RSVP Plant Revisit
This time last year we had a great long discussion (possibly the longest in the history of The Gardenist) about companion planting for colchicums (check it out here). The point was that they can look...
View ArticleThe Undervalued Link Between Colour and Scent
My nose tells me that there must be a genetic link between flower colour and flower scent, but it’s not something written about at all in the garden literature. Maybe I’d find something in the...
View ArticleWhere to from here?
Some time in the last ten years, possibly only the last five, planting of the bulbs in various parts of Keukenhof took something of a turn away from beds of solid colour, and towards a layered effect....
View ArticleDP Wows with Humility, Once Again
I almost missed Dan Pearson’s garden. I ran into an old buddy in the Grand Pavillion at Chelsea, and he asked me what my favourite garden was, then Ed: ‘What did you think of Dan Pearson’s garden?’....
View ArticleSeconds and Centuries
Back in the years leading up to August 1661 Le Notre used recent mathematical revelations about the angle of incidence equaling the angle of reflection to design a pool at Vaux le Vicomte that...
View ArticleOf the Mountains and Valleys
There’s two particular questions that I’m always dealing with when designing a garden, or evaluating an existing one. I’ve been dealing with them for years, though they’ve only recently emerged from...
View ArticleDigiwhat?
Many thanks to GardenDrum, which inadvertently answered a lurking plant identification problem I had. It’s curious, in this day and age of information accessibility, how hard it can be to identify...
View ArticleOne Thing
I’ve started a YouTube channel, checking out gardens worldwide and looking at one thing – just one thing – each garden does really well. I started at Het Loo, just outside of Amsterdam. Take a look –...
View ArticleUnglued and undone
It’s too easy, as a designer, to find yourself delivering design solutions within a certain habitual or predictable range. In fact, I can’t help but think that it’s inevitable. And it’s not necessarily...
View ArticleWilting Convictions
Just back again from the deliciously juicy, turgid gardens of Marlborough, NZ, and while I’ve been ranting about the joys and the unrealized potential of dry gardening for years, I still find that I...
View ArticleBulbous beauty
I can’t decide if it’s just a matter of association, but I love the look of bulbs. I’m not talking about the flowers (though I love those too), I’m talking about the bulbs themselves. I love the feel...
View ArticleOne Thing – Sissinghurst
I’ve just added a new video to my YouTube channel. They’re going up at the terrific rate of one per seven months. Click here to check it out.
View ArticleThe Plot of Small Things
I’ve never found the space, or more correctly, the context, for small stuff in my garden. I’d much prefer to be swallowed up in plants, than tiptoe over a carpet of them. But over the years I’ve...
View ArticleOne Thing – Ninfa
Is Ninfa, as is so often claimed, the most romantic garden in the world? Click here to hear my view One Thing – Ninfa Latest in my (visually slightly dodgy) video series on gardens of the world, and...
View ArticleOne Thing – Fiona Brockhoff’s Garden
Another video. This time one of the most game-changing gardens in Australia Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT8AJQynsA8 or click here I’ll add a pic, just to entice you..
View ArticleMagnifying the Minute
So the joys are shrinking. At least they’re shrinking in physical size, but curiously without any diminution of their joy-level. I don’t know how this works. All I can think of is that somehow, the...
View ArticleFoliage vs Flowers: Winter
Well-planted pots can pack a punch totally disproportionate to the number and volume of plants involved. A couple of times a year I replant the largest of my pots, which then sit in prominent...
View ArticleThe Ways of Stone and Succulent
I planted as I built my stone wall, following good Gertrude Jekyll principles. Some things succeeded and other things failed. Some, like the honeysuckle and the dianthus, grew really well initially,...
View ArticleWarning: Big Views Get Boring
I’m sitting up in bed, re-dawn, french doors open to the following view. Its morning number four and I’m yet to get bored with it. That’s Vesuvius in the background, the currently snoring presence...
View ArticleA Few Tulipy Highlights on a Rare Sunny Spring Day
A couple of years back my mother-in-law gave me the best present ever – a gift voucher from a bulb supplier. In this case, Marcus Harvey’s Hillview Rare Plants. I didn’t ordering anything specific...
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