Ladders
I don't advertise anything here except Veddw and my excellent Christmassy -present - book, The Bad Tempered Gardener, which are possibly excusable. Nor do I, in spite of endless tedious requests, sneak in little mentions of products under the guise of copy. However,...
Why Highgrove?
OK. No names – right? Because the garden world is not robust enough for people to express their opinions openly and I don’t want to upset people more than I already have. But this was illuminating to me and so it may be to you. I was at a social event with garden...
How does it happen?
above: The Cornfield Garden, Veddw Many years ago I designed and created the Grasses Parterre at Veddw. By which I mean I covered a small hillside with a design of hedges taken from the local Tithe Map of 1848 and then, with great difficulty, tears and expense, filled...
The Reveal
No, this has not become bad reality tv. This is gardening in the raw. Least it feels like that. This is one time of year when hard work in the garden is unavoidable. The Crescent Border finishes the great Campanula lactiflora and Epilobium 'Stahl Rose' fest. I have to...
Throw the Hoe
I’ve never used a hoe. I bought one originally, thinking it was sort of necessary, a gardener’s necessity. Since when it has just taken up space in the potting shed, like the equally useless riddle. It’s no good mulching and then trying to hoe in the mulch – and...
Wild gardening, Veddw style.
At this time of year I make a point of getting away to see what other people are doing in their gardens and it always prompts a great deal of thinking. One thing I got preoccupied with this year was tidiness and the wild. I cheerfully say to visiting coach parties...
If you tell a lie big enough…by Anne Wareham
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” - Paul Joseph Goebbels This piece was originally published in the Spectator, 29 October 2011 as The Emperor's New Weeds. I'm republishing it here because it may be behind a...
The bars of a prison
There’s a convention in the cultural world that people shouldn't respond to criticism of their work. That no doubt had its merits once, but the world is livening up and dialogue is increasing everywhere as a result of the web. For the garden world this should, at long...
Weeds – what’s weeds?
Weeds attract repetitive garden articles, as useful as those about slugs. So I'll try and spare you the cliches and report my current thinking. A visitor yesterday took me to see the flower of ground elder, thinking it was cow parsley. No difference as far as he was...
Using a matrix
A matrix is " A situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained". That's one, above. Now I know that the usual way of planting in the uk is to buy a plant, wander round with it in its pot, looking for a space where...
Is it worth removing these flowers?
Just how important is detail in the garden - or, at what point does it begin to matter?? The planting in the front garden at Veddw at this time of year has quite bold patches of telling foliage and flower. The effect is kind of clean.. But then the variegated ground...
Propagating without trying
In the conservatory at Veddw we have a display of succulents, which we love and other people seem to, too. Makes for visitor entertainment when they are sheltering from the pouring rain. Personally, I like them better when they're not flowering. Anne's picture....
Good things
After writing about destruction, time to write about some mending. Some people will remember the removal of the box balls from the front garden. Now Jeff has made created a new front garden for us (ish - the plants are all the same..) This was no small task, as the...
Death and snow damage.
Veddw may not be an over gardened zone, but it does make demands. Last year three full grown trees - cotoneasters - died and had to be removed. A huge job and many thanks to Jeff for doing all that work. That disaster was then followed by heavy snow - about 10 or 12...
What Are Gardens For? plus shameless self promotion..
I'm sorry to begin another post with a disagreement with a much respected colleague, (see also) but here I go again. And it is also one of the joys of blogging that I can. Once we had to struggle to get a voice, now we can take one... I was just reading the RHS...
Weeding
I did some hand weeding the other day. I know. I know. First time since never.... All the better to learn something then. And I did - see if you agree. It was the creeping buttercup curse. I used to think I would never get on top of this. I have had colour schemes in...
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Recent Posts From: thinkinGardens
Are Gardens just for Gardeners?
Do you visit art galleries and museums? Do you enjoy theatre and concerts? Hauser and Wirth – art gallery and Oudolf Gardens As a garden writer and garden maker I deeply regret that my audience for both appear to be almost exclusively gardeners. It is as if the works of painters and sculptors were only […]
Should thinkingardens migrate to Substack?
I think it’s possible that such platforms are the future. At least for as long as blogs were, once.
Otherworldly Gardens by Mary Keen
“The question to ask is, ‘what is here that is true, that is underneath the superficial things? What is here that matters?”
Autobiography of a Garden by Patterson Webster: a review
Autobiography of a Garden is about the garden making, Pat’s life, the history of the land, the ideas, the art, the plants and the devouring deer.
Garden regionally, get inspired globally by Marianne Willburn
But to dream, and perhaps more importantly, to innovate, we should inspire ourselves globally:
Chelsea or Chaumont? by Catharine Howard
“Have issue. You were so adamant that you wouldn’t go to Chelsea again. Discuss, please”.
Gifting the Ephemeral
. And now, knowing we won’t live forever, we’re thinking about what will happen to the house and garden when we die.
Hadspen aka The Newt in Somerset, by Anne Wareham
The garden is actually interestingly old fashioned. It’s not just the bedding but the relentless inclusion of every garden cliché, however brilliantly executed.
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