Blog

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 ...