I have always believed that you should only write or talk about what you know
Here in Ireland, restricted movement means travelling no further than 5km though the UK has looser restrictions. Fortunately, despite my isolated location, the nearest business is a strawberry farm, 1km away, and Wexford is known throughout the country for its strawberries. The recent hot weather has been perfect for early fruit in tunnels to ripen…
Hostas should be in their freshest, finest livery right now. Nothing is quite as beautiful as a mature clump of beautiful hosta foliage. Of course there is a problem and I deliberately didn’t show it in the photo above. It is a shame that I can never write about hostas for long without having to…
I can’t imagine a garden without roses. Whenever I say or write that I find I have to spend the next five minutes or 300 words justifying myself. People have such strong views on them. I know all about the problems with diseases, the aphids, the prickles. But I counter that with the fact that…
Growing up in Lingfield and then Oxted, Sundays often involved family trips to the great gardens of the Weald such as Sheffield Park. It was these that fostered a love of azaleas with their vibrant colours and scent, often accented by a carpet of bluebells. Unfortunately, living in Oxted at the foot of the Downs,…
Clematis are the most popular of woody climbers. They are varied in size, shape and colour and adaptable too. There is a clematis for almost every part of the garden though they are especially popular for clothing trellis against house walls and for patio pots. Curiously, these are not the best places for the majority…
I bought some bags of compost the other day, not from a garden centre but the local agricultural supplier where I had to pick up layer’s pellets for work. It was out of desperation since garden centres are not open and I can’t face squashing my eggs and strawberries buying compost in supermarkets. Here in…
Back in the 70s and 80s we had very different tastes in bedding plants and our buying habits were different too. The range of plants was smaller and, dare I say it, more traditional, with a distinctly Victorian feel about it. Scarlet salvias, white alyssum and blue lobelia were still de rigeur and French marigolds,…
This is a strange Easter. Quite apart from the other changes to our usual routine we cannot get to garden centres. Easter weekend is the start of the garden year for many gardeners, though the more dedicated will know that the gardening year starts a lot earlier. It is all about the planning. I started…
In these difficult times we are not able to get out and indulge in some of our favourite pastimes – buying plants and enjoying a coffee at our favourite garden centre, but just because we can’t leave home we can still work in the garden. Spring is often a tricky time in the garden –…
One of the many characters I remember from the old days at Knights was Bert. I don’t know if I ever knew his surname and I certainly can’t remember it now – perhaps one of you know. I was endlessly fascinated by his tales of life ‘in service’ when he worked in a private estate….