The shady garden in summer and autumn… beginning an A-Z

  I had been preparing for a workshop covering the possibilities for gardening in a little - or a lot - of shade and put together the gallery last year to illustrate some of the contenders that anyone tackling such a proposition might entertain. A perennial question, this, what to plant, planting combination and health…

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…

The shady garden in summer and into autumn … beginning an A-Z

  I'm preparing for a workshop covering the possibilities for gardening in a little - or a lot - of shade and have begun to put together the gallery (above, but more to come) to illustrate some of the contenders that anyone tackling such a proposition might entertain. Damp shade and dry shade, dappled shade…

A ‘Meet the Experts Tour’at Kew Gardens – Snowdrops (Galanthophiles Rule OK) – and my first sighting of the newest species in the club, Galanthus trojanus

Such a treat, earlier this week, attending one of Kew Gardens' Meet the Experts Tours. Every Tuesday throughout the year (or probably pretty much), you are delivered into the hands of one of their Experts for a private tour of one aspect of the work going on at Kew. This month they are talking everything snowdrops…

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…

My first visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (well, my first this year) – Witch Hazels aplenty, Alpine beauties – Magnolias! – and more… Welcome to Part 1

Hamamelis x intermedia Vesna Happily, Kew Gardens are a short distance from Teddington HQ (too) and as long as there is a parking space close to the Victoria Gate entrance, there is no excuse for me not to stop off and take a look inside. Sometimes this is just a short stop, perhaps less than…

In dappled woodland shade, much colour at Kew Gardens … a veritable rainbow of red, yellow, pink, blue, orange, purple (somewhere), green of course – and white … @kewgardens #SpringAtKew

Leucojum aestuvum in great drifts in the borders surrounding the Temple of Aeolus, the very cultivated woodland area at Kew Gardens. Hints of the expansive carpets of Scilla in the background. And so endeth my reports on this most recent visit to Kew Gardens, taking in the woodland around the Mount and the adjacent lake…

A kaleidoscope of colour, coming to a garden near you…

So much colour exploding in our gardens now that winter is loosening its grip and Spring is given a chance - longer days, some sunshine but still chill nights and cool temperatures yet ... the sap is rising, buds are bursting into leaf and blossom and the woodland floor is a bright mosaic of primroses,…

Random pictures from a Bank Holiday Monday – blossom & blooms at Petersham

Semiaquilegia Sugar Plum Fairy Clematis montana (below) Blossom from our Isaac Newton Apple Tree Anisodontea Large Magenta (below) Lilac Pink Magic somethingorother Aquilegia (below) Lilac and Viburnum Statement Hydrangeas Cow parsley, tulips, clematis montana, honesty, Fritillary persica... A lamp and a vase (two vases) Camassia and Fritillary persica in the cutting garden Clematis alpina Helsingborg…