Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
I've been trying to find the photographs from my September 2011 visit to Great Dixter, Christopher Lloyd's superb garden in Sussex - but they are clearly misfiled somewhere in the deeper recesses of my computer.... An album of 135 pics is to be found on my Facebook page, with the link below, though this only…
Continue reading ➞ Great Dixter for Facebook
Anemone Wild Swan In flower from May to November, growing knee-high, and with refined foliage (more Anemone sylvestris than Anemone x hybrida), the standout feature of this relatively new introduction is the reverse of the otherwise pure white bloom - a three painted flashes of liac-purple. With flowers held above the foliage on wiry stems,…
Continue reading ➞ A swan? Me a swan? Ah, go on!
A little more to look forward too, as border grasses take on their golden garb and become the main attraction. These pictures are from the RHS Gardens at Wisley, featuring the double Piet Oudolf Borders running between the orchards and the lake. A few more weeks and the show will be at its zenith -…
Continue reading ➞ Grasses take centre stage…
Just a few things to look forward to this month, on show at RHS Wisley and, perhaps, in a garden near you!
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. 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
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
The Teddington Gardener 