Peeling skin is not a good look for most creatures. For a tree, though, it seems to work, and Acer griseum, the paperbark maple, has certainly worked out how to turn this ailment to its best advantage…
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast, Series 1 Episode 10
What do you do when you realise you’ve been living with someone else’s garden? In discussion with landscape architect Marian Boswall, we discuss intention and purpose in garden design, the place of the landscape, and who the client really is.
Read moreDay 130: Tulip 'Black Parrot'
The tulips are just about done, ‘Black Parrot’ being one of the last to open. It seems a fitting variety with which to say goodbye…
Read moreDay 129: camassias
May is camassia time, and if you’re lucky enough to live near a garden where they’ve been planted en masse, you’re in for a treat…
Read moreDay 128: raising stakes
The first couple of weeks of May are just about your last proper chance of getting stakes into your flower beds in order to prevent top-heavy herbaceous plants from flopping about…
Read moreDay 127: floral confetti
The May bank holiday arrives, and even the trees join in the celebrations, strewing their petals across the ground to provide a glorious carpet on which to tread…
Read moreDay 126: Tulip 'Queen of Night'
Just as you start to worry that the tulips have had it, Queen of Night appears, reliably in time for the May bank holiday…
Read moreDay 125: green alkanet
What’s green, blue, and hairy, and probably all over your garden right now? Green alkanet, that’s what, or Pentaglottis sempervirens to give it its full name…
Read moreDay 124: petrichor
I hear the rain before I see it, look up to see its glinting edge drawn across the width of the garden, gaining ground…
Read moreDay 123: considered disorder
There’s a little corner in the gardens at Penshurst Place that a casual observer might be forgiven for thinking had been overlooked by the gardeners…
Read moreDay 122: Tulip 'Brownie'
There are double tulips...and then there’s ‘Brownie’. Officially, it’s a paeony-flowered variety, though it’s far more orange than any paeony I know…
Read moreDay 121: scent of wisteria
It was years before I realised the flowers of wisteria were highly scented. I’m sure I thought the plant already gave enough…
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