The Watched Kettle Does Boil Eventually!

No doubt, you will have had the experience of your eyes falling on a plant and then your jaw drops; your mouth opens; you oooh and aaaaah; you go weak at the knees, your heart flutters; you wonder - just for a very brief moment before morals regain the upper hand - that if you …

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This is my Moment!

“Anonymous Euonymus” might be a suitable description for eleven months of the year but, even for this generally dull plant, its moment to shine arrives. The Chinese Spindle, Euonymus planipes, is a large shrub or small tree – which it is becoming here after nearly twenty years – which doesn’t catch the eye for most …

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 …

Iris pallida ‘Phylis Moore”

Phylis Lady Moore was wife of Sir Frederick Moore, Keeper of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, Dublin - now, the National Botanic Gardens. She was a very enthusiastic gardener with an eye for a good plant and she grew this form of Iris pallida in her garden at Willbrook. Dr E. Charles, formerly taxonomist …

A Róisín Dubh – Dark Rosaleen.

Those who grow and those who see Primula 'Dark Rosaleen' are unfailingly cheered to see it come into flower - as I was to see it do so in my own garden today. The dark purple flowers with their yellow stripes match beautifully with the bronze foliage making it a delightful plant. It was raised …

Magnolia ‘Anne Rosse’

We have many interesting and beautiful plants associated with the famous Nymans garden in West Sussex in England – Eucryphia ‘Nymansay’ and Magnolia x loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ are probably the two best known and most widely grown. There is also a Camellia ‘Maud Messel’ and a Forsythia suspensa ‘Nymans’ but a particularly beautiful Nymans plant …

My Ever So Healthy Lungs…

The lungworts (Pulmonarias) are in season with their attractive foliage and pretty flowers. Lungwort” is rather an odd name for plant – the lung herb – and it dates back to the 1600s when the Doctrine of Signatures was in vogue – a plant was used to treat ailments in those parts of the body …