November Garden Tips
Autumn colours seem exceptional this year; oaks, beeches, sycamores and ashes are lighting up the fields. In the garden, small trees can give a glowing display too, and do not discount the value of [...]
October Garden Tips
October is good month for visiting gardens open to the public for inspiration, as many border perennials will continue to flower, grasses are looking at their tawny best and trees large and small put on [...]
September Garden Tips
September - always a time of endings and beginnings, for harvest and renewal. This has been a wonderful season for fruit and berries. The field hedges are red with haws and rosehips. In the garden [...]
August Garden Tips
Now is the time to turn away from the bright colourful attention seekers of our garden - I’m talking about flowers - and to give serious consideration to the supporting chorus, without which those divas [...]
July Garden Tips
Slide into full summer: Flaming June has been and gone. Sizzling July has arrived with no sign of a break in the weather. There is a decided shortage of the wet stuff. We in north-western [...]
June Garden Tips
June is the centre of the year - the pivot. After the rush of spring growth, the season tips in to a lazier mood. This May has been phenomenally warm and dry. The reservoirs are [...]
May Garden Tips
Spring is so unpredictable; rain, sun wind, hail, thunder, rainbows, some warm days - some cold nights. The sun comes out, we put out the deck chairs, the sun goes behind a cloud and the [...]
April Garden Tips
“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” It is hard to believe but in a matter of days, leaves will be unfurling, birds nesting, bulbs and shrubs flowering and seeds germinating. [...]
March Garden Tips
There is general surprise in the media about the weather, March, they say, March is the beginning of Spring! This isn’t anybody’s idea of Spring. But looking back at my photos, there have been quite [...]
February Garden Tips
After a long break this Garden Tips newsletter is getting going again, gearing up for the coming Season. 1st and 2nd of February are the feast days of St. Bridget, Candlemass, Imbolg, celebrations of very [...]
July Garden Tips
Resilience: Within the last seven days it has been both too hot and too cold. Big fluctuations in temperature affect small seedlings adversely, then the slugs move in. The peas and broad beans I planted [...]
June Garden Tips
In the pink, magenta splatter and purple haze of colour. After the dulcet tints of Spring, the flowers that herald Summer ramp up intensity in colour saturation. Lovely and reliable perennials shine out in [...]
May Garden Tips
Smells and Grace: Those of us who are lucky enough to garden on acid soil can grow some rather brilliant plants. I turn my attention particularly to scented Rhododendrons, I don’t just mean the deciduous varieties [...]
April Garden Tips
Yellow as a baby chick for Easter: Nothing celebrates the coming of spring like sunshine yellow flowers. Even dandelions have their moment, providing nourishment for winter starved bumble bees. Although it is probably best to [...]
March Garden Tips
March 2016 - coming in like a lion March can still bite like a lion. Frost and snow is not uncommon. The photo showing the fat flower buds of a morello cherry against [...]
February Garden Tips
Feast your eyes on sheets of snowdrops: There are special open days at gardens not otherwise accessible at this time of year: Snowdrops at Rode Hall Rode Hall, Church Lane, Scholar Green, Cheshire, [...]
January Garden Tips
Happy New Year to all readers. Celebrate the New Year with a feast for the birds and the bees. Leave a few unwanted or spoiled apples on the lawn for the blackbirds, they like to [...]
December Garden Tips
Winter Gardens: In the past most large gardens were not open to the public during the winter. I suppose it was thought that gardens were only of interest in direct proportion to the quantity of [...]
November Garden Tips
Cold weather approaches: If the mild weather still holds there is still time to get things done before frost chills the soil. Sow broad beans, plant garlic bulbs and, if you can find them purple [...]
Garden Visit: Trentham Gardens Staffordshire
Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was commissioned by Granville 2nd Lord Gower to carry out improvements at Trentham over 21 years from 1759 to 1780. He enlarged the existing lake which was then fed by the river [...]