Search - Articles

After all the winds and rain that swept through earlier in the week (and which washed away poor Pippa's iris) a calm has descended on this part of the world.Wandering around this morning I've noticed that spring has been inching in under cover

Spring is here, although nobody seems to have told the weather department yet. This week's biting easterly wind felt more like standing at a Siberian bus stop than April in an English country garden.However, the evidence of spring is out

I think it is time for another deeply prejudiced personal rant about my least favourite plants. Spring is, if not exactly just around the corner, then definitely packed, dressed and on its way. With the spring comes the return to our gardens

I do love the garden in October - especially in the sunshine. In the early Spring it is all about hope and waiting: all that mulch and neatly tidied brown border. A month or so later and there is green stuff and bulbs all over the place. Then we

I can't really let May pass without mentioning the hawthorn (aka Crataegus monogyna). It is after all the May tree.For those of a mystical bent it carries more folklore and strange stories than many trees. It's all bound up with spring, rising sap

? Or the apple that Paris gave to Aphrodite (which decision eventually led to ten years of Trojan War)? Well, anyway, the apples in question were almost certainly quinces. They have the most beautiful coy pink flowers in spring followed by fruit that are about

Aster 'Lady in Black' and A. 'Monte Cassino').Most importantly time flies in gardens and soon it will be spring (or is that pushing the optimism just a bit too far?).

and it is one of my great pleasures. The dark green leaves go perfectly with the aged brick, in the spring it is covered with frothy white flowers and come the autumn the branches are laden with red berries. When the hard frosts come we then have a wonderful

it was wearing a turtleneck sweater and holding a pistol in the E.H. Shepard illustrations for The Wind in the Willows. Stoats, according to Ratty "are not to be trusted".This week is the first big event of the garden show calendar: the Malvern Spring Gardening

.I did a big shrub planting for a client in the spring and for various reasons there was a hiatus between planting and erecting a fence. I have just walked round to see what had been nibbled and can report that there are three distinct groups. Firstly