One of the most enjoyable gardening activities is taking time out from cutting, weeding and mulching to visit a garden well stocked with year-round colour or a flower show, even though the gardens here need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Even more so if you pick a sunny day and add the chance to buy one or...
Pastel or hot colours? Try out colour schemes before committing to permanent planting. Many gardening columns will be talking about summer bedding plants as we reach the start of May and are able to plant out half hardies with confidence. I have written on this topic before and this time I am encouraging you to expand your view of what summer...
February 14th, St. Valentines Day, is traditionally said to be the day when birds start to nest. While this is debatable, late February can seem like spring but do not be fooled into sowing and planting too early as the first part of the month is definitely winter. What you can do this month is some planning and maintenance to ensure...
Hot colours for a summer bedding scheme Winter gardening articles abound with sparkling images of snow covered trees and frosted grasses and today in Kent was just one of those days but the reality is more often just dank and cold offering little incentive to venture outside. How much better to do your ‘gardening’ inside this month and cheer yourself up...
The recent onset of cold weather and the first frosts make it obvious that our gardens will not be awash with colourful flowers for the next three months but that does not mean that you need to look out a dull, empty space throughout the winter. You just have to look beyond flowers to what else plants can offer. Coppery, flaking...
It may seem that the broad-brush style of the Impressionist painters clashes with the science and plant by plant design of the gardens that they so often painted. However, Impressionist paintings can help us in the process of tweaking or totally redesigning beds and borders in our own gardens. And October is an ideal time to review and revise planting...
August is a month when we may do more sitting in the garden (whether our own or someone else’s) than hard labour creating and planting. So this month’s column invites you to consider what gardening in the 21st century is and should be like. I will offer food for thought but you will have to supply your own tea Modern materials...
You may have noticed that every show garden at the Chelsea Flower Show this (and every) year included some sort of built structure: a summer house, ‘pod’, the back of the house or at least a pergola or arbour. There is a good reason for this and the same reason that, when I teach or talk about how to create...
April is a key month for planting up a new border or moving favourite plants around to create a new design for the summer. But there is more to successful planting than just digging a hole. Buy a healthy specimen: for herbaceous plants remember that you are really buying the roots and crown not the top growth – in spring you...
I thought that I would brighten up yotur January day by looking at Mediterranean style gardens. Many people have visited Mediterranean countries on holiday and (like me) have been entranced by the sun, sea, pine trees, scents and colours of the region, along with the shady courtyards where even the locals seem to spend time drinking coffee in the middle...
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