Pat Austin (the orange), Molineux (yellow) and the very fragrant Evelyn (peachy-cream). The perfect antidote to a busy day. Take a few roses and place in a handy small stone bottle - or vessel of your choosing. Inhale fragrance. Relax.
Month: June 2013
Split personalities
One plant, two roses. David Austin rose, Winchester Cathedral Winchester Cathedral, the white, is a 'sport' of an old David Austin favourite, Mary Rose. A sport (in a nutshell) is a spontaneous mutation, identical in all outward respects save, in this instance, flower colour, (though it may also, for example, be a climbing sport of…
Continue reading ➞ Split personalities
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Iceland Poppies
Papaver nudicaule - Iceland poppies A rather dreary day uplifted by these little poppies - whipping around in the wind. Bees seem quite ecstatic in their company. I can imagine sitting at the bottom of an enormous bowl of orange, yellow or red and feeling quite transported myself.
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Lichfield Angel
Lichfield Angel, a David Austin English musk hybrid rose, introduced in 2006. I included five in the Roehampton garden project last year, which ought to make a decent stand in the semi-circular border. If the large planter at Syon today is any comparison, it should develop into a large crown, studded with creamy white blooms.…
Continue reading ➞ Lichfield Angel
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Kew Green
An architectural digest of some of the houses, and gardens, on Kew Green. I missed Open Gardens there a little while ago, so losing out on the opportunity of seeing the back gardens, which promise much. Next year then.
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Brief Encounter
The wisteria blossom is almost over, a brief but intense affair, but before it goes altogether, a look at one last display at the RHS gardens at Wisley, taken a week or so ago. On a sturdy pillar, twin pillars in fact, a glamorous, deeply fragrant display that you can get right up close to…
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Roses all the way; a superb specialist rose nursery in Sussex.
There seems to be a series developing here. Garden Centres I have known. Some, like Petersham Nurseries are pure fantasy, a theatrical experience where plants dress the stage, along with much else besides. Wych Cross Garden Centre, just south of East Grinstead, has magic too but for different reasons - real passion and a collection…
Continue reading ➞ Roses all the way; a superb specialist rose nursery in Sussex.
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Southbank “Festival of Neighbourhood”
I'm going to have a proper look at the Southbank Centre website to try and explain all of this. Horticulturally related, ingenious/make-do ways of growing things and so on, and I do like the wheelie-bin tree planters (which you can adopt) clustered around the brilliant sculpture of Nelson Mandela. And the wheelbarrows full of veg.…
Continue reading ➞ Southbank “Festival of Neighbourhood”
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Yes please…
What a lovely spot from which to admire your garden. An apartment just behind the Tate Modern, Bankside, overlooking the communal garden, though I can imagine it as my own. Hmm. Prices for 2-bed apartments starting at £1M... I'll resist the urge to look up the penthouses - they may have a multi-million pound View…
Continue reading ➞ Yes please…
The Teddington Gardener 