Blog

A week or two ago we did the big cut back of the perennial garden at Stonehill (above, in its late summer glory). I’ve now ditched all niceties and horticultural finesse with this process, and manag ...

The sun is peeping through the cold gauze of cloud overhead – just enough to make the crocus in the lawn give a half-hearted smile.  These have, so far (and touch wood) escaped the destructive atte ...

I’m thoroughly sick of my winter garden.  I’ve decided that Woodend winters aren’t too cold. They’re cold for too long. And my garden clearly feels the same. There’s very little doing. Ther ...

You’d think, after gardening with (almost) unflagging enthusiasm for 43 years, I’d have pretty much sorted out which tasks I find rewarding and which I don’t. But I’m still often surprised. La ...

The parade has begun. My snowdrops have started to flower. I’m talking here, of course, about the true snowdrop of the genus Galanthus – short, and one pendulous flower to a stem – and not the m ...

OK, straight into the ‘what I’m doing and why now?’ section.  You may have noticed that we’ve recently added this to the newsletter. It comes from my life-long (well, since 17 years of age, w ...

The red wattlebird arrived on Sunday to take up its annual short-term lease. It’s here to gorge on the nectar supply provided by the Clematis napaulensis which flowers now – the only plant in my g ...

Man, it’s cold. I’ve always known I’m a fair weather gardener, but I think the situation is getting worse. There’s a base level of winter/early spring work that I absolutely must have done bef ...

Once this is done, I’m going to rug up and start raking. There are great drifts of oak leaves banked up against the hedges, and it’s the perfect day for the job – cold and brilliantly sunny.  O ...

A recent significant birthday justified some significant gifts. It took some thinking time, but I eventually decided what I really wanted was some stone amongst my plants.  It’s beyond my powers to ...

‘Constant reward. Constant dissatisfaction.’ So says a note I took on my mobile phone, while up in the mountains behind Antibes, searching for wild peonies with James Basson and his partner, Helen ...

I was weeding this morning, the refuse pile being 95% grass weeds and 5% euphorbias. There’s two species of the latter I’m particularly concerned about, and that I’d eradicate entirely from the ...

My wife was looking out of the pantry window on the weekend, onto our row of Malus ‘Gorgeous’ in bloom, and after a brief discussion about their only slightly less brief flowering, she finished of ...

‘At that point, are we really being honest?’. I loved this moment in my conversation with Monaco-based and multi-award-winning garden designer James Basson, for our latest symposium. He was making ...

Distinct/readable/legible shape is the characteristic most sadly lacking in the wide group of plants we call shrubs.  Hence the ubiquitous use of clipping in the work of influential designers like Fi ...

In the last two days of this wild dash around Sardinia I’ve been steeped in the work of two very different designers.  The macro climate and situation of their gardens were roughly the same (albeit ...

Everlastings, Paper daisies, Sun rays, Strawflowers. This loose gang of Australian flowers is one with such an iconic quality. The dry, textural petals vary from the hard beetle shells in confectionar ...

I’m not really one for regrets.  I certainly don’t wallow in them.  But if I can learn from an honest reflection on what could have been done better, I’ll go at least that far.  So in the int ...