I’m a little behind with my chilli seedlings, only just sowing them now. There’s just time – chillies like a long season, and I would have been better off starting them off on a window ledge in February…
Read moreDay 60: kentia palm
The change from winter to spring brings a tricky little step-change into the life of the houseplant collector..
Read moreDay 59: Verbena bonariensis
Verbena bonariensis is one of that category of plants that usefully give you height, without completely obscuring your view…
Read moreDay 58: Iris reticulata
The first proper flash of blue in the year, Iris reticulata has to be one of the highlights of February…
Read moreDay 57: cardoon corpses
have a weakness for cardoons (Cynara cardunculus). Every aspect of the things fills me with delight…
Read moreDay 56: winter aconite
It’s all terribly sophisticated in the winter-spring flower bed – until the winter aconites (Eranthis) turn up…
Read moreDay 55: couch grass
Familiar to every allotment holder, couch grass (Elymus repens) romps with unabashed glee through untended flower and vegetable beds…
Read moreDay 54: flowering quince
Your mum may refer to the flowering quince as ‘Japonica’. Botanists would have you refer to these shrubs as Chaenomeles speciosa, or a hybrid between this and the actual Japanese quince Chaenomeles japonica…
Read moreDay 53: crocus
Snowdrops are terribly tasteful, and hellebores rather majestic. But crocuses are pure fun…
Read moreDay 52: rhubarb
While everybody’s making enthusiastic noises about snowdrops and hellebores, and greeting the opening of every crocus with expressions of rapture, things in the veg garden are a little more quiet, though of no lesser consequence…
Read moreDay 51: goat willow
Many of us feel a bit bereft over winter, when the garden is at its least ostentatious. But one advantage of this time of year is the opportunity to pay closer attention to details which we hardly notice when distracted by the glitz and glamour of flowers and fresh growth…
Read moreDay 50: leaf litter and future promise
A walk in the woods always brings inspiration for the garden – lessons in light and shade, meditations on mosses and lichens and the community of creatures on dead wood…
Read moreDay 49: winter honeysuckle
Not much of a looker, and kind of patchily bald in winter. But you plant winter honeysuckle for its scent, rather than its looks…
Read moreDay 48: lesser celandine
I’m always in two minds about lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria). Conflicted, you might say…
Read moreDay 47: Mahonia aquifolium
If the spines of its barberry cousin too evil for you to contemplate, or the structure or its nearer mahonia relative too rigid, perhaps the more relaxed attitude of Mahonia aquifolium might win you over…
Read moreDay 46: blue star fern
One of the easier ferns to grow as a houseplant, the Blue Star fern (Phlebodium pseudoaureum) places few demands upon the indoor gardener…
Read moreDay 45: Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'
I could not garden without hydrangeas – at any time of year – and moody Annabelle in particular…
Read moreDay 44: golden rod
I planted Solidago, or golden rod, as a quick fix to give me height and colour, and to prove to myself that I wasn’t afraid of yellow…
Read moreDay 43: greenhouse repairs
The wind howls through the gaps in the greenhouse, reminding me that the structure needs some attention…
Read moreDay 42: snowdrops
How do you like your snowdrops? It seems to me that everyone hankers for huge drifts, and there’s no denying the delight in watching your collection bulk up year upon year…
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