Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
It may not be the first English garden you’d associate with a Palm House, but Sefton Park has one of the prettiest. These tiered buildings hark back to times when palm trees were enough of a curiosity to justify building a magnificent structure to keep palms alive through our winters. Continue reading “Architectural Glasshouses, Greenhouses and Plants”
Sofia invited us to post images that convey a mood. During 2020, I shared a series of pictures for dreaming and was surprised, looking back, that the first and last had not featured. Perhaps they seemed impossibly far away from the reality of the time. Too inaccessible, too reflective. Continue reading “In an Outdoors Mood”
Tina has invited us to post pictures from 2022 that we’ve not so far shared. I have so many to choose from, but I’ve picked some out that, for me, have an evocative sense of place. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Continue reading “Scenes and Curiosities from Mississippi, Mainly”
When people riot, it’s generally ugly, but not so with flowers.
Over millennia, you could argue they’ve mastered the art of sharing and combining better than humans. Continue reading “Week of Flowers 2022: A Floral Riot”
While not a native tree, characterful flowers, leaves and seeds have made the horse chestnut tree so wildly grown that it is (or should be) part of every British childhood. Tough, spiky cases with an inner layer of padding protect large, polished chestnut-coloured seeds (conkers) while they form.
One of my memories of Autumn ’22 will be standing under the canopy of the biggest horse chestnut tree in Bold Venture Park to see if any fine conkers were left in the leaf litter underneath, a habit that dies hard. Better than that, I soon discovered, turn and turn about, conkers tippling their balance from unreadiness to ripeness in a decisive instant were slowly, heavily, falling around me. Continue reading “Seeds of The Horse Chestnut or Conker Tree (Aesculus hippocastanum)”
I’m not sure I’d have enjoyed my favourite garden at Floriade as much if I’d seen it in April, soon after Floriade opened to visitors. In pictures of the Europarcs garden taken before the deciduous trees had leafed out, The Rebel House commands the space. A broad, meandering path wraps around the clean, metal-edged outlines of flower beds. Newly-planted perennials are neat, well-spaced and picture perfect, like an architect’s diagram.
Three months later, the plants have bedded in and are relaxing out. Leaves and flowering stems mingle and mesh together, gently spilling over the path. The ‘Within Nature’ theme of the garden is emerging. Continue reading “Biodiverse Planting Scheme by Stefano Marinaz for the EuroParcs Garden, Floriade”
Harlow Carr is no longer the Royal Horticulture Society’s only northern garden, and not the biggest, but has the benefit of an extra 70 years or so of continuous cultivation. Highlights for me include wonderful collections of primula and meconopsis, typically in flower around mid June to early July. The collections mingle in naturalistic drifts, their bold colours sparkling like jewels in their stream-side setting. Continue reading “RHS Harlow Carr: Candelabra Primulas, Blue Poppies And Other Treasures”
Susan Rushton 