There is a patch of ground in my garden that has definitely got the upper hand. It started as a sulking vegetable plot full of stones and rampant sun flowers. That era over, the next was a green manure crop of Phacelia tanacetifolia. Budding up, I failed to cut off the flowers and the next…
Review of Deckchair Gardening by Anne Wareham
In “The Deckchair Gardener” Anne and her mischievous and irreverent Gnome make it plain that all of us gardeners out there have been had, utterly had by the gardening nonsense that we have been reading over the years. What was gospel truth is taken by the collar and shaken to show up some crazy…
Dig your soil? Or then again, do not
Earlier this year I went to the Garden Press Event buried in the depths of the Barbican. Humming and hawing over whether to go, it seemed a long jump from home. Wrong wrong wrong. On arrival, a bright pink cupcake got pressed into my hand and spluttering, I fell into the hands of the…
Why I do not want to plant lilies at all (plus random garnish of pics)
I do not want to plant lilies at all. I hate to think how those bright red lily beetles can zone in. Living in the back of beyond well away from all human contact they still arrive. Do they travel about in prototype drones?
My 10 top tips for a successful PLANTING PLAN
This week I have mostly been spending time on planting plans and fending off the breath of chaos breathing down the back of my collar as I juggle with 6 or 7 different projects. It’s worth sharing some knowledge. THERMOMETER: Plant choice is worked out with my customers who can have as little or as…
Bulbs – try out the dolly mixture planting style
Bulbs are opportunists. Most come from the far Eastern end of the Mediterranean, from rocky scree where early snow melt gives a source of water before summer drought. The busting into leaf and flower comes from energy suppled by a modified root and shoot system stored in their fleshy cells. Photosynthesis and pollination accomplished, they…
Pennisetum Red Buttons runs away with me
I have been having a love-in with Fountain grasses for quite a while. Pictured here is the one that I have run away with in my not so big garden. It is Pennisetum massaicum ‘Red Buttons’. First eye-balled it at the Chelsea launch in 2010 on Neil Lucas’s Knoll stand. Stalked after that, including…
How was it for you? 2017 Garden Press Event
How was it for you? I am about to ring my PR mate and ask her about yesterday’s Garden Press Event. Actually I tried to call her for directions as I blundered round windy walkways that skylined past St Giles Cripplegate church, urban lunchers and chunks of Roman Wall. The Barbican Exhibition hall was not…
Greening the grey with High Line
Every twenty years or so landscape design puts something truly revolutionary into the public domain. For instance The Landschaftspark in Duisburg-Meiderich, Germany, designed in 1991 by Latz + Partners. Set in an abandoned coal and steel production plant, the concept for this site was to embrace the industrial past and preserve as much of…
Do ‘water features’ set your teeth on edge?
Musings in our house have turned to the magical quality of water, to where to put it in the garden and what the influences and inspiration might be. I will walk you round the history and psychology of water in the landscape, but for starters, I am giving rosettes for my three…