2018 has brought me not one but two almanac treasures, each a joy to read and written nearly 200 years apart. The first is a beautifully illustrated hardback: The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide To 2018 by Lia Leendertz which I bought a couple of months ago along with copies for friends, but hid away so I … Continue reading Year Of The Almanac
I was chatting to a friend at the community garden yesterday as we collected leaves and pruned the willows about the beauty of oca with its lush trailing leaves and jewel-like edible tubers. To my mind, harvesting these colourful tubers is one of the most joyful moments in the winter garden, along with watching the … Continue reading Creating A Winter Garden (Part 3)
Last weekend, the first part of Creating a Winter Garden considered structure and flowers. Thanks to everyone who shared images of their winter gardens: precious moments that lift our spirits on these short winter days. Stems and Bark The scarcity of winter flowers means that a wall liberally covered in clematis 'Freckles' is a precious sight, … Continue reading Creating A Winter Garden (Part 2)
The speckled flowers of Clematis cirrhosa ‘Freckles’ and its creamy white counterpart ‘Jingle Bells’ are twining along the bare apple espaliers with some intrepid stems nearly reaching the ground. I planted the clematis by the post closest to the dining room window so that we could see it from the table and judging by the … Continue reading Creating A Winter Garden (Part 1)
It's been a busy year of writing, studying, volunteering and looking after a young family, but the hard work is all worth it when projects and crops come to fruition. Not all our growing endeavours have been successful - we failed to get even one pear, most of our greengage fruitlets were blasted by a … Continue reading 4 Tastiest Crops Of 2017
I was asked recently to write a piece on where my personal gardening passion came from. The origins of inspiration is a subject which interests me in both my work with children and my writing. This is what emerged when I put pen to paper... As a child scrambling though the scrubby heather on Conwy … Continue reading How Did Your Love Of Gardening Begin?
Chillies are deliciously fascinating - their forms, colours and flavours tantalise the senses; their names alone are enough to make your tongue tingle in anticipation. I've been growing far more chillies over the past few years than sanity should dictate. I'm drawn in by the evocative colour and spice of names like 'Bolivian Rainbow', 'Numex … Continue reading What’s In A Name? Capsicum Annuum
Charting the year's progress through seasonal celebrations is comforting, but can it eclipse the wondrous yet understated transformations taking place each day outside our back doors? Autumn is a big word, a catch-all for subtly shifting seasonal changes. On 2 September this year, a colleague remarked that it was nearly Christmas. Behind this provocatively jovial … Continue reading Remaking The Seasons
Growing alliums makes me happy. I love their versatility, their diversity and their sheer brilliance in the spring borders. They are equally at home in cottage gardens, amongst perennial grasses, in containers and as an architectural feature throughout contemporary planting schemes. I've grown quite a few varieties over the years and have reliable favourites which … Continue reading 7 Best Alliums To Plant This Week
Last month I wrote about my allotment woes which had resulted in an accidental potato monoculture, but since then the allotment has been working hard, producing an exciting range of cut flowers by the bucketload. After an inspiring spring harvest of daffodils and tulips, I planted summer corms and tubers, and sowed a host of … Continue reading Cutting Patch: Into The Limelight