The highlight of a recent trip to West Cornwall was Tremenheere Garden, near Penzance. It announces itself as a sculpture garden as soon you arrive; a slate monolith from a former Chelsea garden by Darren Evans rises up (above)and on … Continue reading
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It’s always a thrill to visit the national collection of a plant. These growers might be the trainspotters of the horticultural world, but for those of us who care about plants, they do important, painstaking work – preserving, propagating and … Continue reading
Two noticeable trends at this year’s Hampton Court Flower Show: new twists on recycling and, wait for it, crazy paving. One of my favourite gardens, The Power to Make a Difference, by Joe Francis (above right, below right), is a … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
Work is continuing apace on an angular courtyard garden in Hackney, with a roof terrace. It’s been a complicated job, involving to-ing and fro-ing with a structural engineer, a rotten joist supporting the doors to the roof terrace, crumbling walls, … Continue reading
The English love their lawns. Maroooned in a faraway fantasy that has more to do with the Brideshead Revisited and Downton Abbey than Belsize Park or Dagenham, they dream of swathes of manicured lawns sweeping between magnificent herbaceous borders off … Continue reading
I've been commissioned to create a poppy meadow in a school to commemorate the centenary of World War One next year. We’ve found a sunny site near the playground that’s currently turfed over, which is ideal, as the soil needs … Continue reading