Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
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...…
Continue reading ➞ Q… K for Kew – an hour through the woodland, family beds and rock garden…
This long pergola with brick pillars and timber beams is clothed with some beautifully trained rambling and climbing roses. Beautiful monsters like Rosa filipes Kiftsgate ought to swamp the entire structure and much else besides but with the love and careful treatment these specimens are given, a multitude of flowers hug the cross beams and…
The Water Lily House at Kew Gardens was hot, humid and full of treasure yesterday - a mix of the most delicately coloured water lilies - Nymphaea - and also some with the brightest and richest jewel colours. Bold leaves and bold variegation too - set against black, still water reflecting the Victorian architecture of…
Continue reading ➞ The Water Lily House at Kew Gardens – a treasure house
and the new 2015/16 Handbook of Roses, which I picked up at the first RHS London Rose Show today... and a duck, at Kew Gardens, to round things off!! The Rose Garden at Kew Gardens today - with a lot of roses popping but still much, much, much more to come - a fine selection…
An afternoon wander through the woodland, wetland, water gardens and wildflower meadows at Wakehurst Place, Kew in the Country (and National Trust too, but the parking is only free to Friends of Kew.. a big issue, this...) There is much, much more to see here within the greater parkland and more formal gardens at Wakehurst…
Auriculas on sale at Kew Gardens - not in their little plant centre but right by the exit. How Fiendish! I don't think they have had them in stock for a couple of years and if I remember rightly, they were selling them last with Victorian terracotta pots, at £10 or more. Now they are…
Continue reading ➞ Auriculas at Kew
At the head of the Family Border and the long, gently curving rose pergola, with the Temple of Aeolus on the mount behind, is the peony border, and though it is early in the season, some have already gone over, while much has yet to even get started. Others are just about right and these…
Continuing with my wanderings through Kew, leaving the Duke's Garden behind and passing the emerging grass borders, we head to the Davies Alpine House and the serpentine Rock Garden beyond. More peonies and iris, more intense colour and floral fireworks - though this last specimen, Viburnum macrocephalum Sterile is more of a giant snowball!
This last was labelled Paeonia suffruticosa, no more, and is magnificent. Loved as much as me by the iridescent beetle that was in an ecstasy of pollen in the centre of each blossom. Leaving behind this garden and passing by the emerging grass borders, the Davies Alpine House and the Princess of Wales Conservatory beckon.…
The Teddington Gardener 