Search - Articles

strawberry, or even a Hobnob. It is, however, evergreen and has fine cinnamon-coloured bark. In this picture you can just see the white hanging bell flowers as well. (Apparently the name comes from unum tantum edo, which means 'eat only one' in Latin

grotesque.A smallish tree reaching only about 20m tall, the field maple has a bark as fissured as the face of W.H. Auden, with a slightly corky texture. The flowers are nothing much to write home about, being little greeny numbers that turn up at the same

should grow this tree (sorry if I'm sounding a bit bossy): its leaves are finely shaped (like a sort of muscular maple leaf); its bark is pale and slightly corky; it produces rather charming fruits called gumballs but, more than anything, its autumn

of colour and life; in the majority of cases this is to be welcomed. Hooray for the resurgence of tulips, whoopee for the return of the rose and yippee for the arrival of annuals.However, there are some plants which I am not looking forward to seeing again

of blossom to choose from that it all gets a bit confusing. But my top five at the moment are: Prunus 'Taihaku' - its white flowers have centres the colour of jam stains Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra' - its purple leaves are interesting Prunus 'Cheal's Weeping

work, so you'd be much better off planting black mulberries, with their big, blowsy leaves and bark the colour of cork. Morus nigra seems to live for a very long time - even after falling over - and many older gardens have ancient specimens. (There is a