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It's easy to be sniffy about the ornamental cabbage. It is quite a strange concept; an odd, Frankensteinish amalgam of vegetable and bedding plant. However, my mind was changed - temporarily at least - during a recent trip to New York. I saw

there to stop people walking on the grass but even the French are not that fierce).The most impressive thing was the standard of bedding. Rather than strict lines or groups the plants were arranged much more informally. Great swathes of orange dahlias, salvias

I've been busy redesigning a great chunk of my garden. It's an important area, overlooked by our kitchen and bedroom windows, so it's the first thing I see every morning when I stagger out of bed. In contrast to the rest of the garden, it's always

(Patron Saint of Gardeners) never impulse shopped in nurseries. I had not seen the plant before, all I knew was that it was quite large and had been planted in the middle of my carefully planned flower bed. Hmmmm...some designers would have thrown a bit

Many years ago when I was a landscaper in London, I had a regular client who had a tiny garden in Wandsworth. It was literally one flower bed, a small shed and a wall topped by a chain link fence.The reason we had to keep returning was because

I have always found plants with big leaves fascinating. I love hearing raindrops pattering on leaf canopies whilst pushing through an overgrown path, surrounded by plants that are bigger than me. It is probably a deep-rooted jungle instinct. I have

: I was told it by Kim Hurst from the Cottage Herbery at the Malvern Spring Show last year (the 2009 show, by the way, runs from 7-10 May; I hope to see you there) . Those of you sensible enough not to let mint run loose in your flower beds will have

diversion from the point of this blog, happens very seldom. Often it rains earlier and later but only on a few days every year are we forced to stay in bed. Meteorology, eh?Anyway, my point is that part of our route goes through the nearby woods. Most

last week). It is a good moment to look back on the triumphs and disasters in our gardens and to make notes, so that we do not make the same mistakes again.Allow me to share a few of my best mess-ups of 2010.My first is a mistake I did make last year

stuffing the plant into a polythene bag and spraying it inside the bag).Couch grass (sometimes known as twitch) has also appeared from somewhere and is colonising a couple of beds. It has long bony looking runners with amazingly sharp points that can