Running my palm across the grainy, hard stone that formed the base of a sundial, I watched as a sudden burst of late afternoon sunshine brought the dial to life. The band of shadow fell, correctly, just before the IV … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Paul
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I received an email from someone in Austria recently, caught up in the growing craze for Romantic English Gardens over there. To those of us battling with weeds and parched soil, whose Hostas were eaten by slugs and whose roses … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
A month like this July, with soaring temperatures, burning sunshine and no rain, stirs up a mix of emotions in me. On the one hand I’m a sun-worshiper, I just adore the brilliant sun light on the harlequin colours of … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
From time to time I am called in by someone who finds their garden nothing but a nuisance. Generally they have brought a house in leafy, green West Wickham and so acquired a garden by accident. They take me out … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
We’ve probably all tried to read a few gardening books in our time, and found out we were doing almost everything wrong; pruning the spring-flowering Spiraea in the autumn instead of the spring, giving the flower border a quick watering … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
When I wrote a blog or two ago, that we would look back on this as a golden summer, with an adequate supply of water from God’s watering can, it was before the dry days of September. Was there anyone … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
I think in years to come we gardeners will look back on this as a golden summer. Slugs and snails may have abounded like a biblical plague, eating every lettuce and seedling down to the ground and even starting on … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Even if your garden is depressingly overgrown, the lawn unkempt, and you feel it is hopeless, if you look out at your garden now there are already two beautiful things: shape and texture. Focus your eyes on the leaves of … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Living and gardening in Coney Hall, West Wickham, for nearly 50 years, off and on, I am familiar with the pains and pleasures of gardening on a bed of flint and pebbles mixed with a little sandy dust, where trees … [CLICK TO READ MORE]