I Need a Manbag!

You Should Have Been Here Last Week – Tim Richardson If ever there was a gardening book to be carried in the glove compartment, to be permanently in the handbag, to always find a place in your holiday luggage, to be at the bedside, the bath side or even to sit beside the throne it …

Yes, I Could Live There!

The Private Gardens of SMI Landscape Architecture – edited by Jorge Sanchez It might not be immediately obvious what relevance or appeal a book on American gardens – almost all in Florida – would have for an Irish readership but the value of this book become obvious very quickly. Here we are presented with an …

A Masterclass from Two Masters!

Humphrey Repton, one of the greatest landscape designers of the world, died in 1818 yet George Carter shows that his thoughts on gardens and design are as pertinent, relevant and applicable today as when he alive. Read all in Setting the Scene: A Garden Design Masterclass from Repton to the Modern Age George Carter has had …

A Scrapbook of Things that Caught my Eye!

John Brookes made garden designers of us all and his final book, A Landscape Legacy, is to be treasured. There have been other books over the years, a great legacy of gardens, and we are most fortunate that he has, at the very end of his life, written this present volume which he describes as …

Clickity Click Clickity Click

Photography is part of my gardening. It is the time when I seek out the beautiful and the enjoyable, a change and a rest from workaday gardening, a time of relaxation, assessment and contemplation, a time of simply looking and seeing. Photography is also one of the most ruthless yet subtle forms of discrimination as …

Wollerton Old Hall and Connected Thoughts!

The garden which draws you back has obviously something which attracts you. My first visit to Wollerton Old Hall, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, was an unfortunate disaster. I loved the garden but was so ill that it was a challenge to enjoy it. I went to hospital in Chester that evening and spent a …

Good on a Bad Day!

There are benefits to visiting a garden on a bad day, a day when it is not at its best. We visited David Austin Roses, at Albrighton in Shropshire, recently on a day when the rose display was not at its best. Weather conditions during this spring and early summer brought forward the season and …

You Little Beauty!

I was a small child, always the youngest and smallest in class in my school days, and one teacher constantly sought to console and encourage me by telling me that the best goods came in small parcels. There may be a nugget of truth in the saying and we certainly delight especially in beauty in …

The Maestros and the Alley Cats!

We attended two outstanding talks yesterday at Altamont Plants, part of the Carlow Garden Festival. I could not exaggerate how much I enjoyed both talks and what a wonderful credit the occasion was to Robert Millar, at Altamont Plants, and to Carlow Tourism who are the leading promoters and organisers of the festival. On this …

The Tip Top!

John Sales, now retired Director of Gardens for the National Trust, has written a book on his career and in an interview relating to the book listed Powis Castle in his top five favourite National Trust gardens – up there with the likes of Sissinghurst and Hidcote! After a visit this summer I feel it …