Category: Gardening

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Cooper-Young Annual Garden Walk, 2022, Memphis, Tennessee

Blue bottle tree with red rose

We recently visited Memphis for one of the most eagerly anticipated gardening events in the American South: two days where 90 or so private gardens in the historic Cooper-Young district of Memphis throw open their gates to band-wearing members of the public.

While a suggested route took in many of the highlights, as first-timers, we decided to explore each quadrant as fully as we could. That’s not a light undertaking – Cooper-Young claims to host the largest garden walk in the Mid-South. If there’s one with a better mix of gardens of all styles and skill levels, or a more welcoming one, I want to see it. Continue reading “Cooper-Young Annual Garden Walk, 2022, Memphis, Tennessee”

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Flower of the Day: Echinacea

Echinacea with drooping petals

This group of four echinacea flowers (purple coneflowers), silky in the sun, caught my attention.

While the pink petals are wriggling upwards, the flowers appear to be a different species. Opening gappy and straw-like (as seen in the smallest flower, centre left) the petals broaden, lengthen, deepen in colour and droop back under the expanding centre of the flower. 
Continue reading “Flower of the Day: Echinacea”

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Spanish Bluebells with Japanese Azalea

Spanish bluebell with azalea

Some plants are so companionable, it’s rare to find one growing wild without the other. Daisies, clover, dandelions and buttercups would be one example from Lancashire; nettles and blackberries, another.

While azaleas and bluebells can flower together, it’s not considered a classic pairing. They remind me of a friend who, on learning that my sweetheart and I were a couple, observed that was “a cosmic joke on the universe.” Continue reading “Spanish Bluebells with Japanese Azalea”