Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Remember Remember the 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason and.... Roses? This floriferous rose garden certainly has other ideas about a quiet slide into senescence, leaf-drop and rose-hips - these are flower-packed shrubs with more to come. Colour, fragrance aplenty and fresh, clean leaves in abundance. A remarkable display given it really is November and hardly…
Continue reading ➞ The Rose Garden at Kew. Vital still in November ….
A real treat to see this installation by Rebecca Louise Law. I'd read an article in the Kew subscribers magazine, and someone had mentioned it to me though I confess it had dropped from my immediate consciousness until yesterday and I veered across the lawns to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. 375,000 flowers,…
Just the pictures this time around - it is for the overall impact of these borders that I took the time to visit, rather than a label-by-label guide to naming of individual plants. I'm quite sure I've done that before and a quick search in these pages may provide some further elucidation. In the meantime,…
Continue reading ➞ A peek at the Grass Borders in Kew – a study in gold ….
The Salvia Border at Kew is a wonder now. Hardly worth a look in mid-summer (though you can, then, find the plant labels, a job which is nigh on impossible now the growth is so generous - hence these are images only with no naming of names, this time at least) - but now, my…
Continue reading ➞ The Salvia Border at Kew Gardens – a plant family that just keeps on giving
My first visit in ages to Kew it seems, certainly I haven't kept up the mini-incursions where I would rush in to see one thing or another - just the Alpine House, or the Paeonies, or the raft of Camassias, the flowering cherries, or the roses, each taken in within a hurried hour (or two),…
Continue reading ➞ Take a walk with me through Kew Gardens – Part 1 – Magnificent Trees, The Hive
Christmas spirit is seeping into the Nurseries and I have already been buying decorations and gifts. Autumn seems to be clinging on after a series of bright warm days, though it's chill at night and first thing and of course, the clocks went back on Sunday night so it is dark by 5.30pm, so I…
Continue reading ➞ Halloween? Christmas? Where has the year gone…?
Ken Hall has brought his Nerine sarniensis hybrid collection - or a very little part of it - to the RHS Halls in London for the Autumn show and this display is undoubtedly been the highlight of the show for me. The bar was not set very high, I should say - it was a…
I've an 'Introduction to Pruning' workshop to present tomorrow so I'm all about secateurs and shrubs; loppers, ladders and most importantly, looking; and climbers; roses, of course; a foray fruit trees - and trees generally; a touch of soft fruit if there is time. The dead, diseased and dying, and timing. Safety, very importantly. And…
Continue reading ➞ Autumn Pruning …
My very talented colleagues Amanda Brame and Noriko Choy worked for two days to create the floral displays for a party this past week and I took rather a lot of photographs of their work and works. The pieces - table decorations and large centre-pieces - had to contain sunflowers, make a stunning autumnal display…
Continue reading ➞ Autumn floristry. Intensity dialled up …
The Teddington Gardener 