The life and loves of a time-poor plantsman
Both gardens were overflowing with plants long before August arrived. There was a point at which getting from the garden gate to the front door was such an ordeal that even The Beau started to lose patience with me. At the end of July I reluctantly declared that I was going on plant diet, or, […]
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There are few plants as rewarding and foolproof to grow as those that sprout from bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes. Among their number we can count favourites such as gladioli, begonias, lilies, dahlias, amaryllis and nerines, alongside lesser known, exotic beauties such as habranthus (Brazilian copperlily), gloriosa (glory lily), eucomis (pineapple lily), eremurus (foxtail […]
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The changing of the clocks makes an enormous difference to my enjoyment of the garden. Although the mornings have temporarily descended back into darkness, there is still light in the sky when I arrive home in the evening. Soon this will increase to broad daylight and by midsummer I’ll be able to enjoy the […]
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I consider myself a progressive gardener, but some habits are hard to kick. Growing in containers is an enforced habit as I have no open ground to speak of, and, although I admire great sweeps of the same plant, the desire to replicate this rarely overwhelms my passion for collecting more and more treasures. […]
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I have a problem. With the garden next door out of action and no immediate prospect of gaining it back, I have grown way too many plants for the space available. First of all I ignored the foliage coming at me from every direction. That worked reasonably well until I started dismembering things. Then, […]
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Nurturing two gardens eighty eight miles apart is mainly a blessing, but sometimes a curse. The task becomes tricky if we want to take a holiday, spend more time in one place than the other, or if we hit a dry, wet or windy spell, which is all too often. Each scenario comes with […]
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Gardeners the world over are obsessed with flowers. I am no exception. As well as being beautiful to look at, flowers are a sign of success, something one can measure a garden and its gardener by. Along with fruit and vegetables, flowers are part of the horticultutal triumvirate we choose to judge competitively, always striving […]
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Here at The Watch House we are steadily building up to our second annual National Gardens Scheme open weekend on August 1st and 2nd. Unlike last year, when the whole exercise was an unknown, we are approaching this year’s event with a certain amount of surety. The posters are up and the plants are in; our helpers have […]
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The winter solstice is the longest night and shortest day of the year, this year falling on Sunday December 21st. The Earth’s axis tilts the furthest away from the sun at 23-and-a-half degrees, giving all locations north of the equator less than 12 hours of daylight. This pivotal moment in the calendar has been marked by […]
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From a very early age my parents took me and my sister to visit gardens. I like to think the reason was to cultivate our interest in flowers and plants, but as one follower of this blog commented recently (with reference to another Cornish garden, Trebah), it was probably to keep us both from wreaking havoc […]
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