Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Viola Antique Shades - one of my favourites This, from the excellent Seedaholics website... Some unbelievably coloured violas have come on the market in recent years with little notice. Most gardeners pass up these rugged, cool-season performers in favour of their larger cousins, the pansies. But don't be in too much of a hurry to…
Continue reading ➞ Antique Shades
Ornamental cabbages and kales - decorative leafy additions that are especially useful for winter containers. The RHS has the following advice on the care of winter planted containers and the choice of plants available. I don't see the coloured stems of various dogwoods (Cornus selections) here but think they would make excellent companions to these…
Continue reading ➞ Of cabbages and kings
C. cirrhosa var. purpurascens 'Freckles' Clematis cirrhosa species is an early-flowering, evergreen climber from southern Europe and the Mediterranean region. The flowers are cream, cup-shaped, often red-flecked and up to 7cm (3in) across, appearing in winter or early spring, and followed by attractive seed heads. This attractive, vigorous cultivar was raised by Raymond Evison of Guernsey…
Continue reading ➞ Liver spots – Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’
Piet Oudolf Borders at RHS Wisley Much that one can say about prairie style planting and especially the combination of grasses with late season perennials, is that the show doesn't stop when the blooms die and the rot sets in - add low, slanting sun, a stiff breeze for animation and later, frost and snow…
Continue reading ➞ Live and let die…
Viola Citrus (above) with Pansy Citrus (below) Hardy things, violas and pansies, and excellent for injecting some welcome long-term colour into seasonal displays - not that there is much shortage in the garden at the moment, but as the season moves deeper into autumn and on into winter and pigments leach from the landscape, these…
Continue reading ➞ Little and Large (and Orange)
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…
Continue reading ➞ Happy Hydrangeas
Pansy Beacon Blue Such intense colours, on a plant that could go on flowering right through until next spring - unfazed by much that a typical winter can throw at it. Deadhead regularly keep in a sunny spot (but remember they don't like too much heat) trim back if the plant gets too leggy watch…
Continue reading ➞ Blue Lagoons
The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire An extraordinary garden containing probably the finest Winter Garden in the UK and not looking too shabby late summer either. Few gardens offer as rich pickings as these, growing over 11,000 different types of plant, in over 40,000 plants and holding 13 National Plant Collections, set in a complementary…
Continue reading ➞ A garden for all seasons
Viola F1 'Antique Shades' The following is from the Seedaholics website I have recommended before and is more complete than I could possibly be. Plants are on sale now in garden centres and nurseries, though seeds might be the way to go next year.... Some unbelievably coloured violas have come on the market in recent…
Continue reading ➞ Antiques Roadshow…
The Teddington Gardener 