Again! In the sense that I seem to be always writing about how to prune Lavender, the reason being that people keep on asking the question! So, Lavender: popular short-lived perennial, ideal for creating the "cottage garden" look, great for edging borders, easy to grow, withstands drought better than many others, available in a variety of heights and colours, and smells nice. What's not to like?…
OMG! What a scorcher! AGAIN!! I can't believe I'm writing this - AGAIN!! - but three months running, now, we've had heatwave after heatwave, the grass is well scorched, the water butts are empty, gardeners are sweating, and everyone with an irrigation system is thanking the lord, or me, in some cases, that they took my advice and installed it: ... because otherwise we would be getting this sort of…
Yes, that well-known spring-flowering climber, beloved of country cottages, is at it again: What is going on with our gardens these days? Is it climate change? Are the seasons really no longer predictable and "set", as they used to be? Or are we just remembering things incorrectly, in the same way that we all look back to our childhoods and remember long hot summers, when it didn't rain... oh hang…
Yes, it's that time again: we have enjoyed the beautiful flamboyant Opium Poppies - Papavar somniferum: ... but they have had their day, and now they are over, it's time to remove them. As they are annuals, there is no point in keeping any of the "plant" part: they won't grow back from that root, next year. But they set seed very generously, so you are pretty much guaranteed to have them in your…
I'm often asked about where to buy plants: is it necessary, Clients ask me, to go to a proper Garden Centre, or can we take advantage of the very cheap plants which they sell at the “sheds” such as B&Q and Homebase and, increasingly, our local supermarkets? On the face of it, it seems like an excellent idea: they are close to home, you were going there anyway, the plants are cheap and look very…
If you've only ever seen Hen and Chicks being rosettes, you might not know that they do, from time to time, produce flowers! This is what they normally look like: evergreen, never changing: ...in fact, that's what their genus name means: Semper is from the Latin relating to time, ongoing, long stretches of: and vivum relates to "being alive", which is probably where the word vivacious originates.…
As it's Friday, here's what I hope will be a mildly amusing, short, article. I am often astonished/amused/horrified at some of the comments I get, while working. I mean, the insults. I don't mind compliments about how nice the garden is looking: ... or about how hard I am working. No, it's the insults that astonish, amuse and horrify me. For many years, I was a member of the Professional…
I do have a bit of a "thing" about removing old leaves from Bearded Iris: this has always been for two reasons, but now it has gone up to three. As soon as a leaf goes yellow-ish, and droops, then it is no longer photosynthesising, and therefore of no particular use to the plant: it has done its duty, and is time to gracefully retire, not hang about going limp and mushy. Like these ones: these are…
It's summer, and all the lovely summer rain is a timely reminder that one day soon, there will be another hosepipe ban (!) so now is a good time to look at your water collection arrangements. I've had several questions on this topic, unsurprisingly: and everyone with any sort of house has room for at least one water butt - I have six, on my small house (but then, I am a bit evangelical on the…
As a garden owner, there are some plants I dislike, and won't have in my garden - not just the obvious ones such as Ground Elder and other spreading weeds: proper plants, which other people love and cherish, but which I would put straight in the green waste bin, ie not even worth composting. And as you know (because I am always going on about it), I love composting, and am evangelical about the…
Yes, I know everyone says this... but honestly, they don't. As a professional gardener, I had the same border fork and spade for over ten years, in daily use, and they were old when I inherited them from a much-loved Grandfather. (Not mine, someone else's, long story.) Foolishly, I over-used the fork one day and bent the tines, so I had to buy a replacement, but I didn't like it very much, the…
It seems like only five minutes... but here we are again. Yup, the Forget-me-Not have already started to go to seed. And I am covered in them. This is about ten seconds in, and it got rapidly worse and worse! They are impossible to shake off, and very difficult to brush off, as half of them will transfer themselves to whichever hand is doing the brushing, and the rest will "dig in" and become a…
Does this ever happen to you? Some time ago, I can't even remember if it was last autumn, or early this year, I sowed a batch of twelve pots of seeds. They are now sprouting, beautifully: ... but I have no idea what they are. As you can see, I put labels in the end pots, which is what I always do - I don't bother to label every single pot, when they all the same. But alas, they have faded so…
Ladies, are you troubled by your Sedum flopping about all over the beds? Gents, do your friends laugh at the way your Sedum plants are laying down, instead of standing proudly to attention? Are you tired of having to prop them up with canes and string? There's no getting away from it, once Sedum become well established, they get a bit too big, and by late summer they are flopping outwards under…
I've yet to meet a garden owner who actually likes this plant: The proper name is Arum maculatum, which always makes me think of eye problems (macular degeneration, I think), or Arum italicum if you have the version with white marbled leaves: commonly known as Lords and Ladies, Cuckoo-Pint or, if you went to school where I did, Waggling Willies. They grow from underground tubers, and pop their…
I am very proud of one of my ad hoc Clients: they have an overlarge Hebe, a large-leaved one, which was getting huge. Last year, at one of my monthly visits, Mrs Client asked what could be done about it, and I said that at some point, we would have to be brave and give it a big chop, to "re-set" it: it was going to continue to grow in size, and it was getting rather sparse. She looked at me with…
Yup, it's that time again: the earliest Daffs are already over, although there are plenty more yet to come. And already people are asking me about deadheading them, which always puzzles me, because I thought that "everyone knew" about this annual task. It would appear not, as once again, people are asking me about it! So here goes. What do we mean by deadheading? It means to remove the…
Said the Highwayman. Noble lord in carriage: "Lupins?" Highwayman, impatiently: "Yes, yes, Lupins. Come on, hand them over." Lady in carriage: "What, the flower Lupins?" Highwayman (sarcastically) "Yes. The flower Lupins. Come on, hand 'em over." Noble lord in carriage: "But we don't have any Lupins!" Highwayman, with restraint: "I happen to know, that this is the Lupin Express." Noble lord in…
Or is it?? It's late March as I write, and although we are having sunny days with a welcome increase in temperature, it's still perishingly cold overnight, with frost first thing. So is it time to deadhead the Hydrangeas yet? This is what they are commonly looking like, at this time of year: The dead flowers from last year are starting to look tatty, some of them are snapping and dangling…
I recently gave a course on Tree Identification in Winter, in Wiltshire, which was a lot of fun - well, it was for me, as I love teaching! The delegates seemed to enjoy it, too, and we had a lovely day without rain (very unusual for 2026 so far), rushing around the grounds of the site, identifying everything within sight. Or reach. One particular Cherry tree made us pause, though: it was an…
We all love Winter Jasmine - Jasminum nudiflorum - for the wild splash of colour it gives us, in the depths of winter, at a time when not a lot else is flowering. Although this winter, many of the ones in "my" gardens started flowering as early as November, while the Fuchsia were still going! However much we enjoy them, though, they do suffer from general untidiness. They flower on shoots which…
I wrote recently about formative pruning of Buddleia, and I used the phrase “...there is practically nothing you can do to kill them!” I've had a couple of humorous messages from Patrons ( waves cheerfully “Hi, guys!” ) on this subject, and one plaintive plea asking if there is a way to kill off one that you absolutely don't want. Funnily enough, I do have an example: in one of “my” gardens, I am…
Just the other day, someone asked me if it was true that if you throw snails out of your back garden, they will come back. To some extent, it depends on where you throw them: if you live next to a busy 4-lane dual carriageway, then no, they almost definitely won't come back. If you live next door to someone you don't like very much, and they catch you throwing snails over the fence, they might…
"Hire someone else to do it!" (*laughs uproariously * ) OK, seriously: it's the first week of January, the middle of winter, it's been below freezing for most of the past week, I don't return to work for another week ("Yay!"). (OK, if you are reading this and saying "Hey! It's mid February!!" then don't forget that if you want to get the articles as soon as they come out, you will need to hop over…
I get this a lot: I'm either asked to plant something right up against a wall, or I'm asked to find out why a plant, which has been planted right up against a wall, is failing to thrive. So what's wrong with planting against a wall, then? Firstly, foundations: when you go to dig the planting hole, you might find that the foundations extend a fair way sideways, underground. This applies to planting…