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Plant Portraits: Osmanthus fragrans (Guìhuā (桂花) or Sweet Olive)
It is customary in Hong Kong for 5 star hotels to have a house fragrance, pumped into lobbies in heady clouds and sold at great expense in the gift shop. However, it’s not often one steps out of a car...
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A Walk Around The Peak
Spending time in Hong Kong is no great hardship. But after a week in showrooms so crammed with Christmas sparkle that you can almost feel the glitter in your lungs, it is good to get some fresh air....
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Burmese Days
Young Boy, Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival, Inle Lake It was exactly one year ago that we were in Burma, enjoying a magical holiday in this beautiful, friendly country. Twelve months later my memories...
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Daily Flower Candy: Vitis coignetiae AGM
This year’s autumn is turning out to be a long, drawn-out affair – less rocket, more damp squib. But whatever the weather, a handful of plants are guaranteed to put on a firework display. Vitis...
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Daily Flower Candy: Pansy ‘Matrix Cassis’
The candy jar has been rather empty of late, so I am topping it up today with pansy ‘Matrix Cassis’, planted in a pot at the edge of our pond in London. This is a new hybrid series which has been bred...
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Return to the Salutation
With both gardens almost locked-down for winter it’s time to start writing about some of the places that have not yet made it on to The Frustrated Gardener. These half-forgotten visits are like...
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Gathering Moss
I spent yesterday touring the garden centres of Holland, looking for Christmas inspiration. I found it in spades, from delicious Oliebollen (literally oil-balls, rather like a spherical doughnut spiked...
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Going Dutch
In an unusual turn of events, I am sitting still today even though there are more important things I should be doing. I am not poorly, but I am out of steam after two weeks of globetrotting. Today is...
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Bursting Forth on Boxing Day
This Christmas our friends Travis and Beth at Trevoole sent us a copy of ‘Dear Friend and Gardener’, a collection of correspondence between distinguished gardeners Beth Chatto and the late, great...
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The Very Best of 2013 – A Year In Pictures
When I wrote my equivalent post this time last year, I thought 2012 was a momentous year, but reflecting on 2013 I find the last twelve months have more than measured up. I celebrated my 40th...
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Daily Flower Candy: Geranium maderense
The last plant I expected to be blooming over the New Year was Geranium maderense, the Maderia Cranesbill. Clearly confused, a few shocking-pink flowers are braving the elements, sheltered below an...
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New Year’s Resolutions
It was with some trepidation that I searched this blog for my last batch of New Year’s resolutions. Naturally I have been observing them fastidiously, reviewing my performance at regular intervals and...
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Daily Flower Candy: Petasites fragrans (Winter Heliotrope)
Our flying visit to Cornwall was punctuated by heavy showers and sunny spells. Farmland around St Agnes was sodden, little tin streams swollen and beaches stripped bare by the storm tides. But where...
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Aeonium Envy
I have loved a great many aeoniums, and lost a few too. Not to frost, which is is their main enemy in UK gardens, but to lack of sunshine and a mysterious, munching caterpillar. Back at home in...
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Trevoolery
We do not get back to Cornwall often enough, but the arrival of my sister’s new baby spurred us into making the five hour journey to the far South West of England by train. During our flying visit we...
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Between the Storms
To call this winter a wash-out would be something of an understatement. Parts of the country have experienced double the average amount of rainfall and vast swathes of countryside are still under...
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Miraculous Mosses
Along with ducks, umbrella salesmen and water companies, mosses are among the few things enjoying this frightful spell of wet weather. The rain brings them out in all their spongy, hummocky,...
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Daily Flower Candy: Schizostylis ‘Pink Princess’
Like a bemused child that has awoken with a start, the blushing, innocent flowers of Schizostylis ‘Pink Princess’ have opened their eyes during the midst of our watery winter. Kaffir lilies, as they...
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A Haven for Hellebores
Plunging down a steep lane at the edge of the cathedral city of Truro, one arrives at Bosvigo. This two acre garden surrounding a beautiful 17th century house is one of Cornwall’s most unique; not...
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Daily Flower Candies: Helleborus foetidus & Iris foetidissima
One might consider it wise to steer well clear of any plant with a latin name ending foetidus or foetidissima. After all the epithet means bad-smelling, or having a fetid odour; something most of us...
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