Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Aconitum Bicolor (below) From here, we leave the Family Beds borders and step into the Rock Garden (bypassing the superb Salvia Borders are there is still a long way to go before they look at their best - October at least) First, this extravagant show of seedheads which at first I took for Pulsatilla...…
Continue reading ➞ Q… K for Kew – an hour through the woodland, family beds and rock garden…
An afternoon wander through the woodland, wetland, water gardens and wildflower meadows at Wakehurst Place, Kew in the Country (and National Trust too, but the parking is only free to Friends of Kew.. a big issue, this...) There is much, much more to see here within the greater parkland and more formal gardens at Wakehurst…
A perfect wander through the meandering paths on Battleston Hill at Wisley - quiet too (it usually is) giving you the peace and solitude to really appreciate the diverse planting, the understory, shrubs and tall mature trees. The magnolias were until recently the thing here, some real superb specimens, absolute stars, and the hellebores too…
I am dreaming of Spring, mostly. There is a great deal to admire in February so I worry that we might wish the month away without appreciating what is looking - or giving - its best right now, or the quiet simplicity of our gardens stripped bare of all of the spring and summer fireworks…
Continue reading ➞ February made me shiver….
Hellebores running wild in the woods of Battleston Hill at RHS Wisley. I have an inkling that these are just a little wild, I have never seen any them labelled (and pretty much everything else thereabouts is name-plated). There will be more of them in due course, these are the vanguard of a great swathe…
You are met, as soon as you walk into the gardens at RHS Wisley, by the seductive scent of Sarcococca, the Winter Box, in this case with pure white threadlike flowers on arching stems, set against deep green leaves. It is a fragrance that carries on the wind, a siren-call to the few pollinators out…
I am blessed with the scent of this beautiful plant - drifting across the nursery and Siren-like, it calls to me so that I can breathe in more of this delicious fragrance. Sweet, honeyed, hints of lily and jasmine, citrus, intense but not cloying. Fleeting too on the breeze, caught and then lost again. I…
My first March visit to Kew Gardens A purchase of a very brilliant little machine - scarifying and aerating the lawn with ease... My first March visit to Kew Gardens - taking in the Pagoda, Chokushi-mon Japanese Landscape, the Xstrata and some of the arboretum. My first week at Petersham Nurseries, at the beginning of…
Fire and gold tints throughout this display - from an unexpected source - Spirea nipponica Snowmound is better known for its smothering of white blossom on arching stems in June and July but this vigorous shrub is putting on a spectacular finish, teamed with spires of Molinea grasses, fountains of green Liriope muscari, berries of…
The Teddington Gardener 