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 [...]
January Garden Tips
Pulmonaria rubra Mild: Due to the late arrival of winter there have been some unseasonal spring flowers appearing during December. Pulmonaria rubra is always early, but I’ve never seen it before Christmas, exchorda, [...]
February Garden Tips
Waterfall at Rode Hall, Cheshire Snowdrops have already made an appearance, OK early, but not ridiculously so. Last year on a cold clear day in February I went with Cheshire Gardens Trust to [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
March Garden Tips
Cornus mas Flowers! Colour! Scent! Even though it’s freezing cold the days are getting longer and the landscape is no longer uniformly grey and brown. There are shrubs and bulbs doing their thing: [...]
April Garden Tips
Narcissus poeticus Scents in April: There may be the occasional warm day - it is possible. Warmth brings out the first scented flowers of the year, which are so welcome and so enjoyable, [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
May Garden Tips
Apple blossom A touch of frothy blossom to welcome in the month of May. Flowering is late here in the top half of the country, the year has been cold so far. Flowering [...]
June Garden Tips
Aquilegia 'Pink Barlow' June. lovely June. With a bit of warmth, which surely must be coming, June is the month of roses and clematis and early herbaceous such as aquilegias and geraniums plus [...]
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
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 [...]
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 [...]