Chrysanthemum 'Avignon Pink' I meet many people who turn their noses up at Chrysanthemums. Undoubtedly, the gaudier selections at supermarkets and petrol stations are not the best advertisement for these flowers. If you grow them yourself, however, you can find some amazing varieties for autumnal flower arrangements. Very soon, my [...]
The garden is showing so much colour at the moment - showcased beautifully in the glorious sunshine this week and clinging on for dear life in the high winds. This week I share some pretty flowers, am proud mum to baby Echeveria and set a mystery shrub identification challenge.
I like the look of spring flowers in the lawn and am always on the look-out for new ideas. Last March I stumbled across the alpine meadow at RHS Wisley and was enchanted by what I saw. Tiny gold thimbles stretched away as far as the eye could see. Stooping [...]
It's been another glorious week for gardening with warm bright days. If it wasn't for the darker evenings and tell-tale reddening of the leaves I could believe it was early summer. Some of the stalwarts of June are still flowering magnificently, such as my roses. The dahlias, asters and sedum [...]
This week we had frost in the Chilterns. The days have been balmy and sunny but the clear nights, which revealed the big harvest moon, brought temperatures right down. The frost was only visible on my car windscreen and insufficient to blacken my dahlias which continue to bloom away. The [...]
Dahlias are beautiful flowers to bring into the home, adding a touch of late summer or autumnal opulence with minimal effort on your part. Here I share four stunning but simple techniques using dahlias and describe how to grow them in any sized garden.
This week I drove a family member to an appointment in Rutland and was delighted as it gave me the opportunity to spend a day at Barnsdale Garden. You could call it a horticultural pilgrimage as I was a big fan of Geoff Hamilton's Gardeners World in the late eighties and [...]
It's Dahlia a-go-go in my garden at the moment and these blowsy beauties are providing sought after late summer colour. I've not featured six of one type of plant in previous Six on Saturdays, but with my garden overflowing with dahlias, this is the week. I'm growing almost twenty types [...]
Having a lovely cup of tea in my favourite mug whilst walking the garden is the best thing about returning from holiday. For some reason though I am always slightly nervous about what I will find in the garden. It's only when you go away for a bit, even a [...]
