I’ve always thought the name Veronica Speedwell sounds like a character straight out of a sixties spy novel…
Read moreDay 135: stopping for bluebells
We are invariably in a rush to get somewhere, you and I. For one so completely at home in the cool, green calm of the woods…
Read moreDay 134: lilac dance
The lilac is on the point of bursting into bloom; I can’t help sticking my nose into each candle-shaped inflorescence…
Read moreDay 133: woodland floor planting
There’s a subtlety to the way that Mother Nature plants that eludes the human gardener, so far from the grids and patterns of our planting plans…
Read moreDay 132: scented sentries
A building without plants by the entrance always seems a little austere – doubly so when it’s a home…
Read moreDay 131: droopy Tuesday
My tulips are flopping, and I rather love them that way. Of course I’ve not cut them from my own garden – these glorious beauties are from a kind friend…
Read moreDay 130: Erythronium
The dog’s tooth violet isn’t a violet at all, but a member of the lily family, and closely related to the tulip…
Read moreDay 129: dog violet
I’m not sure you’re supposed to laugh at your flowers. But in all honesty, I’ve seen the violets look better…
Read moreDay 128: black and blue
Always the first of the geraniums to appear, the mourning widow (Geranium phaeum) sneaks into the borders while everyone’s making a fuss of the tulips…
Read moreDay 127: the bashful bluebell
The Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) have arrived at last – though it might be that I’m the only person in the country who’s been waiting for them.
Read moreDay 126: planting combinations
The flowers have been cosying up to one another, but they needn’t think they’ve gotten away with it…
Read moreDay 125: suddenly the sun
Ok, now this feels like April. Just as we arrive in May which, when you come to think of it, is about right for a year that’s already revealed an inclination toward the tardy…
Read moreDay 124: the resilient garden
The garden is resilient, in spite of the wind howling around the house and buffeting every plant not nestled into the shelter of a hedge or shrub…
Read moreDay 123: black currant in bloom
Things are happening on the blackcurrant, the flowers appear to have survived the strange April weather, and in this we’re fortunate…
Read moreDay 122: an angry rhubarb
The rhubarb is shaking its fist at the sky. I think I know how it feels, though it’s interesting that this particular crown is always that much more cantankerous than the more mature clump by the greenhouse…
Read moreDay 121: send rain
Caught between being cross at the forecast for leaving me mentally unprepared for a soaking, and delighted that the sky was finally breaking after weeks without rain…
Read moreDay 120: arugula bolting
The brassicas are bolting! It sounds alarming – something that should be shouted by a panic stricken messenger bursting into a roomful of concerned villagers…
Read moreDay 119: garden overwhelm
There’s a degree of garden overwhelm around just now, inescapable in casual conversations with friends, exchanges with folk on social media…
Read moreDay 118: the miniaturist
These last few days of April are something of a delight for the miniaturist. Buds bursting in agonisingly slow motion …
Read moreDay 117: fashionably late to sow
And we’re off! Sauntering up to the starting block several moments after everyone else has sprinted around the first corner…
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