Continuing my look at inspirational gravel gardens and their learning points for us, I mentioned last time that Derek Jarman had been in correspondence with Beth Chatto regarding suitable plants for his garden and that the BIG learning point (presumably for him as well as me) is her mantra “right…

Happy New Year!   Last month I mentioned another type of garden we wish to develop on our chalk hillside – a gravel garden.  (You may recall I already have a gravel garden I’ve described to you before, which is a gravel mulch on beds, rather than what looks like plants growing…

It’s this very practical time of the year that I really love and enjoy the garden that bit more, (that may seem strange to some gardeners !) it prepares the way for the new growing season, to get the best from our hardy perennials.  The cool glasshouse is filled with…

Let’s start with some festive Cotoneaster horizontalis berries brightening up my December garden to send us all some cheery seasonal greetings: Previously I mentioned that himself was hankering after an exotic garden down the slope on our Chalk Hillside, but during last year had been rethinking what “exotic” meant as…

A new bursary report from Selina Tan and Zoe Roberts from Kew Gardens reports on their trip to Bhutan, partly funded by the HPS. They describe the trip as: The project will involve a 5-day working week at the Royal Botanical Garden, Serbithang, where we will help with the installation…

As I finished last month talking of bees on beans, here is a shot of the flowers of my Runner Beans this year – showing, I think why they were originally introduced as ornamentals here:- The white flowers are “Moonlight” and the red are “Best of All”. I try and…

It’s that time of year to rethink the perennial borders. I like to leave as much interest as possible on display, even if it’s the various structures of foliage until the frost takes them, in addition to that I leave dried seed heads and stems of various perennials through the…

This month:- compost experiments; some fruit and vegetable progress; thoughts on pollination techniques.  But first following on from last month’s article, I am just going to finish the path clearing jobs with a shot of the wiggly stakes I use for pushing geraniums, back, and their effect:- Hopefully you can…

More summer jobs Tying things up and cutting things back feature heavily in this post, as well as in summer jobs generally. In “posh” garden terminology – staking and summer pruning! I call it tying things up as we mainly don’t use stakes as plants are tied to climbing frames…

On a garden visit, I was idly wandering along a bed of herbaceous peonies during the heat of later June this year and suddenly was struck at how many of those flowering at that time were white. I associate peonies flowering with May and early June, and thinking about it,…

Unwanted wildlife affecting our garden this spring Two star plants in late June last year were Hebe ‘Great Orme’, and Hebe ‘Midnight Sky’:- I stress “last” year, as neither survived the winter, which was a great surprise to me – the Hebe ‘Great Orme’ was here when we arrived and…

Before we start with spring sowing and growing, and look at more plants that did or did not survive the winter here, here are two shots of star plants in the garden at the end of May. I was a bit worried I had lost Lamium orvala as it was…

Though this article is officially NOT about the weather 1) I’m British 2) Its been the winter, so a great many of the seasonal gardening jobs I would do/expect to do during the winter and spring in the garden are governed by the weather. On our chalk hillside we had…

Let’s start with a current star plant in my garden in early April, and one that I have saved seed from to send to the HPS in previous years, the Snake’s Head Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris):- Now after March’s pause to look at some lovely snowdrops, to part two of reporting…

Helleborus – Orientalis It’s just not easy to spot an entire Hellebore plant at this time of year that doesn’t display the fungal signs of black spot on the leaves. Helleborus orientalis the Lenten rose seems particularly susceptible as with  the caulescent species of Hellebores. Hellebores do of course display…

Posted on 02.03.2023 | Updated on 03.03.2023 | Added in Sheila May’s Blog Snowdrops  It is two years since I talked about snowdrops and the famous snowdrop gardens that inspired my love of the little plants, so I thought I would write about some more gardens and plants that we…

Galanthus nivalisThere are about  20 species of the common snowdrop Galanthus nivalis, but as a genus it is far more widespread, comprising approximately 1,500 cultivars ! Snowdrops were introduced into this country in the late 16 century from europe. Unfortunately the current  Conservation Status of Galanthus is near threatened !…

Posted on 10.02.2023 | Added in Sheila May’s Blog Drought this summer – Hardy Plant Seeds winners and losers in our garden 1. Let’s start with a stalwart February star plant – Crocus tommasinianus – here flowering under the plum trees in our orchard:- These flowers are a vital source…

Posted on 07.01.2023 | Added in Sheila May’s Blog Drought this summer – a giant winner, and how the vegetable garden coped Happy New Year.  Let’s start with a giant winner from the heat and drought of this summer.  You would expect Yucca filamentosa to have coped well with that…

Posted on 05.12.2022 | Added in Sheila May’s Blog Drought this summer – winners and losers in our garden (2) Continuing on with my review of winners and losers in our decorative garden this year of drought and heat. As you all know, we have almost no topsoil to speak…

Posted on 29.11.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment We have had a very mild autumn with only one frosty night so far. Leaves are still hanging on many of the trees and some plants are still flowering. It is quite unusual that plants which normally flower at…

Posted on 11.11.2022 | Added in Sheila May’s Blog Drought this summer – winners and losers in our garden (1)   I shall start with a current star plant that began flowering in September and was still going strong til the end of October – Cyclamen hederifolium ‘Album’ – growing under…

Posted on 01.11.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment After a cold start to October with one frosty night with -2C it has since then turned quite mild with temperatures reaching 20C during the day and night temperatures around 10C. Some plants have started growing again and the…

Posted on 14.10.2022 | Added in Eco Plant Whisperer Salvia x jamensis ‘Hot Lips’ Salvias comprise approximately 1000 species of annuals & perennials that belong to the family ( Lamiaceae) from South America. At the Lakeside Garden we have been propagating and increasing on a collection of various Salvia species…