Gardening is so much more than digging holes, plonking plants in and weeding. Take fragrance for instance. It nourishes the soul and lifts the spirits and all you have to do is breathe in deeply through the nose. When I come up my garden path on. A summer’s day, I pass a mass of border […]

They say the sixties are now the forties these days, when it comes to age, because many ‘oldies’ are keeping healthy and active for far longer. I count myself as an oldie, very much so, but I hardly ever stop because I have a garden and an allotment to contend with. This year it’s been […]

A gloriously sunny late-May, with record temperatures, has turned into something of a damp squib with June’s arrival. Not that I’m complaining, for 30C in May and no rain means one thing – watering, more watering and yet more watering. The roses and peonies haven’t minded the hot, dry weather one bit, but everything’s flowered […]

I am the proud owner of two Hartley greenhouses, one heated and one unheated. I have a problem, Houston! They’re just not big enough at this time of year for all the things I want to grow. By early May they’re both groaning under the weight of dahlias, tomatoes, pelargoniums, countless annuals, sweetcorn, peppers and […]

Joan Loraine gardened at Greencombe close to Porlock in Somerset for over fifty years. The garden is well-named because it’s sandwiched between the Bristol Channel, which is barely half a mile away, and wooded slopes that “tumble between high Exmoor and the sea” to use Joan’s exact words. As a result, Greencombe’s sheltered from the […]

I have been writing about gardens and plants for over 30 years and, when I started, most garden writing was purely practical. Writers explained how to grow it, where to plant it and, typically, you’d get dig a hole one foot deep in a sunny place and then do this and that. It made me […]

February Fill Dyke has certainly lived up to its name this year! It’s traditionally one of the wetter months, averaging between 50mm and 100mm of rainfall, up to three inches in old money.  This year I know that we’ve had far more, because the accurate Met Office rain gauge my husband so thoughtfully gave me […]

You might think of Simon Cowell when I mention the X Factor, but I’m talking about hybrids that arise when two plants hybridise. Usually, it’s the bees that do all the work. They travel between flowers searching for nectar for energy and protein-rich pollen for breeding. As they go, they accidentally transfer pollen from one […]

I am spending every moment I possibly can in the garden and every second is precious because the days are getting shorter and shorter. If it’s sunny I have to come in before the sun sinks towards the low horizon and blinds me, so I’m under time pressure when I’m cutting back, tidying and leaf […]

It’s the first Monday in November and it’s damp, mild and grey. I’ve just been for my usual ten-minute garden recce before I start writing for the day. The borders are covered in beech leaves and more are slowly helter-skeltering downwards despite the brisk breeze. This year the beech leaves are the colour of golden […]

I speak to groups of gardeners on a regular basis and, whenever I mention grasses to the audience, there’s a sort of nervous silence, an air of suspicion even. It seems that some gardeners see grasses as a malevolent presence and I can sort of understand why. In the 1970s – yes – I am […]

At this time of year, as summer gives way to autumn, there are glimmers of bright red beginning to appear. The string of black bryony berries, winding their way over the hedges down the lane, are as gaudy as Edna Everage’s highly lacquered spectacles. Tamus communis, our only native member of the yam family, is […]