Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
I’m sure many people do a double-take when they first see this unusual delphinium. While the ruffled flowers are a bold, sweet colour – we might call it light red, perhaps, or coral or salmon, with just a hint of a green stripe – they are contrary to what we’d expect. Continue reading “Delphinium ‘Red Lark’”
Plant combinations fascinate me, so I loved the way these flowers, foliage and billowing grasses were painting their lines and colours against the textured background of a gravel mulch in the most alluring feature garden at this year’s Hampton Court Flower Show.
The effect previewed the romantic, soft planting trend that would be taken further at the Tatton Park Show a few weeks later.
The plants pictured here include:
Allium sphaerocephalon (drumstick allium; purple)
Galactities tomentosa alba (milk thistle; creamy-white)
Verbena officinalis var grandiflora ‘Bampton’ (vervain Bampton; lavender-pink)
Erigeron ‘Dimity’ (fleabane; pink)
Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ (catmint; lavender-blue)
Santolina chamaecyparissus (cotton lavender; yellow)
Stipa tenuissima (Mexican feather grass) Continue reading “Carol Klein’s Iconic Horticultural Hero Garden”
The Chelsea Plant of the Year (from 2021) is a deciduous, multi-stemmed redbud tree that keeps fairly compact at under 4 m / 13 ft. It’s something of a curiosity. Continue reading “Cercis canadensis ‘Eternal Flame’”
In contrast to my recent post celebrating wild foxgloves, here’s one of several garden forms of Digitalis purpurea with cream flowers and maroon spots. Continue reading “Spotted Foxglove (And Infinite Variety)”
Black flowers are relatively uncommon, and gardeners will understand that a breeder (or a blogger) calling a flower black does not make it so. Then when you do find inky black flowers, they’re not easy to photograph. The quality of light can highlight or conceal whatever blue, purple, red and even green tones are present.
My first shot is one of my favourites. Regular readers who visit my blog directly rather than via the WordPress Reader may recognise it from my sidebar, where I used to keep it. It is overdue an outing.
My second naturally lacks contrast, so will be difficult to make out if you’re visiting on a phone, but it is a hellebore too, this time a fully double one. Continue reading “Black and Dusky Flowers”
One climbing rose was outperforming the others during our recent stroll down the long pergola at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Continue reading “Rosa ‘Maid of Kent’ Climbing On A Pergola At Kew”
I’m sharing two views of the same plants growing in a long border beside the Kitchen Garden at Hampton Court Palace. Their moods are quite different. Continue reading “Echinops and Alliums at Hampton Court Palace Gardens”
Susan Rushton 