It’s been a cold few days here, temperatures below freezing at night and barely climbing above zero degrees in the day. Hard to believe then, that a lot is happening in the garden in January. Underground, roots are developing, gearing up for the year ahead. Above ground, if you look closely, hellebore buds are fattening up and bright, green shoots emerging from the ground. Clematis cirrhosa ‘Wisley Cream’ These are two evergreen climbers in my garden, growing over an arch, leading through to the little vegetable garden. The Clematis has these sweet white flowers through winter and into spri ..read more

Gardeners seem to fall into two camps, tidy and neat or relaxed and nauturalistic. My aim is to convert everyone to the latter camp, and there are good reasons why. Many tall, winter plants look amazing Cutting back grasses and tall perennials in winter robs us of their full potential. Left to their own devices, soft feathery grasses look wonderful, swaying gently in the breeze. The colours, generally soft and muted, tone beautifully with steely winter weather. Basically your garden looks better with a silhouette of tall seed-heads and textural grasses. Veronucastrum virginicum ‘Fascination ..read more

The fiery-coloured autumn leaves have dropped now and the scene outside my window is monochrome, wintery and calm. My garden is changing into a more restful state, there are fewer things to do and the pace is nice and slow. Plant Trees and Shrubs   I was out in my garden yesterday, moving plants around. The low, clipped box hedge around this particular border had succumbed to Box Tree Blight, leaving a big gap at the front, but giving me the opportunity to re-design the planting. It felt a bit like a chore at first, but was soon transformed into a relaxing time. With the company of a robi ..read more

A lesson learnt during these last few months, is how good it is to have two or three favourite, local/easy to get to, uplifting places to visit. Although I’ve been a visitor to R.H.S. Wisley Garden for decades, over the past few months I’ve come to appreciate it more than ever. During this time when we can only meet one person to go for a walk, it’s been the perfect place to meet friends and family.   Autumn is a wonderful time for garden visiting, and Wisley is full of interesting seasonal plants kept, as you would imagine, in beautiful order. This was my grand-daughters first visit to ..read more

October is usually a nice month here. The days are shorter, but mild and lovely to be outside, it clears the head and steadies the nerves. The Vegetable Garden in October: It’s nice to be planting vegetables and looking ahead to next year. Garlic is one of my favourite vegetables to grow, it’s simple to plant and doesn’t need any care until next spring. Just check it from time to time, and firm back into the soil, any cloves that birds have tried to pull out. Most broad beans are sown in early spring, but Aquadulce Claudia is a hardy one, and can be planted in October.  It’s such a pleas ..read more

It always takes me a while to get used to the idea that summer. But the wonderful colours and fruitful bounties of autumn, eventually convince me it’s time to move on. This season also brings the opportunity to do our bit to counteract the climate emergency. Numerous small changes in the way we garden, will add up and help combat the harmful effects of climate change. October is a great time to plant a tree or two, the soil is still warm, and the weather cooler. This creates the ideal circumstances for trees to grow their root system through winter. Making them more mature and resilient, read ..read more

The garden may seem to be winding down, but it’s a pivotal month of preparation, with plenty of things to look forward to. Ubiquitous, but lovely Verbena bonariensis. Spring Flowering Bulbs: Every year I’m delighted by what beautiful flowers are produced from such unpromising little lumps. Buy them now to get a good choice of varieties. Keep tulips somewhere cool, and open their packaging, ready for planting in November. I’ve been enjoying the Sarah Raven catalogue, the combination of various tulips are wonderful. Though I don’t always buy from S.R., but shop around for the best price of wha ..read more

I hope you enjoyed last weeks post about sustainable gardening, here’s a few more ideas to help you. Small steps and we will get there, reducing our carbon footprint and making gardens a more welcoming habitat for all those birds , bees and butterflies that are struggling and endangered. Echinacea Green Envy and Agastache Black Adder, from Hampton Court Garden Show. How to use less plastic in your garden: A difficult one, mainly because of plastic plant pots. There doesn’t seem to be any viable alternative at the moment. I guess growing some of your own plants and re-using plat pots is a goo ..read more

August is a busy month in the garden, thankfully a lot of that is harvesting vegetables and cutting Dahlias. But I’m also thinking about the bigger picture of sustainable gardening, and how I can do more of it. One of my goals is to improve the ecosystem in our garden, so as many plants, animals, and tiny creatures in the soil, all co-habit. This gives declining species with habitats under threat, a healthy place to exist. It also keeps the complex web of creatures in a garden in balance, so they all survive. In the five years since we’ve lived here, I’ve planted lots more plants, including c ..read more

August this year feels very different to any other year. Covid has changed everything in recent months, but we’ve also had to deal with brutal heat. Plants that normally survive in semi shade have become scorched, blasted by just a couple of hours of ninety degree sunshine. Echinacea pallida But back to the garden in August: There are many lovely things happening, despite the heat. The dahlias are looking glorious and Pelargonium flowers are bursting forth. Pelargonium Ardens. Unless you want to save seeds for collection, flowers need dead-heading, encouraging more flowers to be produced ..read more