Fingers Burnt By Plants (Or Is It The Plants Getting Burnt?)

Tiarella flowers
Tiarella flowers setting the trends at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show

Love isn’t always requited between humans & plants, but we shouldn’t allow the lamentable failure of a relationship to thrive to put us off one type of plant entirely. Easy to say, but harder to venture a tender heart the second time around.

I was first acquainted with a brownish heuchera that lived in a hanging basket in an out of the way place, seemingly never watered. Most of the soil had fallen out and only a spindly root system prevented the heuchera from going the same way. The plant never looked great, but you had to respect its toughness. I can’t claim to have fallen in love; at best we were on nodding terms.

Contrasting brown, green and purple leaves covered in raindrops
Heucherella ‘Redstone Falls’ with contrasting varieties

Inspired by that one, I went on to grow several heucheras, tiarellas and their hybrid, heucherellas, using their mounds of patterned leaves as ground cover. They really are plants you can paint land with, in England, at least. Unsurprisingly, I found myself getting fond of them.  Continue reading “Fingers Burnt By Plants (Or Is It The Plants Getting Burnt?)”

My Top Twelve Picks from the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show

  1. Award-winning fruit (and veggies)
Basket of cherries, gooseberries and currants
Andrew Baggaley’s first prize winning basket of cherries, gooseberries and currants

2. Bees for Manchester

3. The Young Designer Competition

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the competition, five finalists have been invited to create gardens rather than the usual three. This is always one of my favourite parts of RHS Tatton Park Flower Show.

Calm in Chaos Garden was designed by Max Harriman to be like a woodland trail

Continue reading “My Top Twelve Picks from the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show”

Beach Huts for Birds

Rows of colourful bird houses

These colourful birdhouses from the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show made me think of beach huts, each painted slightly differently to their neighbours, but all in keeping with the spirit of the place. I need to rein in my imagination at this point before I start twittering about birds emerging from their huts in swimming costumes, clutching beach towels, ready for a few hours in the sun… followed by a refreshing sand bath… see what I mean?  Continue reading “Beach Huts for Birds”