The life and loves of a time-poor plantsman
It is official, we won’t go hungry this summer! Harvesting on the allotment has well and truly begun, especially the crop of courgettes, and we are eating more of our home-grown produce every day. Previously I mentioned our salad crops and I can most definitely confirm that we are now eating plenty of fresh leaves. […]
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As indispensable plants for seaside gardens go, ostespermums are high on the list, and most certainly in the top ten. They are low-growing, sun-loving sub-shrubs which produce a profusion of large, daisy-like flowers in spring. Modern varieties continue to bloom throughout the summer and autumn, but lack the poise and elegance of plain old […]
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Among the many perks of my job is the opportunity to travel. In the last fortnight I have been to the USA, Germany and The Netherlands, during which time my feet have hardly touched the ground. Whilst I am travelling, I just ‘have’ to visit any garden-orientated shops that happen to be en route. […]
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Whether in gardens, nature, art or through the camera lens, flowers fascinate me. At the root of my love of gardening lies a deep-seated passion for flowers in all their myriad forms. On the journey from bud to seed, my favourite stage of a flower’s development is its first opening. There is something about the perfection […]
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Tonight I am greatly in need of a happy pill. The best I can muster from the depths of the medicine cabinet is a dusty asprin and some anti-acid tablets, so as an alternative I am resorting to the best therapy of all, looking at flowers. Even as a toddler I contented myself for hours […]
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These flowers may faintly resemble those of a Nymphaea, but here the resemblance of Colchicum ‘Waterlily’ to an aquatic plant ends. Like other colchicums, the flowers of C. ‘Waterlily’ emerge naked, buxom and blushing from fecund, cinnamon-coloured bulbs each autumn. They prefer a well-drained soil, which remains moist rather than wet in summer, and full sun or light shade. […]
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Rarely do I find myself lost for words but tonight, as I consider my return to work and the inevitability of autumn, I feel a little subdued. This is a far cry from my elation earlier today when Ipomoea indica AGM (blue dawn flower) finally deigned to produce a pair of its short-lived flowers on a day when we […]
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Begonias are such stalwarts of the summer garden that they are often overlooked, even sniffed at, by so-called fashionable gardeners. I’m not attracted by the enormous, dinner-plate sized blooms of most tuberous begonias, but find single flowered hybrids essential for colour in my partially-shaded garden. They do not demand day-long sun and look all the better […]
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If ever a dahlia deserved the classification ‘waterlily’, describing the shape of the blooms, it’s Dahlia ‘Firepot’. The juicy-fruit colours might have given Monet a fright, but the lush, softly incurved petals are a gardener’s delight. They begin sulphur yellow at the centre, fading out to tangerine and then coral at the tips. In bud […]
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I was in the garden early this morning, the very best time to be out there, enjoying the collared doves’ soft cooing between bursts of raucous squealing from the circling herring gulls. Whilst ducking down into the entrance of our undercroft for tools I spied an enormous bumble bee clinging pathetically to a pile of black plastic pots. At first it seemed she, surely a […]
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