A Walk in the Woods

Now is the best time for a walk in the woods. Woodland plants are making the most of their brief opportunity before the canopy closes and the soft summer blanket of cool shade settles over them. And there is so much more to enjoy than just the bluebells, as if they weren’t reason enough to venture into the shadows.  The atmosphere in a wood in spring is pure magic. It is incredibly peaceful and soothing, and has the feel of a private and secret place. The bustle and noise of the world beyond melt away as your body tunes into the soft sounds, cool air and dappled light within....... 

Accessorise all areas

Anyone who has been to one of the RHS flower shows will know just how many accessories there are out there for your garden. Essentially though accessories are the finishing touches to a garden, the little things that personalise it and make it look, feel and function the way you want it to........

Low Life

A blanket of snow is not enough to stop the first stirrings of spring down at grass roots level. The thaw at the end of January did its thing overnight and revealed that plenty was going on hidden from view.
The snowdrops of course seemed unperturbed and perfectly happy to flower inside their icy cocoon. They made a dramatic entrance overnight nestled amongst half rotted magnolia leaves while the hellebores too were well on their way with fat pink and ruby rich buds being gently hoisted aloft on soft rhubarb-like stems........

Winter charmers

When the question ‘what is your favourite winter flower’? is asked, the answer is often dominated by just a few, albeit worthy, contenders. Snowdrops, aconites and crocus generate much excitement in late winter and early spring, and rightly so as their delicate flowers remind us that winter is on the wane. There are though other flowering plants that are worth a place in the winter garden and, although they will never compete with the heavyweights, two in particular that have buckets of charm are Iris unguicularis and Helleborus niger.......

Good bones

When you start to plan a garden it can be difficult to resist going straight for the flowering plants. However a garden’s success will depend more on it’s underlying structure, with the flowers just being the ‘icing on the cake’. Winter is the perfect time of year to see whether your garden has good ‘bones’, and if the garden is looking a bit flat and one dimensional then it is probably in need of some extra structure.......

Commemorating Trees

Many thousands of trees will have been planted by the end of 2012 to commemorate the Queens Diamond jubilee, just as they have always been planted to mark important people and events. Despite industrialisation and global economics, the ever increasing exploitation of natural resources, and the bent towards technological progress the symbolic power of trees seems as strong as ever in our collective cultural conscience.......

Putting down roots

This time of year is often seen as a last hurrah for gardens, with brilliant displays of late flowering perennials and fiery autumn foliage, before shutting up shop until the spring. Last October though I wrote about making the most of the autumn to get ready for next year (‘Getting ahead of the game’) and in view of the results of a couple of recent surveys about our horticultural habits it seems appropriate to return to that theme.......