Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
More bluebells you might think, but nearing this muted haze, you realise they are much, much taller, a massed planting of something different, flower-heads matched in height by umbels of cow parsley. Camassias. Now I see the point of these plants! One part of a walk through the various landscapes at the Royal Botanic Gardens…
Continue reading ➞ Moody blues…
Bluebell time at Kew.
It’s cherry blossom season. Here’s a poem called "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Housman (1859 – 1936). The poem is about cherry blossoms, the quickness of life, and how now is the time to appreciate what’s around you. "Loveliest of Trees" LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough,…
Continue reading ➞ The loveliest of trees
One of the most extraordinary flowering trees, with pea-like blossom, hugger-mugger on bare stems, on the previous year's wood and main branches. This specimen in the heart of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in the Mediterranean landscape, the purple of the Judas tree contrasted with the golden-yellow of the Cistus x purpureus. Inversely heart…
Continue reading ➞ Judas tree – Cercis siliquastrum
Such an extravagant place, Petersham Nurseries, a short walk across the water meadows from the River Thames, near Richmond. Items of immense beauty, artisan crafts and heights of sheer luxury - cheek by jowl with plunder from the skips of the Mediterranean and all conjured up into a heady mix of bohemian rapture. It never…
Continue reading ➞ Petersham Nurseries – Pure escapism
On this first day of spring, with a gusty southerly wind blowing along the Thames, an opportunity to call into Ham House & Gardens. We've been neighbours since moving to Teddington in 2000 and the gardens are a familiar haunt - but it was only last year that the interiors were explored. They are a…
Continue reading ➞ Ham House & Gardens
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
Unexpected sunshine, after days of rain, this Tuesday afternoon at the RHS gardens at Wisley in Surrey. Highlights - Camellias of course and notably the huge flowers of Camellia x williamsii Muskoka AGM; the suede undersides (indumentum) to the rounded leaves of of Rhododendron mallotum; flaking bark from Acer griseum and both colour and graphic…
Continue reading ➞ Sunshine at RHS Wisley (Part II)
The Teddington Gardener 