Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
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
Crocus Jeanne D'Arc The sun is shining, late afternoon, and just catches the terracotta pots lined up on the window sills as I get back from the supermarket. The crocus and hyacinths are illuminated. A magical little moment. I notice the Rosa rugosa is sprouting little pleated leaves and the Pieris is flowering extravagantly, as…
Continue reading ➞ A magical little moment.
Spring may be shy this year but this picture, taken on 13th April 2010 at RHS Wisley, gives us hope for blossom and colour in the garden. I confess not to have the name to hand for this delicious cherry, so densely under-planted with grape hyacinth, but I will be making a pilgrimage, later next…
Continue reading ➞ Flowering cherry, muscari & bergenia
I ventured out into a chill London afternoon, after a roundabouts stroll across London, for the RHS Great London Plant Fair (their title, not mine). I'm glad I made the effort (Mike Parks Books my only purchasing opportunity though) but it was quite a quiet affair, fewer people than I have seen in these dramatic…
Continue reading ➞ The RHS Great London Plant Fair 2013
Another charmer from the RHS London Plant Fair today, the Pasque Flower. In spring, upright or semi-pendant, bell-shaped (or narrowly bell-shaped) silky-hairy flowers in shades of deep to pale purple. This variety, Pulsatilla vulgaris Blaue Glokke. And isn't it beautiful! Grow in an alpine house, rock garden or scree. I'm in love.
Bleeding Heart, Dutchman's Breeches or the Lyre Flower and now, more properly, Lamprocapnos. Beautiful spring perennials with pendant heart-shaped flowers, in pink, white, purple or red held on arching, fleshy stems. Brittle too. Growing over a metre tall. The white form, alba, is more robust, producing flowers until midsummer. A relatively new variety, Valentine, first introduced…
Continue reading ➞ Dicentra spectabilis
Camellia x williamsii cultivar, Debbie, with full peony-form, cerise pink flowers borne early- to mid- spring. Growing up to 3m by 2m spread but can be more compact. Photographed at RHS Wisley, 24th March 2013.
A continued fall in temperatures and vast swathes of the countryside under deep snow. Buxton, Derbyshire, where once I spent much time, seems to have it particularly bad. Sky News trundled up to Syon on Saturday and were looking for confirmation of the doom & gloom inevitably set to follow slow sales. It is, admittedly,…
Continue reading ➞ Has anyone seen Spring?
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 