I can see a new addiction coming from a mile off, so on the whole I steer well clear of orchids. Over the ages thousands of plant collectors have been consumed, even broken, by their […]
Plant Profile: Ivy-leaved toadflax
Cymbalaria muralis: Ivy-leaved toadflax, ivywort, Kenilworth ivy, coliseum ivy, Oxford ivy, mother of thousands, mother of millions, thousand flower, pennywort, wandering sailor, Aaron’s beard, pedlar’s basket, rabbits, ruine-de-Rome (French), zimbelkraut (German), muurleeuwenbek (Dutch). “Cymbalaria ….. […]
April Showers
Unpredictability is the name of the game when it comes to British weather, but one old proverb certainly promises to ring true in 2019: ‘March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.’ Whilst the […]
Morrab Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall
March can be a wild and windy month, especially in the far south-west of Cornwall. So it was that we turned up at Trewidden to view the magnolias only to find the garden was closed […]
‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman who saved Japan’s Blossoms
If you’ve been reading the newspapers or listening to BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week programme recently, you will already be acquainted with one of Britain’s most interesting but perhaps least well-known plant collectors, […]
Awkward
Some days and some jobs are just awkward. Some days some jobs are awkward and the next day they feel straightforward. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s me, perhaps it’s the job; maybe it’s a […]
Magnolia × veitchii ‘Peter Veitch’
My ‘proper’ camera, a now rather dated DSLR, has been in a cupboard since September. I know it takes better photographs than an iPhone, but when conditions are less than ideal I just can’t be […]
