Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
A glorious sight in full flower, forming a large open, evergreen tree with fern-like glaucous to silvery foliage. Fragrant racemes of spherical yellow flower heads from winter through to spring. Coming from Australia and New Zealand, mimosas need a sheltered site, in full sun, but can still be caught out by prolonged cold and wet.…
Continue reading ➞ Acacia dealbata (Mimosa, Silver Wattle)
Usually, sometime during each week, a particular plant will catch my eye. Something new to me or as in this case, an aspect I hadn't considered. Pitcher plants flower! A single tray of glorious plants with varied variegation and in bloom. The £10 ebay purchase of 4 volumes of the Dictionary of Gardening comes in…
Continue reading ➞ Carnivorous plants….
Bank Holiday Monday and two houses, one new to me - the Arts and Crafts Standen, the second familiar - the beautiful Nymans. Standen is an Arts & Crafts survivor, built by Philip Webb and with interiors by Morris & Co., quite complete. The country home of a careful lawyer, it is not an extravagant…
Continue reading ➞ Gardens of the Sussex Weald – Standen & Nymans
Crocus Jeanne D'Arc The sun is shining, late afternoon, and just catches the terracotta pots lined up on the window sills as I get back from the supermarket. The crocus and hyacinths are illuminated. A magical little moment. I notice the Rosa rugosa is sprouting little pleated leaves and the Pieris is flowering extravagantly, as…
Continue reading ➞ A magical little moment.
Spring may be shy this year but this picture, taken on 13th April 2010 at RHS Wisley, gives us hope for blossom and colour in the garden. I confess not to have the name to hand for this delicious cherry, so densely under-planted with grape hyacinth, but I will be making a pilgrimage, later next…
Continue reading ➞ Flowering cherry, muscari & bergenia
There is a lot of enthusiasm (& some hype) for this fragrant, summer flowering Daphne. I thought I would quote from Michael Dirr's Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs for some well judged, if US-oriented, opinion. Daphne x transatlantica - this hybrid and its cultivars are all the rage in the Mid-Atlantic and New England States.…
Continue reading ➞ Daphne x transatlantica ‘Eternal Fragrance’
I ventured out into a chill London afternoon, after a roundabouts stroll across London, for the RHS Great London Plant Fair (their title, not mine). I'm glad I made the effort (Mike Parks Books my only purchasing opportunity though) but it was quite a quiet affair, fewer people than I have seen in these dramatic…
Continue reading ➞ The RHS Great London Plant Fair 2013
Another charmer from the RHS London Plant Fair today, the Pasque Flower. In spring, upright or semi-pendant, bell-shaped (or narrowly bell-shaped) silky-hairy flowers in shades of deep to pale purple. This variety, Pulsatilla vulgaris Blaue Glokke. And isn't it beautiful! Grow in an alpine house, rock garden or scree. I'm in love.
Bleeding Heart, Dutchman's Breeches or the Lyre Flower and now, more properly, Lamprocapnos. Beautiful spring perennials with pendant heart-shaped flowers, in pink, white, purple or red held on arching, fleshy stems. Brittle too. Growing over a metre tall. The white form, alba, is more robust, producing flowers until midsummer. A relatively new variety, Valentine, first introduced…
Continue reading ➞ Dicentra spectabilis
The Teddington Gardener 