My slippery descent into gardening began by taking ‘Prickly Pear’ cuttings, from Kew Gardens, while I was still at prep school. After a horticulture degree, with placements in historic gardens, and two decades making gardening telly, I’ve come full circle and returned to being a West Dorset sole gardener.
It seems almost impossible, given the ‘bad start’ to 2018, that we’ve been blessed with almost a month of good, warm, sunny weather in the period since I last sat down to write one of these articles. It’s certainly made Read more »
“What a difference a month makes”!!! Last time I was writing one of these articles, there was snow on the ground and my garden was a quagmire. Now the weather is convincingly summer-like and, about time too, most of the Read more »
As I write this there is snow laying on the ground and a chill wind blowing. I think I opine every autumn that it “might be nice to have a ‘proper’ winter” due to its cleansing action on the myriad Read more »
Carrying on this month where I left off last one : “Let Battle Commence!” March is well named as it’s this month when ‘Mother Nature’ begins hitching up her skirts, stepping up from a slow amble, towards a more forceful Read more »
Gardening is a funny mix of certainty and uncertainty—if I were feeling glib I’d add “much like life in general”. Some tasks are firmly fixed in the schedule, like doing the second shortening of wisteria shoots (round about now, I Read more »
Well, Dear Reader, assuming you’ve come through the ‘Festive Season’ relatively unscathed, January is a month more suited to armchair gardening than ‘full on’, outside in the cold, hairy-chested, tasks. If, like me, you are not as young as you Read more »
Looking at photos I took of autumn colour last year, compared to the same scene this year, I think that it’s got colder sooner, to lower temperatures, this year compared to last. There are also more berries on my hollies, Read more »
As the number of plants in bloom reduces, the further into autumn we travel, the more we notice other, subtler, ways in which plants add colour to the garden. Autumn colour is chief amongst these now, although the equinoctial gales Read more »
“Season of mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun, conspiring with him how to load and bless and fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.” I originally used that opening, for this October’s article, a decade ago. Read more »
Last year we had some of the hottest ‘summer’ weather in September, although, seasonally speaking, we have now entered ‘autumn’. September keeps you guessing as so much depends on the weather and how benign it turns out to be. It Read more »