Author Archives: yourgardenpartner

Sweet Peas – ‘so very pretty, so very, very fragrant’

Posted on March 3, 2018

January, straight after Christmas, when the gales are gathering and the fireside beckons, that is the traditional time for snuggling up with the new year’s seed and nursery catalogues, daydreaming glorious growings for the year ahead. In my case this … Continue reading →

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Working with young asylum seekers at Barracks Lane Community Garden

Posted on December 13, 2017

  Since 2016 I’ve been helping Unaccompanied Young Asylum Seekers from Oxford Spires Academy to enjoy learning in the community garden just along the road from their school.  I work with the teachers and young people on the Academy’s ‘First … Continue reading →

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The Great Broad Walk Borders, Kew Gardens, London, UK

Posted on August 16, 2017

It is just breathtaking to stand at the beginning of a wide path and look as far as the eye can see, and beyond, at 320 metres of herbaceous border – a Great Broad Walk indeed. It was a bold … Continue reading →

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Meadows for gardens

Posted on May 31, 2017

  Now is probably the best time of year to go out looking for wildflower meadows – although you are as likely to find them in a garden or managed landscape as in the open countryside. By the year 2000 … Continue reading →

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The Heritage of Common Plants

Posted on March 17, 2016

              I’m very pleased to be working with Barrack’s Lane Community Garden again, and with The Nature Effect, to implement the new lottery-funded Heritage of Common Plants project. There are several strands to the … Continue reading →

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Rousham

Posted on March 17, 2016

I visited Rousham House garden (Charles Bridgeman 1725/William Kent 1737 to 1741) in the Spring sunshine on Sunday – so unspoiled and yet beautifully maintained. Horace Walpole described it as the ‘most engaging of all Kent’s works. It is Kentissimo’ … Continue reading →

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Just potted: Sweet things

Posted on May 7, 2015

More of my obsession with Spring’s sweet whites. Two beautiful plants for the wilder/more natural areas of the garden, both with species name ‘odorata/um’ from the latin for perfumed or fragrant: Sweet woodruff, Galium odoratum : Tiny white flowers hover above … Continue reading →

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Just potted: Glooming in the gloaming

Posted on May 5, 2015

I get obsessive about white flowers in Spring. Last year I posted on Wild Whites, revelling in the rush of white flowers that seem to gallop across our country side between March and May. This year I’ve been walking a … Continue reading →

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Just potted: Marsh samphire in autumn

Posted on October 16, 2014

Just how complicated can a simple* be? Walking last weekend with my daughter in the salt marshes of the Cuckmere valley we saw brilliant patches of red amongst the grasses and reeds bordering the rivers and pools.       … Continue reading →

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Just potted: Pink and Yellow, Colours for an Indian Summer

Posted on October 11, 2014

It was the Dahlias that did it. Hilary Squires, Ethical Florist at East Oxford’s Farmers’ Market (EOFM) has been selling the most stunning lemon yellow, yolk yellow, and clear pink dahlias for the last few weeks – on a cold … Continue reading →

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