The life and loves of a time-poor plantsman
Whilst tempting to lament the summer that never was, now is the time to be looking ahead and planting your spring-flowering bulbs. The first 2022 catalogues seemed to arrive earlier than ever this year, some of them well before the last tulips had faded in our garden. With no opportunity to impress customers at the […]
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One can be excused for inactivity during January – after all, Christmas is exhausting – but with the arrival of February the garden begins to demand one’s attention again. First of all there are the early signs of spring. Snowdrops are starting to bloom, tiny blue anemones poke tightly curled buds and bronzed leaves through […]
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How fortunate that my first visit to Sissinghurst this year should coincide with the warmest day of the spring so far. As the car bowled through the Weald of Kent the roads were fringed with sulphur-yellow catkins and golden daffodils, sparking beneath a clear blue sky. The greys and browns of winter had started […]
Read MoreA reminder that next week, on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February, the RHS will be marking the imminent arrival of spring with their London Plant and Design Show. There will be ravishing displays of spring bulbs and winter flowering shrubs from the country’s top nurseries, plus a preview of this year’s Chelsea and Hampton […]
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Victoria, once a grey and unexciting slice of central London sandwiched between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, has been undergoing something of a transformation. For those of us that work the area it’s been painful. The redevelopment of the creaking underground station seems already to have taken a lifetime, with completion another 5 years away. […]
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After a night of torrential rain – the kind of deluge that you’d imagine might signal the end of the world – it was a surprise to wake up on Saturday morning with sunlight streaming through the windows. It’s on nights like these that our coastal garden becomes a repository for the entire town’s debris […]
Read MoreIn this debauched scene, naked ladies cavort in the damp grass, collapsing hither and thither in gay abandon. Also known as meadow saffron or autumn crocus these delicate denizens of damp meadows can be found growing wild in the western half of Britain, where they push through the sward in early September. They are known as naked […]
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Last night, as we lay in bed, it was almost as if a BBC special effects man was standing outside the bedroom window chucking buckets of water at the window. The sea roared, the wind howled and the freezing rain came down in sheets. By this morning, arms tired, our imaginary tormentor had moved to […]
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I’ve returned home to the seaside after three weeks away. Hurrah! It’s good to be back, but boy is it cold. In my absence, spring seems to have made little headway in it’s battle with winter. Snow is forecast today and the sky is low and leaden. However there are signs that the fight is […]
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