Why Do You Garden?

This was the question I posted on my Facebook page 24 hours ago. I shared the question to two gardening pages I use to reach a wider audience and elicit a greater response. There were over 100 responses, a very generous level of feedback to the question which was placed without any explanation as to …

The Last Half-Hour

Photographers describe the first and last hours of the day as the golden hours for photography as the light is soft without the glare, high contrast and harsh shadows of the middle of the day. The light is more balanced and gentle. Here is a set of photographs from a walk around in the fading …

Getting My Head Round It!

It's purely a personal thing, in my mind only I expect; something I, at times, imagine is due to my inbuild forgetfulness and which I fear, at other times, is due to advancing years and failing faculties. It's a memory thing - or a lack of memory, to be more accurate. It doesn't upset me …

Gardening with a Curl!

"I know a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead And when she was good, she was very very good but when she was bad, she was horrid!" So went the old rhyme and so it is with rock gardens- those that are well constructed and well planted …

Practically Tropical!

When the fog, mistiness and cloudcover cleared this morning there was that wonderful feeling in the garden, that mixture of warmth and moisture when you feel that if you threw seeds on the ground they would germinate, sprout and grow in a moment - a bit like the line from Oklahoma, "the corn is as …

A Crabapple with Memories

Malus floribunda, a flowering crabapple, has just begun to open its blossom in the garden here and, as it has each year for over thirty years, it brings back very pleasant memories. Malus floribunda, the Japanese Flowering Crabapple The rear gate of the boarding school I attended in the late 60s was exactly across the …

No Day for Still life.

It was a day that would skin the b..ls off a brass monkey, as I have heard such conditions described on many occasions. I was out in the garden this morning for about two hours, shredding material for the compost bin, and came in feeling absolutely miserable. It was perishing out there with a dreadfully …

My Mind is Boggled.

Given that I am now in my late 60s, I suppose it should not come as a surprise to me that certain aspects of modern life leave me bewildered. It has been a feature of society through the generations that older people are generally considered to be "out of touch", not quite "up to speed" …

Coastal Plants

This book delivers far more than its title promises as a great number of the plants included have never felt the salty spray of the sea on their flowers or foliage. It might have been more accurate to say the book describes plants of coastal counties for the range presented certainly extend far beyond the …