Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
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
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.
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…
Continue reading ➞ Brief Encounter
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.
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”
I'm hoping that by looking at lots of pictures of auriculas, that I won't need to go out and buy these beautiful and dramatic little beauties. And the more I find them in glasshouses (at Wisley, Kew, Harlow Carr), the more I hope to believe that they are temperamental creatures, needing all the mod-cons that…
Continue reading ➞ Primula auricula Gordon Douglas
As part of London Open Garden Squares Weekend, the roof garden at the Blue Fin Building (IPC Media) on Southwark Street was opened and provided a real treat, a surprising garden and panoramic views across London.40m/ten storeys up above London's streets, it is a substantial terrace on three sides of this distinctive building, with extensive…
Continue reading ➞ Blue Fin Roof Garden, community gardens, Wren churches and The Temple.
A few more days of this warm sunshine and the dam will break, the floodgates will open, the genie will be out of the bottle, the cork will pop, the..... you get the idea. Roses, roses and more roses and very welcome they will be. In flower now are Wisley 2008 (above) and The Alnwick…
Continue reading ➞ Any day now, roses
Actually, it is St. Michael's Convent garden, a 4-acre garden attached to the Convent on Ham Common, open today as part of London Open Garden Squares Weekend. It is also just a cycle ride away, which is handy, and not far from The Palm Centre nursery and Ham House (NT but also included within the…
Continue reading ➞ Not just any Convent garden, this is a St. Michael’s Convent garden..
The Teddington Gardener 