A lot of my clients want low-maintenance gardens and get worried if I suggest roses. Roses have a bad rep; greenfly, blackspot, mildew. But actually a bit of effort when planting (at the right depth, and throw in a handful … Continue reading
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This week I’ve been deadheading roses. Here in London, the first flush of flowers is coming to an end, and now’s the time to be decisive and take out the whole truss to an outward-facing leaf node. I quite often … Continue reading
Bees are in trouble. Since the EU-wide ban on harmful neocotinoids – the pesticides widely believed to be the cause of colony collapse disorder – which came into effect last year, there has been growing pressure to find replacements. But … Continue reading
People are funny about clematis. I have clients who won’t have them in their gardens, believing that they are fussy and capricious – feet in the shade, heads in the sun, greedy, drought-shy, needy, needy, needy. There’s some truth in … Continue reading
Visiting Cadaques, Salvador Dali’s home in northern Cataluyna in springtime you can see straight away where he got his inspiration. First there are the crazy cloud formations, apparently strays from the trumontana winds that gust through here at this time … Continue reading
Now that spring seems finally to have sprung out of the shadows of winter, and buds are fattening fast, I wanted to sing the praises of bare trees and their importance in parks and garden design. Here in London, the … Continue reading
T S Eliot was wrong. April is not the cruellest month. That’s January. Gales and rain, doomy skies and the apparently interminable trudge towards spring. Hardly the time to be thinking about your garden, much less for venturing out there. … Continue reading
At this time of year, it’s the glitz and sparkle of Christmas trees that hustle for attention. But spare a thought for the trees in the garden. Plant a new tree now, and it will spend the cold, wet winter … Continue reading
Euonymus europeaus ‘Red Cascade’. I saw this hiding in a hedge on Hampstead Heath. A plant I had forgotten about, since it’s usually to be found on the edge of a woodland garden, and there aren’t many of those in … Continue reading
To Great Dixter, the garden designed by Lutyens, revolutionised by the late, great writer and horticulturalist, Christopher Lloyd, and which is forging into the future under its present custodian and Lloyd disciple, Fergus Garrett. Four years ago, Garrett decided to … Continue reading