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Saluting the Salutation
It was fitting that Gardeners’ World, in the first programme of the new series, chose to highlight the miraculous resurrection of the gardens at The Salutation in Kent. In December 2013 a freak tidal...
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Sunshine and Showers at Saltwood
I have met some Americans who believe all us Brits live in quaint thatched cottages and are intimately acquainted with The Queen. We might also happen to know a distant relative they might have in...
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Going to The Chapel
When a new garden opens for the National Gardens Scheme in Thanet it’s a major event, principally because there are only three others, one of which is my own. And this year’s newcomer, situated in an...
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Waiting and Anticipating
When preparing for our garden opening, I find I end up doing anything but gardening. Over the last two days I have been painting the front gate, unearthing chairs from the cellar, jet-washing the...
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Beach Blanket Boxing Day
It has been a long time since Him Indoors and I spent Christmas at our seaside house, but it is good to be back this year. The coast in winter has very special appeal: in good weather the chalk...
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Goodnestone Rising
It was possibly a little too early to go out snowdrop spotting. In another year it might almost have been too late, but January and February have been cold and the flowers have responded accordingly....
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Great Dixter Spring Plant Fair 2017
Every visit to Great Dixter is a treat, but when the additional carrot of a plant fair is dangled in front of my face, that treat becomes an irresistible temptation. And so it was, having hauled...
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The Great Dixter Dozen
It’s rare that I sacrifice commentary for imagery, but as I look back over the photographs I took at Great Dixter last weekend, I can’t help feeling they speak for themselves. And, being without my...
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The Merry Month of May
O THE month of May, the merry month of May, So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green! O, and then did I unto my true love say, Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my Summer’s Queen. Thomas Dekker...
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Garden Appreciation: Sweetbriar, Ash, Kent
When a new garden opens for the National Garden Scheme it’s always exciting, but when that garden has been created by two professional gardeners with a passion for rare and exotic plants it’s sure to...
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A Chill Wind
Goodness it’s cold. I appreciate my Canadian followers will think I am making a fuss about nothing, and those in Australia will protest that their excessive heat is far more intolerable, but I am not...
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Gardens of the East Kent National Garden Scheme
When I first opened The Watch House for the National Garden Scheme in 2015 I felt a little lonely. Compared to the south and west of Kent, the spread of gardens opening in the east of the county was...
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34 Cross Road, Walmer: A Garden For All Senses
Living and gardening by the coast, I find my senses become attuned to a very specific set of sensations: the sound of seagulls, restless wind and tourists dispossessed of their volume control; the...
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Watergate House, Fordwich: A Modern Romantic Garden
The town of Fordwich has the distinction of being the smallest in England. Situated on the River Stour, which connects Canterbury with the English Channel, it was to Fordwich that the Normans shipped...
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Waiting and Anticipating
When preparing for our garden opening, I find I end up doing anything but gardening. Over the last two days I have been painting the front gate, unearthing chairs from the cellar, jet-washing the...
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Open for the National Garden Scheme: Denne Manor Farm
I’m taking a short break from my Chelsea reporting to bring you news of a superb new garden opening for the National Garden Scheme here in Kent this weekend. I visited Denne Manor Farm back in late...
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‘Cherry’ Ingram: The Englishman who saved Japan’s Blossoms
If you’ve been reading the newspapers or listening to BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week programme recently, you will already be acquainted with one of Britain’s most interesting but perhaps least...
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The Watch House NGS Open Weekend 2019
And relax! After several weeks of intensive preparation, another National Gardens Scheme open weekend lies behind us. Rather like Christmas there’s an almighty build-up and then the event itself is...
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Dixter Addiction
I’d missed one too many plant fairs at Great Dixter, so I was not about to forgo another. We made plans, reorganised others, kept an eagle eye on the weather, confirmed that dogs were welcome and set...
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From Coastline to Compost Bin – Using Seaweed As A Garden Fertiliser and Soil...
I may be a composting virgin, but now that I have an allotment I am getting serious about the dark art of decay. Since the New Year I’ve been swotting up and assimilating all manner of advice about...
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