Until recently I would have said that Dahlia ‘Cafe au Lait’ was Instagram’s favourite flower, in terms of a named variety (as opposed to simply ‘roses’ or ‘paeonies’, which always go down well)...
Read moreDay 237: Fuchsia magellanica 'Riccartonii'
Winning the award for the garden plant that sounds most like a delicious dish of pasta, Fuchsia magellanica ‘Riccartonii’ proudly stands half-way up the garden, graceful blooms back-lit by the golden evening sun. I’m not sure that flowering shrubs get the recognition they deserve…
Read moreDay 236: herbs
Somewhere along the way I allowed myself to get distracted from herbs. There were among the first things I grew – rows and rows of chives and a whopping great angelica being the standout memory of my childhood garden…
Read moreDay 235: wild honeysuckle
There’s something a bit fey about wild honeysuckle (Lonicera periclumenum). Not merely that it’s the luscious woodbine of Oberon’s speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but rather a combination of factors…
Read moreDay 234: gardening in the moment
The key, we’re often told, is to learn to live in the moment. Which is all very well, but difficult to achieve for a gardener in late summer when, no matter how full of salvias and big daisies the borders are, almost anything you do from this point on is for next year…
Read moreDay 233: culinary sage
It’s easy to overdo the sage in your cooking; less so in the garden. A walk along the borders at Great Comp should convince anyone that there will always be room to squeeze in one more ornamental salvia, but the culinary varieties make an equally valuable contribution…
Read moreDay 232: layering up
You can safely ignore the traditional advice to buy multiples of the same plant in odd numbers once you get safely into double figures.* Until I’ve had the chance to divide up all the heleniums my resident mollusc population haven’t beaten me to…
Read moreDay 231: Aralia in flower
We’re entering that part of the year when the strange flowers of members of the aralia family begin to tempt pollinators – most familiar to those of us in the UK being those on our native ivy…
Read moreDay 230: Campsis radicans
Those of us currently considering giving our wisterias the second of their two annual haircuts and wondering why on earth we planted a climber quite so rampant and gutter-threatening* may want to think twice about the trumpet vine, Campsis radicans…
Read moreDay 229: enchanter's nightshade
Some weeds – ruderals like chickweed, groundsel and hairy bittercress – are with us all year round. Others are more closely tied to a particular time of year…
Read moreDay 228: Salvia 'Amistad'
Salvia ‘Amistad’ has a kind of regal, takes-no-nonsense air about it – handsome mid-green foliage, tall slender black stems and flowers with petals of the richest royal-purple. It’s a stunner that works well in a mixed border but, to my mind at least, benefits from being given a little room to breathe…
Read moreDay 227: Eryngium agavifolium
There’s never anything soft about a sea holly, but Eryngium agavifolium takes the spine‘O’meter reading up by several notches by mimicking the sharply toothed foliage of many species of agave…
Read moreDay 226: bee balm
The flowers of bee balm (Monarda didyma) always appear to have hurriedly just got out of bed, but the bees and the butterflies don’t seem to mind the slightly dishevelled appearance of this member of the mint family…
Read moreDay 225: Panicum 'Frosted Explosion'
One of those plants that’s as useful in the vase as in the garden, Panicum elegans ‘Frosted Explosion’ is aptly named…
Read moreDay 224: waiting for asters
You have to feel a bit sorry for asters. Everyone waits about for the flowers, as if that’s the be-all-and-end-all of the matter, paying scant attention to the rest of the plant – the scaffolding, if you like, for the floral display…
Read moreDay 223: blackberry glut
It was obviously going to be a great year for blackberries. Not because of the rampant incursion of vigorous, thick primocanes (next year’s fruiting stems) into the garden following a wet June and a warm spell in July…
Read moreDay 222: gate latch
The back gate has been desperately in need of a new latch for some time, but I’ve just not found the right thing. I’m feeling fed up with functional and indifferent to decorative – something chunky and honest would fit the bill…
Read moreDay 221: blue torch cactus
This Pilosocereus azureus (variously blue torch, woolly blue spires) seems to be faring quite well, though I’ve only just realised I should have been watering it more than I have been over the summer. Houseplants, you see, are still something of a mystery to me…
Read moreDay 220: echinacea
Echinacea can be a bit of a stinker to get through winter, certainly on heavy clay soils, where I find they’ll cope with cold conditions, but not wet.The answer is to open up the soil by adding organic matter…
Read moreDay 219: Sanguisorba 'Tanna'
There are times of year when minimalism and restraint can be watchwords in the garden, bringing with them a sense of tranquil serenity. I’m not convinced it’s worth striving for this while surrounded by the effervescence of summer…
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