Acer Sango-kaku

The rather beautiful Acer palmatum, Sango-kaku, in golden garb, photographed in the Woodland Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, yesterday In fact, this garden was full of delights - more maples, a marvellous Black Walnut, the totems of Cardocrimum giganteum mentioned earlier, Aconitums (flopped but still dangerously blue), Epimediums looking lush and vigorous...

Diary Notes

My Diary.. Busy, busy this week - gardening on Monday and Tuesday despite the poor weather - much clearing of leaves and aerating a very compacted lawn and then  a trip to London for the excellent RHS Shades of Autumn show. These pictures are from the show - there have already been slideshows but they…

Mr Toad

Tricyrtis macropoda (of the lily family) The Toad Lilies, so-called because of their spotted flowers, are sound perennials, preferring a soil that does not dry out, and containing a good stint of humus. They do well in the north, but the cooler the district the more sun should be available to them, to hasten their…

Happy Hydrangeas

These galleries are almost all hydrangeas with big, cone-shaped flower-heads, (paniculata), rather than rounded mop-heads (though I have included Nymphe in the galleries) - and one oak-leaved hydrangea (with distinctive leaf shape and excellent autumn colour). They have all been photographed on the slopes of Battleston Hill in the gardens of RHS Wisley, where they…

White lace, emerald and gold

Anemone Honorine Jobert I'm borrowing an excellent and quite perfect description of the Old Rose, Madame Hardy, 'White lace and Emeralds'. For this excellent Japanese Anemone,  there has to be gold. White lace, emerald and gold. One extra photograph of this superlative plant in flower. Couldn't resist! My earlier post (9th September) gives a little…

Clematis alpina Blue Dancer….

Clematis alpina Blue Dancer, with these larger than average, very attractive blue flowers, giving us a second flush of flowers this week (the main show is in April/May). A foray into the back issue of The Telegraph now, for an article written by Val Bourne, which, whilst it does not mention Blue Dancer at all…

A classic – Anemone ‘Honorine Jobert’

I'm going straight to Carol Klein here, writing in The Telegraph on 28th September 2002. This beautiful plant was a classic then, and for 150 years before that, and so it remains. How to grow: Anemone 'Honorine Jobert' Carol Klein on the unexpected joy of these classy white flowers that shine in the shade Anemone…

Fantasy Pocahontas, I kid you not….

A new one on me (and I think pretty new to the market), this diminutive Anemone goes by the unlikely name of Fantasy Pocahontas. Why I know not, but it is growing on me. At first sight the small flowers (about the size of a ten pence piece) are just a mite too fussy but there is…

Parcevall Hall Gardens, Yorkshire Dales

Just pictures, for now, of this fascinating Arts and Crafts Garden in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. Such a magical place and combining the best of all worlds - a cultivated garden amid so much wild beauty.