Petersham Open Garden 2018 – all the pictures!

Ten gardens, ten private passions, ten stories - all on show for Petersham Open Gardens, an event every two years where private gardens showcase their beauty and skills (and skulls in some gardens), for charitable purposes. And given the footfall today, the charity-benefitting coffers will be full to overflowing. Congratulations folk, one and all. I…

Blue Skies and Roses at Petersham Nurseries – and Petersham Open Gardens is today ….

A few random photos (and randomly shuffled I think too) from Petersham Nurseries and from Petersham House Gardens yesterday, under rich blue skies punctuated by the prettiest of white clouds. Clouds of perfume too, especially from the rambler rose Paul's Himalayan Musk clothing the big holly tree in the House Gardens, and Blush Noisette in…

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018 – the show gardens, the great pavillion, the roses and … well, pretty much everything

From my walk through Chelsea, to the very last moment - a few hours in the company of the world's greatest flower show....

More from Petersham House Open Gardens …

A play with the camera first thing this morning, before the crowds, with a few at the end of the day, with the longer shadows. A cycle in along the river this morning and again on the way home, quite delightful. Hundreds of visitors for the gardens, four hundred? five hundred?, enjoying the double borders…

A few hours at Kew Gardens – the newly re-opened Temperate House, Alliums on the Broadwalk, treetop walkway, the Hive, gorgeous Wisteria, a Rhododendron or three, and laburnum arches, waterlilies, the Davies Alpine House and Rock Garden, peonies galore, many remarkable trees, a Japanese landscape and the Pagoda … and much more-

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a million. Kew Gardens today. Amazing, as ever -

Petersham House Gardens National Garden Scheme Open Day

A little bit of repetition in these images, but I am dithering about editing them and can't decide exactly which I prefer, so you're getting pretty much them all! A beautiful sunshiny spring morning, after a night of stormy electric rain, and everything after the warmth of the last week - and the weeks of…

An East Sussex Odyssey and the jewel in the crown, Great Dixter

Well this time I'll let the pictures do the talking. And I nearly didn't call in this time around to Great Dixter and am so glad I did. I don't recall that I have visited in Spring before (it is a stupendous garden in late summer and autumn) and I did attend one of Fergus…

A Grand Day Out – Part 2 – King John’s Nursery and Gardens, East Sussex

A second stop in my East Sussex odyssey, having been to Pashley Manor Gardens and now calling in at this very peaceful nurseries and gardens, King John's. A quirky nursery and plant centre, with a delightful cafe and a beautiful garden surrounding the adjacent house. A wild orchard garden, large lawns, canal, woodland garden, statuary…

A Grand Day Out. First stop, Pashley Manor Gardens, East Sussex

Such a glorious day to go out exploring and so I headed out to the wilds of East Sussex to take in these gardens at Pashley Manor before heading on to .... King John's Nursery and Gardens, Merriments and Great Dixter, and ending up making a few purchases at The Old Rose Nursery in Northiam.…