Daily Flower Candy: Lathraea clandestina
Reading time 1 minute
Clandestina by name, clandestine by nature, Lathraea clandestina is partial to the roots of alders, willows and hazels. This furtive perennial parasite isn’t native […]
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Daily Flower Candy: Tulips ‘Purissima’ and ‘Orange Emperor’
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Every year I experiment with tulips in different colour combinations. Last year it was fiery orange ‘Princesse Irene’ and inky purple ‘Recreado’, this year […]
Daily Flower Candy: Fritillaria ‘William Rex’
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Sound the fanfare, here he is, His Majesty William Rex, King of the Spring. After a disappointing year last year, when all my bulbs […]
Paradise Found – Bumthang to Punakha
Reading time 8 minutes
First off, meet these cheeky grey langurs we met steeling bags of salt near the pass at Pele La. They’re not rare, but they […]
Prunus serrula var. tibetica
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As shaggy and appealing as an Irish Setter, this is the trunk of a magnificent, mature Tibetan cherry, Prunus serrula var. tibetica, which we […]
Flowering Now: Erythronium revolutum
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This wonderful moment in spring, when the sun shines and before the leaves appear on the trees, is the time when carpets of flowers […]
Let the Show Begin!
Reading time 5 minutes
After almost four weeks away from our coastal garden I am back in the driving seat. For a fleeting moment this morning it felt […]
Flowers of Bhutan – Arisaema nepenthoides
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Bhutan’s forests may bear a passing similarity to the great gardens of Cornwall, but you know you’re somewhere exotic when the forest floor is […]
Bumthang in Bloom
Reading time 8 minutes
You’d be forgiven for thinking we’d transported ourselves to Switzerland but, no, this is Bhutan’s cultural heartland, Bumthang. Four bucolic pine-clad valleys make up […]
Plants in Detail – Roystonea regia
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Often the true beauty of plants can be found in the intricate details of leaves, flowers seedpods and stems. This beautiful trunk belongs to […]
Tulips from Kashmir
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Every year, Srinagar’s Indira Gandhi Tulip Garden on the banks of the Dal Lake are planted with over 1.5 million tulips, creating the largest […]
Flowers of Bhutan – Clematis montana
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I have finally solved the curious case of the flowering evergreen oak. All along our travels in Bhutan I kept spotting what appeared to […]