Gardener and Photographer with a love of Roses and a magpie-eye for all things Horticultural
Clematis cartmanii Avalanche This mass of flowers belongs to a ferny-leaved, evergreen clematis, a scrambling non-clinging climber - or trailer - that can reach 2-3m. Preferring a sunny site, it has the largest flowers of any of the Cartmanii varieties and is happy in the border or in a container. It has gained a coveted…
Continue reading ➞ Avalanche – an evergreen clematis living up to its name…
Petersham Nurseries enjoying the sunshine today. Filling up with plants, happily, with more to come especially if this good weather keeps up. There is an excellent collection Old Roses, and rarities amongst them too (I should know! The rose selection is a real treat and while I think I know a lot about roses,…
Continue reading ➞ A slice of Petersham and “Wisteria Watch” on Ham Common
Just to redress the balance (i.e. not orange), a single hot pink tulip, elevated into something altogether classier by virtue of the silver sheen on the reverse of the petals. Its name escapes me for the moment...
Solanum crispum 'Glasnevin' I might try this climber, this year, in the space I have cleared in my garden, having removing a large stand of laurel - and let is scramble through the remaining shrubbery. Mine is a north-west facing garden, but one longer boundary, almost entirely obscured by Cotinus, Pyracantha, Lonicera Winter Beauty, ivy,…
Continue reading ➞ Solanum crispum Glasnevin – the beautiful blue potato vine
Just on my doorstep, a bright sparky tulip to set me on my way - and amid a street full of blossom, something a little darker than the usual bubble-gum pinks many Cherries adopt - And on to my first job, a local garden with a lawn more moss than grass - a fine, deep…
Anyone who has seen my Facebook or Twitter account (@Martin_Ogden), will already have seen pictures of these intense-shock-therapy-orange tulips, a furnace-like pot of them on my front doorstep - but I am in a proselytizing mood and Orange domination is the theme... If you are uncertain as to my commitment to this bravest of colour…
Continue reading ➞ A bolt of voltage orange – Get thee behind me, pale pastels!
I have a feeling this was the coral bark maple, Acer Sanko-Kaku - but then it is a quite mature shrub and not more than 4'tall, so that might rule it out. 'Corralinum' has the right stem, but the first flush of leaves are shrimp pink... I'll be looking out my copy of Vertrees 'Japanese…
Continue reading ➞ Ruby and Gold – but which maple is it?
Isaac Newton's Apple Tree - a direct descented to that fêted tree I was going to wait until this unassuming little apple tree came into flower - soon - but couldn't wait. It's been given a feed (liquid seaweed) and a good water and we will wait and watch. For it is an Important Tree…
Continue reading ➞ Gravity (and in a Sandra Bullock way too…) Isaac Newton’s Apple Tree
Nearly time for the annual Wisteria Blossom Show - some, like this example, are almost there - others are just showing plump, silky buds on a bare fretwork of stems, but a few more days of warmth and sunshine and it will be Showtime! A divine few weeks of peppery-scented intense blues, ghostly blues and…
The Teddington Gardener 