Follow me as I tour the gardens at RHS Wisley – grasses and bananas, the Glasshouse (tropics and desert) and dry borders, fruit fields and a fragrant rose garden …

You've walked with me from the entrance at RHS Wisley through to the grass borders, across to the tropical border with towering bananas and cannas and past the dogwood collection (with willows and rubus) which are green green green at the moment but in winter are a forest of ruby, gold, scarlet, black and bone…

The Hive, mostly, but room here for a few other delights at Kew Gardens …

The Hive at Kew Gardens - and you had to get up quite early to see it as unpopulated - though not all to myself - as this. One photographer already on site (for The Mail? maybe...) was trying to get a 360°panorama by taking several photographs - to be stitched together later - but…

Things that caught my eye etc., etc., – and a gourmet tour of the East End (didn’t expect that, did you!)

A day at Petersham Nurseries, working I might add, dispensing horticultural advice and bon-mots to a pretty happy crowd - weather warm but not too warm, a good breeze, plenty of plants to pretty the place up, time to talk to the customers - and keep everything watered - and time to make a few…

A few things that caught my eye today – Petersham Nurseries – flower therapy and a quote from Cabaret, what more do you need?

Flower therapy, this. From Petersham Nurseries today.  To quote from Cabaret - 'Leave your troubles outside, So- life is disappointing? Forget it! We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful... ' After this you can go back to Brexit/Conservative Leadership/Chilcot Report/Euro 2016/24HourNews/Emails... 'What good's permitting some prophet of doom To wipe every smile away…

A few days …. all manner of early autumn herbaceous-ness, roses, dahlias, sunflower, more herbaceous perennials, heuchera and Solenostemon (finishing up with Crinkly Bottom….)

a little late summer turning to autumn herbaceousness for your delight and delectation.... It has been a few days since my last blog entry and I have been busy working, gardening and photographing. A new camera has already improved the picture offering I think, with more natural and realistic colours. With file sizes between 10MG…

Q… K for Kew – an hour through the woodland, family beds and rock garden…

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...…

The Glasshouse Borders at RHS Wisley – masterly and painterly, still

From a vantage at the top of The Mount, looking down towards the lake and Glasshouse, these double borders mix perennials and grasses with stands of shrubs (like Cotinus), planted in ribbons that hop across from one side of the grass to the other. Well, you know this since I've come back to these borders…

Tour de force – a tour around RHS Wisley – first up, the Herbaceous Borders

The double herbaceous borders at RHS Wisley are worthy of close attention and admiration. Individual plants are to be appreciated for the well-grown specimens they are, and combinations of plants can delight and surprise as the eye bounces along each long, deep border before the grassy runway ascends Battleston Hill with all the delights that…

Arabella Lennox Boyd – invention and boundless imagination in the gardens at Gresgarth Hall

A chance remark and the right alignment of dates and here we are, wandering through these remarkable gardens created in the midst of a wooded valley, bisected by a tributary of the River Lune, a showcase for the imagination and talent of garden designer Arabella Lennox Boyd. Up North, in the village of Caton outside…