Cabbages get everywhere, from the tiny hairy bittercress in your flowerbeds, to the yellow rape blanketing the countryside in summer, to the mustard leaves in your salad. Here on the beach…
Read moreDay 255: Persicaria capitata
A wander through the streets of Rye where I encounter a persicaria I’d not before met…
Read moreDay 254: Amemone x hybrida ‘Pamina’
Japanese anemone spotting in another’s garden yesterday. This variety seems a little more compact…
Read moreDay 253: Rudbeckia hirta 'Cappuccino'
It rained last night – a proper, stormy downpour, with thunder and lightning – and, though it was all over by the morning, the garden was full of tiny raindrop lenses on every surface…
Read moreDay 252: a sedum worth consideration
was having a conversation earlier in the week about sedums with someone who loves the leaves, but not the flowers…
Read moreDay 251: Rose ‘Gentle Hermione’
A hot day – proper, sunny summer stuff – and the garden is starting to flag a little…
Read moreDay 250: Anemone x hybrida ‘Königin Charlotte’
‘Queen Charlotte’ sounds like a grand name for a windflower, but since the Japanese anemone attains a loftier height than most of its immediate relatives, I think it’s appropriate in this case…
Read moreDay 249: Pelargonium sidoides
Pelargoniums have a reputation for being a bit showy – and deservedly so. There are the zonals, what most of us grew up calling ‘geraniums’…
Read moreDay 248: hazel
The hazel shells are plumping, fresh and pale green on the branch, evidence of a few having been munched lying on the ground…
Read moreDay 247: elderberry memories
To me, nothing quite says ‘Back to School’ like elderberries…
Read moreDay 246: ivy in flower
There’s been a buzz and a fugginess about my wanderings today, in the garden, the streets and the fields…
Read moreDay 245: biscuits for autumn
One day into autumn, and three weeks off by another reckoning, and shades of biscuit are beginning to creep into the borders…
Read moreDay 244: Geranium whatsisface
Every garden should have a mystery geranium. If I can build this into an article of horticultural faith, one of those guiding principles by which we populate our beds and borders, I tell myself I’ll feel better…
Read moreDay 243: Pelargonium 'Vectis Glitter'
Stellar Pelargonium ‘Vectis Glitter’ is doing her best, but could do with a little sun in which to sparkle…
Read moreDay 242: hawthorn
Do not plant a mixed native hedge down one side of your garden if you’re concerned about your neighbours grumbling at you…
Read moreDay 241: Japanese lilies
Yet one more casualty of a year when few things went according to plan, the later flowering Japanese lilies (Lilium speciosum var. rubrum ‘Uchida’) got sidelined…
Read moreDay 240: ragwort
Day 239: Dioscorea communis
The dog days of summer never arrived this year and, as one season begins to give way to the next, I find myself peering into the hedgerows, and feeling distinctly autumnal about it…
Read moreDay 238: free plants
Some of the beds in this garden are almost totally filled with plants that nobody paid for (no, we didn’t nick them)…
Read moreDay 237: Begonia rex 'Fireworks'
The leaves on the kitchen windowsill begonias are the headline grabbers…
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