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) was of a Chinese juniper 1.5m tall and 3.5m wide growing in a small, overcrowded garden. Over a period of years it was dug up, pruned and replanted until it fitted into a pot. The whole process took about a quarter of a century and is far from over.The art

I don't believe it. I am incandescent with spluttering indignation. For the first time ever a molehill has appeared on my lawn.We've lived here for about 15 years. Before that the garden was a concrete farmyard, so this particular mole

(apologies to all those people standing ankle deep in post-flood sludge who probably don't need a smarty-pants pointing at the silver-lining).Lawns - because it has been well-nigh impossible to get the mower out of the shed, grass has grown much longer than

My daughter has just wandered into my office to ask "what is all that stuff growing in the lawn?". While not exactly a perfectly worded horticultural query it is a very interesting point. At the moment the grass is spattered with silver

topiary. In the winter they provide structure and add tone; in the summer they seem like benevolent aunts standing stiffly, but attentively, above a gambolling chaos of flower and lawn.You don't need a huge stately garden to use topiary. In my garden I

2009 is likely to be stuffed with articles, books and programmes about Charles Darwin. It is the year of Darwin’s 200th birthday and also the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, his best known work. The BBC are marking

plant family (Ranunculaceae), which contains such diverse plants as aconitum, hellebores, clematis and thalictrum. Anyway, we are mildly overrun by creeping and field buttercups. Creeping buttercups lodge in my lawn and many happy hours are often spent

).This hedge was originally in a garden I built at Chelsea in 1999 and has been through a number of incarnations. At the moment I have clipped it (or rather, Simon has) in a strange swooping and rearing shape that I think goes rather well with the Stipa

.The Draughtsman's Contract (1983). Beautiful Peter Greenaway film about love and lust amongst formal gardens and sweeping landscapes. Filmed at Groombridge Place in Kent, which was also used in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice.Green Card (1990) starring Gerard

I've found an interesting artefact, a remnant of a time long gone. Lurking in a cupboard I discovered an old album of cigarette cards assembled by my father in 1939. For those younger readers of this illustrious blog I will explain