Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Agapanthus Queen Mum - broad, strappy leaves with tall stems topped with these large, bi-color globes (individual flowers are blue and white on the outside/pure white on the inside). From this angle, the blue is reserved for the sky.... Writing in the Telegraph, Bunny Guinness expands on the subject - How to get the best out…
Continue reading ➞ Gawd Bless ‘er – Agapanthus ‘Queen Mum’
Hydrangeas can offer us hard pressed gardeners a garden plant with a very long period of interest. The bold leaves can be quite architectural and many offer up a few fiery tints come autumn-time. The flowers are long-lasting and very importantly, can die well, gently decaying over the course of a long autumn and into…
Continue reading ➞ Hydrangeas and the Art of Dying Gracefully
This is my favourite Crocosmia, surpassing the ubiquitous Lucifer by a country mile. More compact and vigorous but not thuggish, the mid-green strappy leaves are a great foil to the golden egg yolk flowers. Height and spread 60cm. George Davison' is named after the head gardener at Westwick Hall, an early crocosmia enthusiast who bred…
These sunflowers have come on a-pace in the last few weeks, and have put on height and a grand floral display that will continue until the frosts - and beyond - the blackening seedheads will be a structural element to the cutting garden as well as a wildlife food resource as the seeds ripen. Bright…
Continue reading ➞ Bring me Sunshine (reprise) with Sunflowers from the Cutting Garden
Agapanthus Regal Beauty, a new planting by the Temple of Arethusa (and by the Campanile) at Kew Gardens. I missed photographing them the last visit (damned batteries!) but they are still in fine fettle. I was not the only one stopping to admire these gorgeous creatures. How to grow: Agapanthus We show you how to…
Continue reading ➞ Agapanthus Regal Beauty
One of my favourite Agapanthus this, Queen Mum (not even Queen Mother or HRH Queen Mother), a tall statuesque thing of beauty, with lilac-violet-blue blushes to the pure white trumpets, forming large globes held aloft at least 1m/1.2m above the strappy green leaves. No shrinking violet, this. Agapanthus praecox ssp. orientalis Queen Mum ['PMN06'] (Queen…
Continue reading ➞ Just Agapanthus Queen Mum
The Jubilee Rose Garden at RHS Wisley (the old rose garden, being almost entirely roses). Hydrangea paniculata Vanille Fraise (above and below) Hosta in flower Hydrangea quercifolia Harmony (above and below) Hemerocallis Frans Hals (above) Entering the Bowes-Lyon Roses Garden - featuring a little of the companion planting that showed up well in the…
The Teddington Gardener 