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RHS Shows - A Requiem for a great institution
I've taken some time to get this post up, seems ages that I was down in London to do a lecture for the Royal Horticultural Society Spring Show. I'm surprised that I have never done a blog about RHS...
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Moving on?
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }“You should have seen the garden last week” is a comment often heard from the lips of gardeners. In fact it has become something of a joke, about nature's unwillingness to...
View ArticleCan we have a sensible discussion about Roundup?
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } Roundup. Incredibly useful stuff. You've got to plant an area up, but how do you get rid of the existing vegetation, specifically all the persistent perennial weeds like...
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Travels in Iberia
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }Its at least a month since we got back from a trip to Spain and Portugal, but better late than never. Basically a holiday but also an opportunity to explore central...
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Jimi Blake and Hunting Brook Gardens - Gardening's R&D Department
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }I recently took a day trip to Dublin, flying there and back in one day, which is not something I have done to anywhere before. To go to Ireland and not drink a Guinness...
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Gardening takes off in the Baltics
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } I've been travelling to eastern Europe since 1993 when Jo got a job in Bratislava, Slovakia. I love the area, for all sorts of reasons, and am particularly fascinated by...
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Białowieza - Europe's last virgin forest
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }The Białowieza Forest in eastern Poland is somewhere I have always wanted to go – the only genuinely virgin, untouched lowland forest in Europe. Last week I finally got to...
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Voyages east and west - but new plants needed
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }Three year old street planting in Vilnius, Lithuania At home after some very interesting travelling. I blogged before aboutLatvia and particularly Lithuania. And then...
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Overwhelmed by garden books?
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }Books.Many gardeners accumulate as many books as they do plant species. Now that we are moving, I face the problem of culling an extensive library that has not had a serious...
View ArticleGardening - explaining a British national obsession?
Back in the summer I received a surprise email, from the Almeida Theatre in London, who were staging a play - Albion, in which a garden plays a crucial role. As part of the background to the play, they...
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Transplanting myself, or is it uprooting?
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }One of the last pictures I took at Montpelier Cottage. Late September.“I felt so shocked I shut the computer right away and could not get over the news ” wrote a friend...
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Portugal's firestorm disaster - eucalyptus to blame
This is the old manor house which Jo's daughter and family were thinking of buying, but the estate agent hadn't updated the pictures.P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }There was a day last year, October the...
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House Plants are back!
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }After many years of being seriously uncool, house plants seem to be back in fashion. My son, more in tune with the zeitgeist than I (after all he lives in Clapton in east...
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Singapore's Garden Extravaganza - with a focus on cloud forests
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }The last time I was in Singapore which must have been getting on for ten years ago, Gardens by the Bay was under construction. The roads near the Marina were lined by trees...
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The New Zealand look - the colony's revenge?
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } First time in New Zealand. Which is a bit like arriving on another planet in plant terms. But not others – very strange travelling such a long way to arrive somewhere so...
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Australian plants amaze, astonish and confuse
P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }The stunning landscape installation by Kate Cullity at the Cranbourne Botanic Garden, Melbourne, evokes the Australian Outback Still mulling over my recent but brief trip to...
View ArticleSo often it's gardeners make great gardens not owners or designers
I recently had an upsetting email from a colleague and friend who has just had his last day at the job he has had for nearly twenty years. He feels forced out because of decisions made about his job,...
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Let's stop talking about 'natural' gardens
The word 'natural' must be one of the most abused in the English language. Its use generally implies 'good', and all-too often 'buy this product'. Needless to say the two areas of life it gets applied...
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We have the new perennials but where is the new perennial garden
A recent blog post by Marc 'le jardinier' is tries to provoke a discussion about whether the so-called 'New Perennial' movement has had much of an impact on British gardens. His conclusion is 'not...
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Ecological Planting - The revolution will never be bought at the garden centre.
A Larry Weaner garden in New England. To be featured in the October issue of Gardens Illustrated. Photo credit: Claire TakacsWho remembers that wonderful Gil Scott-Heron rap song “The Revolution Will...
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