Isn't May a glorious month? Suddenly so much to choose from! So when picking a quick hand-tied posy for a gardening friend this afternoon, I had no trouble in finding a good handful of airy, laid-back stems. Here we have an allium from my cutting bed, the last of the Narcissus 'Cheerfulness', Geum 'Leonard's Variety',…
When I'm faced with the tulip catalogues in August with their cornucopia of offerings in bright jewel colours and curving shapes, just two outcomes prevail: either I go bananas and order almost everything in sight (2016) or I dither until it is too late and there's nothing left (2017). I blame Sarah Raven entirely for…
My brother-in-law and his partner came to visit us this weekend, which meant the usual dash to convert domestic chaos into an illusion of homely perfection. Our spare room doubles as my husband's man cave, so the task was formidable and involved a degree of brutality, rehoming of bikes, and a lot of dusting. The…
Continue reading ➞ Summer stalwarts: a few flowers I can’t live without
A quick and rather old-fashioned vase of tulips, forget-me-nots, cerinthe and euphorbia, and a pink drumstick primula. The pink double tulip is called 'Chato', which is funny to me as chato is Portuguese for boring or annoying. I am sure the breeders couldn't have known that when they were naming this cheerful, charming beauty. The…
Are you a galanthophile? For me, a relatively new gardener, things could go either way: there's still for me to develop the urge to collect rare, expensive snowdrop bulbs; or else galanthophilia may never take hold and I will be content to enjoy plain old G. nivalis dotting its pretty, native head around my borders…
Continue reading ➞ Galanthophilia (and other charms of spring) at Shepherd House, Inveresk
