Sitting in a traffic jam yesterday, I spied a rather elegant window box through the car window, and I was there long enough for some deeper thought.   I took out  my trusty mobile and captured the scene. I liked the combination of white shuttered window with the black planter.   I also liked the contrast of the attractively marked pelargonium leaves with the bright scarlet flower heads – but  I knew that there could have been more. For a plant to flower its little head off, it must have … [Read more...]

Anyone walking around the local streets cannot fail to see the sad state of our horse chestnut trees.   Instead of sporting an autumn hue of butter yellow foliage, leaves are brown, crispy and distorted.   The culprit is a moth that allegedly hitched a ride on a lorry from Macedonia, around 12 years ago. The pest, known officially as Cameraria ohridella or chestnut leaf miner moth, started its British onslaught in 2002 and was first spotted in Wimbledon.   Since then, the population explosion … [Read more...]

If your lawn is anything like mine, it will need extra loving right now to repair the damage caused during our recent very hot and dry weather weather. The fix is fairly simple, albeit a little time consuming, but it will be worth the effort. You know that when your grass looks good, it has an uplifting effect on all the other plants in your garden. In the last few weeks your lawn will have been starved of water, and as its top growth shrivels up, so does the amount of useful root system … [Read more...]

One of my most useful garden books has only a handful of pictures, and the print is small – sounds like a boring tome; not a bit of it!  It’s lovingly known as The Yellow Book, and it’s the key to secret gardens in England and the modest entry fees go to support a variety of cancer related charities. The Chelsea Flower Show might be one way to feast your eyes on the newest must-have plants, but I feel the best way to be inspired for your own garden is to look and see what other people can … [Read more...]

I’m all in favour of boffins tinkering around with plants if they come up with improvements - greater pest resistance or better shape and colour.   However, a recent horticultural breakthrough has really made me think.. We know that tomatoes and potatoes are in the same genus.   Here botanical latin gives us the clue - Solanum tuberosum (potato) and Solanum lycopersicum (tomato).   Looking at each individual plant, you can also see that the flowers are very similar, but who in a million years … [Read more...]

This month I’m going to turn my attention on my arch garden nemesis, the slug.   And with your help, I could be about to declare garlic war on it.. The slug is undoubtedly numero uno in the garden pest hall of fame, and Britain is definitely slug city of the world.   It’s our wet and warm-ish weather that does it If you are counting, there are around 30 different species of slug in the UK, but for this unscientific study of mine I am only going to look at the big four - field slug, garden … [Read more...]

  Using climbing plants in your garden is a wonderful way to exploit a vertical surface.   A word to the wise though - you must fully understand exactly how a plant hangs on so that you provide it with perfect support. why do plants climb? Climbing plants are the lazy, impatient, opportunistic members of the plant world. weavers and twiners Winding plants twist their stems around a structure.  As I’m the queen of trivia, did you know that the runner bean winds anti-clockwise, … [Read more...]

There is no more welcome sight at the end of those cold and wet days of winter than to see the tiny tips of snowdrop leaves poking through the soil.   Spring is just around the corner. Snowdrops can arrive looking in perfect condition because their leaf tips are specially strengthened –they literally bore their way through frozen soil. If you think that you are getting fewer flowers than last year, then it’s time to think about thinning out the over-crowded clumps.  Unlike most other … [Read more...]

Ivy is one of the most misunderstood plants around.   Love it or loathe it, most gardens I visit have masses the stuff.   If you make it your friend, it could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Ivies are evergreen, climbing and trailing plants suitable for growing up walls and fences, or used as ground cover.   Choose one of the all green leafed cultivars, and they will thrive in those hostile areas such as deep shade where other plants flatly refuse to grow. What’s more, if you would … [Read more...]

It’s too wet and cold outside to venture out so right now I’m plotting and planning.   I want to add a bit of privacy to the back garden, I also need to find a way to allow birds to nest safely, and I definitely want colour and panache.   Yes, dear reader, I’m thinking of great hedges! When choosing suitable plants to use, don’t be fooled into the speed trap. Fast-growing hedges don't stop at the height you want, so you must remove a lot of growth every year.   Slow-growing hedges are much … [Read more...]

I’m often asked what my favourite plant is.   This is a difficult question to answer, as my response would be one plant one day, and then I’d change my mind completely the next.   But, if I was allowed to choose two, then the answer is easy! The first of these must-have plants is called Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’.   It’s a clump forming perennial that will bring joy in double doses each year.   The first performance is when it produces a haze of the prettiest forget-me-not like flowers … [Read more...]