I have always believed that you should only write or talk about what you know
It may only be the Bank Holiday weekend but with a sharp drop in temperatures it might feel a bit more like autumn and that means, to many of us at least, time for spring bulbs. I mentioned the autumn-flowering bulbs last week, which have to be bought and planted as soon as possible –…
It has been an odd year for weather. I know that gardeners, like farmers, are never happy with the weather, whatever it is like, but this year seems to have been especially trying. Hot, dry weather, just when we needed some moisture, in spring, made planting tricky. Then extreme hot weather was an issue. But…
One of the joys of having a garden is being able to cut flowers for the home. I know that not everyone likes to take flowers from the garden but I don’t see an issue, especially if you grow a few plants specially for the purpose. A lot of these are annuals, plants that need…
But hydrangeas can be red or blue! I think that, via various means, I get more questions on hydrangeas than any other plants, closely followed by camellias and clematis. A contributory factor is undoubtedly their popularity but there are also lots of things to understand about hydrangeas. When I built and manned a display at…
When I was working at Nags Hall, for some of the time I was in charge of buying the houseplants. It was something I enjoyed but my judgement was sometimes clouded by my training at Kew Gardens. Unfamiliar plants that no one wanted to buy were like old friends to me after working in the…