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
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 [...]
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 [...]
July Garden Tips
Shady favourites: white and blue flowers to glow in low evening light. Shade in this case means protected from the sun during most of the day; under the canopy of large trees, or in the [...]
July Garden Tips
July is a proper summer month. There should be a high hot sun bringing out the scents of flowers and foliage. If it rains, that too brings out that unique smell of grass and leaves. [...]
August Garden Tips
Fruits of August: The earliest apples are crunchy, juice and sharp. They don’t keep for long, best to eat them straight from the tree. ‘Discovery’ is a favourite being the first and most reliable. Colour [...]
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 [...]
September Garden Tips
Richness and colour for September: Michaelmas daisies (asters - see picture of Aster amellus 'Sonara' at Hauser and Wirth, Somerset) never fail to delight the eye and attract a variety of insects. The very word [...]
September Garden Tips
September and October are the unsung heroes of the flowering season. So many of our favourite hardy plants come into flower now, sometimes for the second time. Hydrangeas, their colours gradually changing with great subtlety, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
October Garden Tips
Blazing October: And it’s not just about leaf colour; many shrubs and herbaceous plants continue giving of their best all through the month and on until nipped by the first wintery weather. Michaelmas daisies have [...]
October Garden Tips
Stipa tennuissima at the Oudolf garden in Humello Ornamental grasses really come into their own at this time of year. Their stems are set moving by the wind and catch the low light. [...]
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 [...]
November Garden Tips
Honeysuckle berries, good for birds, toxic for people. Berries galore! Berries are the jewelled decorations of the garden in November. They also provide a feast for birds. Garden-worthy hedgerow natives include honeysuckle, sloes, [...]
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 [...]
December Garden Tips
Forage in the garden for Christmas decorations. Fresh foliage is so much nicer than shop-bought. It brings the smell of plants into the fuggy heated home. Especially those with fragrant foliage like rosemary or [...]
December Garden Tips
Betula albosinensis Of all the Trees that are in the Wood: There is holly and ivy of course, and very lovely they are too. But now, with the leaves blown away, look up [...]
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 [...]
August Garden Tips
Looking up - Scramblers for summer: A plant that can scramble up through another and use it as a support can add another dimension of colour and scent to your garden. Honeysuckle is not [...]