Hot, Hot, Hot…

Working in my Roehampton Garden today, and in hindsight, I ought to have started at 6am rather than 10am as the mercury began to rise to what, 30°C, more? In any event, a good few hours and some definition brought back to one of the borders, the semi-circular one, which had morphed into a rather…

Sunday, Monday – Happy Days…. sweet peas, dahlias, the Petersham Cat and more….

A few pictures from yesterday and today, two gloriously sunny days at Petersham Nurseries. Just lovely.

David Austin Roses – the who, what, why and when…

Now that the rose season is almost upon us, I'm refreshing my memory after long rose-less months, of what is to come! These notes are culled from a series of presentations the year before last, covering all things 'David Austin Roses'. If I find the pictures which accompanied the talks, I'll attempt to add them…

Pure white Nerines

The pure white of the Guernsey lily, Nerine bowdenii 'Alba' The Cape flower or Guernsey lily is a beautiful perennial bulb, producing upright stems of white, lily-like flowers, occasionally flushed pale pink, with wavy-edged, recurved petals, appearing in the autumn. The rich green, strap-like leaves appear after the flowers. Cultivate in any good, moist but…

No shrinking violet.. Echinacea Hot Papaya

Echinacea Hot Papaya These magnificent blooms are the first ever orange-red double coneflowers - the colour stays true and doesn't fade. The fragrant flowers are borne on strong stems are excellent for cutting. Attracts butterflies in a wide variety of garden settings. Full sun, moist but very well-drained soils. Flowering June-September/October. Height and spread 80cm…

Pottering

I  can just about get to the front door, after three hours of potting and pottering, pretty much everything has a new winter home... A maintenance day today - bright blue skies, chill, the wicked wind has died down and I've lots of plants to pot up into more suitable containers before the weather really…

Great Dixter for Facebook

I've been trying to find the photographs from my September 2011 visit to Great Dixter, Christopher Lloyd's superb garden in Sussex - but they are clearly misfiled somewhere in the deeper recesses of my computer.... An album of 135 pics is to be found on my Facebook page, with the link below, though this only…

A swan? Me a swan? Ah, go on!

Anemone Wild Swan In flower from May to November, growing knee-high, and with refined foliage (more Anemone sylvestris than Anemone x hybrida), the standout feature of this relatively new introduction is the reverse of the otherwise pure white bloom - a three painted flashes of liac-purple. With flowers held above the foliage on wiry stems,…