A timely guide to spring-flowering bulbs – choices, tips, techniques and planting ideas for a display from January to May

  More thieving from my back catalogue of articles, this one doubly so since it originally featured in September a few years ago, featuring images taken from 2014 onwards - and repeated again in April of this year. But spring-flowering bulbs are available now so this time of year is probably the most useful as bulbs can be…

It’s all going Vincent van Gogh – Sunflowers on trial at RHS Wisley

More from the Trial Fields at RHS Wisley, time-travelling back five years but a sight that still sticks in the memory. Such variety in height, flower size, colour, texture and bringing out the child in every one of us who ever grew them and watched them tower above us with delight. So, 2015 it is…

Postcards from Sussex – the extraordinary Arundel Castle and Gardens

  To prevent a general revolt over a daily onslaught of postcards from June 2017, you'll be glad yo note I've left out at least four more galleries from David Austin Roses in Shropshire, the delightful Chastleton House and a mooch around Woodstock and Blenheim Palace. For the not so feint-hearted, please search for stories…

RHS Wisley – woodlanders, rock gardens and alpines, many roses and more …

  If like me you have rejoiced in the fact that the gardens at RHS Wisley have reopened, but chagrinned that the timed visitor slots are booked solid though to the middle of July, a little public service blogging here, reprising a trip to the gardens exactly a year ago. You needn't miss all the…

A return to Penshurst Place and Gardens, Kent – and this time (well, pretty much exactly this time last year) we definitely have peonies ….

A return, after a years' absence, to the walled gardens at Penshurst Place in Kent. Well, a trip down memory lane but one definitely worth travelling down again. This time around, the famed 100m long peony border was looking fine, colourful and fragrant, growing lush and up through the wire grid, and with a long…

A guide to spring-flowering bulbs in the garden – planting ideas from January to May in kaleidoscopic style

  Bulbs in the spring garden. The text and images are timely in this piece, looking through the late winter and spring months January through to May, though it was originally written for a September story when the bulbs and corms would be available for planting. There are practical tips and hints planting of course,…

Explaining a little about fertilisers; What N:P:K means; the benefits of Organic Matter, mulches & green manure – and making your own compost & manure brews. Some steps towards Organic Gardening

I had quite a few ideas about gardening that I believed wholeheartedly but quite without foundation - that is before I started my formal horticultural training. One of these truths was that there was no such thing as the over-use of fertilisers. A little more would surely provide extra benefit. Well, no, it turned out.…

A break in the weather and time to get to RHS Wisley – woodlanders, rock gardens and alpines, many roses and more …

The weather has been decidedly un-summery these past few days and further North, it is set to be one of the wettest on record. Us softy Southerners, by geography if not by birth, have it a little brighter but still, dank, damp, humid and overcast. Still, I wanted to see the new retail space and…

A return to Penshurst Place and Gardens, Kent – and this time we definitely have peonies ….

A return, after a years' absence, to the walled gardens at Penshurst Place in Kent. This time around, the famed 100m long peony border was looking fine, colourful and fragrant, growing lush and up through the wire grid, and with a long way to go before it will run out of steam. With the rain…