette” AGM
The only plant of any value that came with the purchase of Polegate Cottage was a clematis. Squeezed into an impossibly tight gap between paving slabs it scrambles over a wrought iron arch above the...
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Keep Your Summer Garden Looking Lush for Longer
As mid summer turns into late summer, it’s all too easy to let your garden go to seed, literally. As a child I remember leaving my parents garden in its prime for our annual sojourn in Cornwall....
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Midnight Blooms
I have a new torch and I don’t mind admitting I am rather taken with it. The last one was indestructible but about as useful as a chocolate teapot, emitting a feeble yellow light even at close...
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Opening Pains
Had we opened our seaside garden on the usual weekend, this is the scene that would have greeted our visitors. Not bad, even if I do say so myself. Instead, we spent the weekend in London,...
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The Final Countdown
Twelve days to go and preparation for this year’s garden opening feels like one of those bad dreams where, try as one may, one never reach the finishing line. I can usually let go of the reins a...
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Ever Decreasing Circles
This is a petrocosmea, a ground-hugging, rosette-forming relative of the African violet, hailing from the mountains of Western China. In its natural habitat it has a nice, orderly life, bathed in...
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Waiting and Anticipating
When preparing for our garden opening, I find I end up doing anything but gardening. Over the last two days I have been painting the front gate, unearthing chairs from the cellar, jet-washing the...
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