RHS Wisley – woodlanders, rock gardens and alpines, many roses and more …

  If like me you have rejoiced in the fact that the gardens at RHS Wisley have reopened, but chagrinned that the timed visitor slots are booked solid though to the middle of July, a little public service blogging here, reprising a trip to the gardens exactly a year ago. You needn't miss all the…

Colour on a dull day, just not today: A banquet-kaleidoscope-smorgasbord-gallimaufry of early Spring colour and scent … (or Where’s Thug?)

  Another look through the Teddington Gardener Archives, mid-March 2016, and as the title says, a jumble of images, woodland and glasshouse, Wisley and Kew and a welcome reminder of Thug, the Petersham Cat, still missed.   Ah, well, you've got me - one huge gallery of images and barely a note to cover the…

A break in the weather and time to get to RHS Wisley – woodlanders, rock gardens and alpines, many roses and more …

The weather has been decidedly un-summery these past few days and further North, it is set to be one of the wettest on record. Us softy Southerners, by geography if not by birth, have it a little brighter but still, dank, damp, humid and overcast. Still, I wanted to see the new retail space and…

An Alpine Springtime … more technicolor dreams from RHS Wisley

Always a Springtime treat, the Alpine House and especially my local, at the RHS gardens at Wisley. Add in some glorious sunshine and these technicolor beauties really sing. I shared my time inside the Glasshouse with a raucous group of children tasked with drawing some of the specimens on show. All seem delighted with the…

Technicolor Rainbows in the Alpine House at RHS Wisley

Never disappointing, the Alpine House at RHS Wisley. Particularly colourful in these early months as you can see. Rhubarb-pinks, bright yellows, true blues, glaucous greens, cochineal reds, zebra-striped purples and arctic whites - and packing a punch for such diminutive little stars. And this only January 14th (they were photographed on my visit yesterday morning).…

In the Alpine House – the best spot to linger on a rainy day at Wisley

As usual, a House of Many Delights, the Alpine display at RHS Wisley; a traditional glasshouse with raised, sand-filled benches and the specimens sunk in their terracotta pots to be viewed at just the right height (though I noticed a folding chair left for visitors this time around). With free entry last Friday and a…

A banquet-kaleidoscope-smorgasbord-gallimaufry of early Spring colour and scent … (or Where’s Thug?)

Ah, well, you've got me - one huge gallery of images and barely a note to cover the 'who, what, why, where and when' of it all - The 'where'will be at Kew and Wisley and a few points in between, including those deliciously cool crocus on my own front step, delicately rain-dropped and rather…

A return to Kew and some contortions in the Davies Alpine House required … plus an invitation to an Open Day

A selection of colourful delights from the Davies Alpine House at Kew, from last week. Bent back and scuffed knees, getting these images, but I love these displays, and as a special treat, there is 'behind the scenes' access to the Alpine Glasshouses and the work of the Alpine gardeners at Kew this coming weekend,…

RHS Wisley this time around, Alpine treasures and Butterflies in the Glasshouse

Butterflies in the Glasshouse at RHS Wisley and moving into the Alpine House next - Plenty of treaures in the Alpine House, Fritillaries especially on this visit Butterflies, first, in the Glasshouse at RHS Wisley - happily I timed my visit on one of the last days of this event (I feared I'd missed it)…