The Frustrated Gardener

The life and loves of a time-poor plantsman
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Posts tagged ‘tubers’

  I should have predicted it. I take a holiday, I unwind (sort of), and up creeps the dreaded tonsillitis. It happens every time, without fail. I don’t suffer from many afflictions but this one comes along as regular as clockwork and it’s debilitating. Tonsillitis…

Plant Profile: Dahlia ‘Nicholas’

August 13, 2018
40

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In the world of gardening there are correct ways of doing things (as outlined in serious text books such as the RHS Encyclopaedia of Gardening) and wrong ways of doing things. These include, for the benefit of a work colleague who shall remain nameless, planting…

Bending the Rules

March 15, 2016
46

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Eranthis hyemalis: winter aconite, winter hellebore, winter wolf’s bane. Jack Frost has arrived in the south of England, wrapping his icy arms around our London garden, petrifying bare earth with his icy breath. His late arrival has sent many optimistic plants that dared to bloom…

Daily Flower Candy: Eranthis hyemalis

January 21, 2016
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Mirabilis jalapa: marvel of Peru, four o’clock flower, tea-time plant It’s been an extraordinary weekend for gardening. The weather has been warm, dry and still; not a cloud in the sky from when the sun rose on Saturday morning until it set on Sunday evening.…

Daily Flower Candy: Mirabilis jalapa

October 4, 2015
6

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When I was a boy, most dahlias looked a little like D. ‘Lady Darlene’. They were bold and brazen, not afraid to be bi-coloured or brassy. Their flowers were either big, top-heavy confections or perfectly pert little pom-poms perfectly designed to hide earwigs. The dahlias of…

Dahlia Week: Big and Beautiful

September 9, 2015
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It’s rare that I regret not buying a plant. This is because I scarcely ever resist temptation in the first place. ‘Buy it now, you might never find it again and then you’ll be sorry’ says the mischievous flower fairy that follows me around gardens,…

Dahlia Week: Dahlia ‘Waltzing Mathilda’

September 8, 2015
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This week The Frustrated Gardener is devoting itself to that dazzling diva of the autumn garden, the dahlia. Since Christopher Lloyd re-ignited our fascination with this Mexican marvel gardeners have fallen head-over-heals for the dahlia’s beguiling blooms. I grew up with dahlias, growing bedding types…

Dahlia Week: Dahlia ‘Happy Halloween’

September 7, 2015
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I need more plants like I need a hole in the head. The garden is already bursting at the seams and there’s twelve weeks to go until it reaches its most junglified. But when confronted with a bargain my willpower withers like a dandelion doused…

Daily Flower Candy: Incarvillea delavayi ‘Snowtop’

June 4, 2015
5

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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.…

Daily Flower Candy: Begonia ‘Glowing Embers’

September 6, 2014
3

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“I don’t just like dahlias: I love them” asserts Andy Vernon on the opening page of his new book, The Plant Lover’s Guide to Dahlias. Even had he not spelt it out so explicitly, readers would have been left in no doubt of his passion for…

Book Review – The Plant Lover’s Guide to Dahlias

August 25, 2014
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