Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Liquidambar styraciflua My feet take me, every autumn, to a small stand of liquidambars in the arboretum at RHS Wisley, trees which vie with the Japanese Maple for the bonfire colours they take on as the weather cools and the sun heads south. The yellow leaves are a fastigiate (slender, columnar, narrow) cultivar called Kirsten…
Continue reading ➞ Like a Maple, but not a Maple….
A tree...this really is a beautiful specimen - at RHS Wisley, in the area behind the Bowes Lyon Rose Garden, that, earlier in the season, would be carpeted with spring flowering crocus. Gorgeous elongated leaves, with a twist, and in a Joseph's Coat of autumn colour. Â With colchicums at the base, the Autumn crocus. Symmetry.…
Continue reading ➞ Tetradium glabrifolium var glaucum. So there!
Tricyrtis macropoda (of the lily family) The Toad Lilies, so-called because of their spotted flowers, are sound perennials, preferring a soil that does not dry out, and containing a good stint of humus. They do well in the north, but the cooler the district the more sun should be available to them, to hasten their…
Japanese maples, come Autumn time, can give some of the most exciting displays as their leaves turn to bonfire shades. Many make excellent trees for the smaller garden and many are happy in containers too. They prefer a little dappled shade - a more open site if they are kept well watered but not the…
Continue reading ➞ Japanese Maples – planning for some garden fireworks
A little trip to southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean, to soak up some garden inspiration.... Palms, pines and ancient olives... and mimosa, hibuscus, bougainvillea, vines, eucalyptus, lantana, opuntia, peaches and lemons, slender cypress.... a few aromatic and atmospheric planting ideas for UK gardens I think! and a little of this too - well, all work…
Continue reading ➞ Researching the Mediterranean Garden…
Just a small selection of fragrant shrub roses from the David Austin stable (with the exception of Ghislaine de Feligonde, a delightful and vigorous, repeat flowering  rambler) - and none of them pink. I'm particularly fond of the deep yellow/mustard rose Charles Austin, which has an antique, fin-de-siècle style. http://www.davidaustinroses.com
These galleries are almost all hydrangeas with big, cone-shaped flower-heads, (paniculata), rather than rounded mop-heads (though I have included Nymphe in the galleries) - and one oak-leaved hydrangea (with distinctive leaf shape and excellent autumn colour). They have all been photographed on the slopes of Battleston Hill in the gardens of RHS Wisley, where they…
Continue reading ➞ Happy Hydrangeas
Cosmos Chocamocha A new-ish form of the favourite chocolate-scented, late-summer flowering Cosmos atrosanguineus... with even more chocolately aroma, velvety bronze-red flowers and all a little more compact, so less need for staking. It will flower, in full sun, from June to September and grow to a height of 45cm. A great companion for other late-flowering…
Continue reading ➞ Another chocolate fancy…
Dahlia Mingus AlexA classic deep dark red Dahlia, Mingus Alex, with strong sturdy stems and growing to a respectable and practical 1m in height. I ordered (I might have said) a few dozen dahlias from Rose Cottage Plants last year, rather forgetting that my own garden is considerably less than the couple of acres I…
Continue reading ➞ If I must have just one dahlia…
The Teddington Gardener 