Spring has sprung, the air is thick with the sound of lawnmowers, and wherever you look in the garden something is calling for your attention. It’s easy to get lost in busyness, but whatever you do, don’t forget to make time for dahlias. You’ll thank yourself for it later in the year.
Read moreFebruary in the garden
As trailed in my previous post, I’ve decided to start a series on the blog using highlights from my Instagram gallery to chart the garden through the year. And so, without undue ceremony, let me welcome you to the first post in that series. This week, as we get ready to leave winter behind, I'm taking a look back at February 2017.
Read moreInstagram and the garden blog
The demise of blogging is pronounced with such extreme regularity that the patient must long ago have entered the realms of the undead. But while reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, by far the most burdensome weight of accusation for hastening its end is laid at the door of other forms of social media, notably microblogging apps such as Twitter and Instagram.
Read moreThe handsome hellebore
As snowdrops grab the headlines after Christmas, the hellebores quietly assemble while the attention is focussed elsewhere. Frankly, I think a hellebore is much more fun than a snowdrop, though neither are as innocent as they might at first appear.
Read moreWaiting for snowdrops
January can be a miserable month, so a few weeks of bright, dry weather make for a welcome start to the year. Refreshingly chilly conditions in which to while away the garden hours until the first flowers of spring appear.
Read moreResolution 2017
I’m not big on new year’s resolutions. To my mind, every day brings with it an opportunity to do better – why wait till January to make them, and then spend the remainder of the year berating yourself for breaking them? With something seasonal, like gardening, however, it makes sense. But I’m still limiting myself to one.
Read moreGarden tools from Burgon & Ball
The awfully nice people at Burgon & Ball have sent me some of their marvellous garden tools in exchange for a review here on the blog. Read on for my first impressions of these shiny wonders.
Read moreDecember light
Light is in short supply this month, and so it makes sense to make the most of the little we have. For reasons of sanity, not to mention Vitamin D. It’s as good a time as any for garden photography, and the more familiar you are with the behaviour of the light, the better your images will be.
Read moreThe bonfire of deplorables
Autumn turns to winter, the leaves are all but tamed, and a short window of opportunity opens. While it’s still warm enough feel your fingers, there’s just time to clear the beds in preparation for a good, thick mulch. But what to do with all the stuff this produces – compost, or burn? It helps to have a plan.
Read moreThe quick & the dead
There’s a lot of rot in the garden at this time of year, and that’s no bad thing. I visited Waterperry Gardens at the weekend, where the ghosts of this year’s herbaceous perennials are taking their final bow.
Read moreNovember chill
The garden might be closing down for the year, but there’s so much to see in autumn. Far fewer hours in which to see it, though, so best to be up and out with the first rays of light.
Read moreGetting on with it
Not long now till many of our trees, shrubs and perennials divest themselves of their foliage before swooning into a hibernal slumber. Meanwhile, less glamourous things – semi-evergreen, hardy biennial and annual things – are quietly going about their business, apparently unfazed by the drama, while we pass them by..
Read more#WordlessWednesday in the garden
Can a garden blog be all words, only photography, or a mixture of both? The answer might seem obvious, but considering the question can be a useful exercise when working out the optimum balance between words and pictures.
Read moreThe seedier side of gardening
There’s nothing I like better than a spot of horticultural retail therapy, which often involves ordering from the seed catalogues far more than I could reasonably hope to raise in a year. Autumn brings the chance to gather seed for ourselves, an activity for which our gardening lives are all the richer.
Read moreRakes Progress
The awfully nice people at Rakes Progress have sent me the first issue of their magazine to review (I had to shamelessly hustle for a copy on Twitter. It wasn’t pretty). The magazine is certainly a thing of beauty. But is it all style over substance? Or is there a pair of hard working gardener’s boots beneath the designer exterior? I brewed a pot of tea and resolved to find out.
Read moreHeat stress
Taking a summer holiday can be a traumatic prospect for the gardener. But with a bit of preparation, there’s no cause to worry that your plants will die of thirst in your absence. What’s more, a decision to step aside momentarily from the perpetual onward march of the gardening year creates the thinking space in which to reflect on the current season, and plan for the year to come.
Read moreBurgon & Ball Sophie Conran Precision Secateurs
It’s a matter of record how much I love my secateurs. The only slight drawback to them is that the blades often prove a little on the large side for selectively pruning in tight spaces. Having considered a few different models, these precision secateurs from Burgon & Ball’s Sophie Conran range caught my eye, and I’ve been putting them through their paces over the past fortnight.
Read moreWandering through Wisley
Only forty minutes away from me – traffic allowing – it borders on the criminal that I don’t find myself at Wisley more often, particularly when there’s always so much to see. This morning I was there for a meeting, following which I took the opportunity to take a stroll through some of the gardens before hurling the car back into the melee on the M25.
Read moreOrange is the happiest colour
According to Frank Sinatra, orange is the happiest of colours, but while Ol’ Blue Eyes may have loved to be surrounded by it in his garden, orange is a something of a departure for me. This summer I've found myself embracing orange with an ardour suggestive of a wish to make up for lost time.
Read moreCool in the shade
A July heatwave, following a June washout. Having been caught dragging its feet, the year seems now to be charging full tilt towards high summer; baking heat, parched lawns and rock hard, bone juddering soil. We’re not quite there yet, though, and before the hot colours arrive en masse to dominate in the latter part of the month, I’m allowing myself a week or so to wallow in cool pastel shades.
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