So, you’ve seen the show gardens and taken in the Grand Pavilion. Now what? Fancy building a Corten steel structure? Planning on filling the back garden with tree ferns? Or do you fancy inviting the cow parsley in? Unlike designers building a Chelsea Show Garden, most people have to grapple with a small space, limited […]
Is it because you can’t buy plants at the Chelsea Flower Show that the urge to shop is so irresistible to most people? Seasoned colleagues tell me they deplore the commercialism of it all, while I keep my guilty secret that I always look forward to shopping at Chelsea. Each year I make a point […]
They say that behind every successful man there is a woman. And behind every successful Chelsea Show Garden there is a shed. Some contain exotic items like rose-water and lime leaves, others are cluttered with boxes of disposable plastic shoe covers. (Chelsea judges don’t take kindly to messy footprints). While the public sees only cool, […]
Today I’ve been turning my attention to plants at the Chelsea Flower Show: first of all there are new plants, and then, there are plants that are new to me! But with only 60ft to play with in London, I have to keep a tight rein on my enthusiasm. Last year’s must-have was Anchusa Azulea […]
They came, they saw, they splashed around in the water (at the Trailfinders Australian Garden), they recited punk poetry (John Cooper Clarke in the Foreign and Colonial Investments Garden), they served up celebrity pizzas (Jamie Oliver in the Children’s Society Garden), then they left. So went the first day of the Chelsea Flower Show 2010. […]
If there’s one easy way to instantly transform the appearance of your house and garden, it’s to add a container or two of colourful plants. Hanging baskets at the front door, patio planters and even just a window box of fresh, flowering plants bring drama and interest to an otherwise bare and boring area. The […]
After enjoying the delights of April when we were greeted by warm sunshine for several days, the weather is now back to erratic, un seasonal, ‘normal’. Even the hot days of April were tempered by cool nights, so any heat that warmed the ground was lost overnight. It did, however, compact spring into a few […]
This is a large genus of dozens of species carrying some of the most beautiful flowers of the world. (These were named after Christ’s Passion as priests tried to associate the curiously formed floral parts with particular items from the crucifixion, erroneously as it transpired that the flowers were not as drawn and there was […]
Now I must admit these are not the most attractive nor compact of plants however the Physalis family are exceptionally valuable subjects for growing under cover. Closely related to tomatoes but never suffering any of their problems these are surprisingly easy to cultivate and one can even substitute for a tomato crop. The best known […]
Even the smallest greenhouse can benefit from a couple of chilli pepper plants. Two plants will provide enough spice and flavour for a small family for the rest of the season, though if you are hooked on the buzz this crop creates in the kitchen you may want to grow a few more. Each plant […]
Despite a few sunny days and the welcome appearance of daffodils and early bulbs, it is still very cold. Eighteen inches of snow in Northern Scotland on 31st March as the month ‘goes out like a lion’ and the latest spring in 30 years, confirms a slow start to the gardening year. With the ongoing […]
I have my potatoes chitting in the greenhouse, ready to go out on Good Friday (the traditional day to plant spuds, this year 2nd April). My husband is feeling very pleased with himself because he managed to find a variety called ‘Record’ which a potato expert in Aberdeen once told him was THE very best […]
