I’ve just been to a houseplant festival. It was billed in one of the London mags as one of the ten coolest things to do this weekend. But that’s not why I went…
Read moreDay 272: American pokeweed
I’m always a bit envious of gardens that have made room from American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). It’s a great brute of a thing, six to eight feet high with thick green stems blushing to a kind of neon pink…
Read moreDay 271: the random raspberry
The raspberries are not very purposeful in my garden. I think one year they might have been – I’ve a vague memory of posts and lines and tying in…
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 2 Episode 1
Town or country, we’re surrounded by nature, though we might often be too busy rushing about to notice. An increasingly well-documented phenomenon is the benefit to our mental and spiritual wellbeing that can accrue from an environment populated by living plants, and who better to talk about this with than Caro Langton, one half of botanical design and installation studio RoCo.
Read moreDay 270: frost chicken
The month is flying by, but it’s still September, and there’s time yet for things to ping in the beds. Just – at least when it comes to flowers…
Read moreDay 269: backlight
Backlight. It’s something that autumn does very well, particularly in the garden…
Read moreDay 268: Dahlia 'Otto's Thrill'
Thanks to the unfaltering efforts of plant breeders over the decades, there’s probably a dahlia to suit every personality. Even, it could be argued, those who can’t abide dahlias…
Read moreDay 267: autumn arrives
Autumn arrived yesterday, and with it, the rain, putting paid to any last remaining hopes of an Indian summer…
Read moreDay 266: Blue daisy bush
A blue daisy with a variegated leaf? Yes please. I love being introduced to new plants, and so it was with no small degree of delight that I found Felicia amelloides ‘Variegata’ …
Read moreDay 265: Rose 'Twice in a Blue Moon'
To give a rose a name like ‘Twice in a Blue Moon’ would seem to suggest that its flowers appear, if not hardly every, at least almost hardly ever. This is misleading…
Read moreDay 264: the importance of pencil
Every gardener carries a notebook of some kind or another. The sensible ones write therein with a pencil – possibly a biro, but where’s the joy in writing with a biro…
Read moreDay 263: old curiosity pots
While few would deny the merits of a well made, attractively aged terracotta pot, there’s nothing to say that a plant’s precious root system shouldn’t be contained in something altogether more esoteric…
Read moreDay 262: Tiarella ‘Sugar and Spice’
The frothy pink and white flowers on this foamflower (Tiarella ‘Sugar and Spice’) are very much the icing on the cake for a plant which has it all – at least if you have areas of light shade…
Read moreDay 261: Geranium 'Dusky Crug'
Cats have catnip – but for me, there are purple-leaved plants. I have to restrain myself as they always look their best in a ratio of at the very least six to one in favour of their more verdantly foliaged fellows and, were I to be indulged, the whole garden would be one mass of maroon…
Read moreDay 260: ruby chard
Is it possible my ruby chard will remain unslugmunched for the duration of the colder months? I do hope so. This is one of the aesthetic vegetables that really make the kitchen garden sing with colour, texture and structure…
Read moreDay 259: Fuchsia 'Hawkshead'
Probably the closest you’ll get to having a bush full of snowdrops in summer, that’s Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ for you. In shape the flowers are not dissimilar from its near relative Fuchsia magellanica ‘Riccartonii’…
Read moreDay 258: roses in the shade
The roses keep going, whatever I throw at them. In this garden it’s mostly dappled shade, especially at this end of the year – as a rule of thumb roses should have at least four to six hours of direct sun daily…
Read moreDay 257: Echinacea 'Southern Belle'
I’m not sure how I feel about ‘fun’ flowers, but there’s something about this pink coneflower Echinacea purpurea ‘Southern Belle’ that makes me smile…
Read moreDay 256: ragwort
Ragwort gets a bad rap for being poisonous to horses, which it is, but that’s hardly the fault of the wildflower, and rather more of a system that manages to package it up in feed for domesticated beasts…
Read moreDay 255: Allium 'Summer Beauty'
When it comes to alliums the larger varieties often steal most of the glory. Quite rightly, many of us know ‘Purple Sensation’, while diehard ornamental onion fans will go big or go home with christophii or giganteum…
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