March Garden Tips
Apologies for the late arrival of the March Garden Tips. Mind you, Nature has rather delayed the arrival of Spring-like weather - here of the edge of the Peak District it has been snowing with [...]
February Garden Tips
Garden visit: This is a good time to visit ‘Winter gardens‘ - ones particularly planted for winter colour and scent. Locally Dunham Massey is much visited. It was planted a few years ago and the [...]
January Garden Tips
Hamemelis x intermedia 'Pallida' is unmarred by a bit of snow. Books for reading: ‘Hygge’ is the keyword here, from what I gather it means being cosy inside while the weather does bad [...]
December Gardening Tips
Eleagnus and variegated holly wreath. Indoors: December is the month we spend the least time in the garden. Because of the short days, because of the weather or just because the lead up [...]
November Garden Tips
Fennel seed heads Seedheads catch the low light of dawns and dusks. Their structures are a delight and worth close examination, especially attractive in frosty weather. So don’t be tempted to tidy up [...]
October Garden Tips
Michaelmas daisies and happy butterflies. Hips, haws and hollies bring spots of gleaming red among the autumn leaves. They don’t last as the bird get them soon enough, and the hips become deflated [...]
September Gardening Tips
Garden at Dove Cottage nurseries, Halifax. Strong colours to shine out in the softer light of autumn: These are the flowers which pick up the purples, reds and yellows of autumn leaves and [...]
Queen Elizabeth (Olympic) Park
River Lea and 'Steles' by Keith Wilson The Queen Elizabeth Olympic park has at last re-opened. The country’s newest public park, it is one of a long line of festival spaces that have [...]
August Garden Tips
Myrtle, Luma apiculata at Logan Botanic Garden Do gardens look tired in August? It is a commonly held view. Certainly the freshness of early flowering perennials has passed, meadows and verges have gone [...]
July Gardening Tips
Very neat. Keeping Up Appearances: Lawns require mowing, that goes without saying, but what about the edges and those whiskery bits round steps and trees? Get out the half moon edging tool and/or [...]
Peak District Garden
The lake This garden design in Pott Shrigley, Cheshire was completed in late autumn 2012. In the last two years the fast growing herbaceous plants have established themselves well, but the larger shrubs [...]
June Gardening Tips
Rose 'Maiden's Blush' and Geranium 'Ann Folkard' Planting design tips for real gardens: Geraniums and roses: Everyone loves roses; their scent, their blush colours, their repeat flowering. However in most cases their structure and [...]
Open Gardens 24/25 May
The view of Rose Cottage and the Cheshire plain beyond. This weekend as part of the Bollington Festival 2014, there are some lovely gardens to visit in Ingersley Vale and Kerridge, both just [...]
May Gardening Tips
Rhododendron luteum, also known as Azalea It is the season for weeding - the race it on to get them out and into the compost heap before they elbow out your precious perennials, [...]
April Gardening Tips
Tulip 'Ballerina' COLOUR UP FOR SPRING! Red and orange flowers for Spring? Why not? Stray away from the sugar pinks and baby blues and be a bit strident! Shrubs and bulbs are the [...]
March Gardening Tips
Early narcissus with Ophiopogon planiscapus 'nigrescens'. Spring is slowly getting going, in fits and starts. It is the season for finding small gems among the leaf litter and evergreen foliage: pale primroses, celandine [...]
February Gardening Tips
Wonder white birches at Anglesey Abbey. Bare boughs against a blue sky, the modest wind-pollinated flowers of willows and hazels, (pussy willows and catkins to you) - these things can bring a disproportionate [...]
January Gardening Tips
Hamamelis x intermedia "Pallida" New Year’s Resolution: Something to add to your New Year’s resolutions? What about getting healthy by gardening? There is an article in January’s edition of ‘The Garden’ magazine [...]
December Gardening Tips
Variegated holly. Bearing Berries - December is a month for berries - the birds have not yet polished them all off. Holly berries are really profuse this year. Rosehips are beginning to shrivel [...]
November Gardening Tips
still glowing: There is still some flowers gleaming out in the low light. Japanese anemones, fuchsia, cerastostigma (plumbago) and hydrangea, will give pleasure to the eye until they drop when the temperature drops [...]