Galanthus ‘Merlin’, an old snowdrop, is just beginning to bloom [mid January] in my garden now. Of all the hundreds of varieties of snowdrop you might wonder why I’ve chosen to [...]
The winter garden at Anglesey Abbey had long been on my wish list to visit. I’d visited the excellent winter garden at Cambridge Botanic Garden many years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I [...]
Christmas hellebores often fail to bloom at Christmas. But careful breeding has brought us gardeners a greatly improved hellebore. And one that always flowers before, at and after Christmas! [...]
Many of my top ten scented winter garden plants are mostly shrubs. But if you read on you’ll see that they are not all woody plants. What they all have in common is that they are remarkably [...]
The Winter Gardens at the Hillier Arboretum are a relatively new addition to the garden. I had heard about this new feature in the Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum and it claimed to be the largest of [...]
Winter scented flowers during the Coronavirus lockdown seem more intense. As I take my daily exercise I’ve been struck by how important plant scent is. My daily walk takes me past gardens [...]
February snowdrops have lifted our spirits during this Coronavirus pandemic! They offer the promise that spring is not too far away and that better times will soon be here. I had hoped to visit [...]
Great winter flowering shrubs can shorten winter! Is that overstating it? Well perhaps, but it can certainly make those dark dank days of winter more bearable! It will be [...]
To succeed with cyclamen it helps to know what they need! It’s possible to have cyclamen in bloom every month of the year! But I just love the way that they are just so right for this time [...]
Seasonal evergreens for Christmas include bay laurel, rosemary, holly and ivy. They all have their place at this time of the year but I do wonder if we sometimes forget how valuable they are in [...]