folio

This year has been a bad year for us in the garden. Autumn was late last year, the leaves not falling from the trees until November and so winter left us late and spring did not even seem to happen. The April showers visited us in May and now we have this scorching sun. Tomorrow [...]

We have this plant in our front garden. It has flowers somewhat like those of the Fusia, but glossy leaves and woody stems like a gooseberry bush. Does anyone know what it is? At the bottom of our back garden we have another unusual plant. It seems to have two sets of flowers. First come [...]

I am, as they say, ker-nackered. I have spent the afternoon in the garden, trying to prepare my wife’s vegetable patch. We are on very heavy clay soil and the clumps are like rocks. After spending a couple of hours trying to break the chunks of mud into smaller pieces, I started digging in 300 [...]

While preparing our vegetable patch this weekend, burning the last remnants of our pruning, it occurred to me that the average Englishman hardly has any relationship with fire in this age. If we are cold, we flip a switch and do the same when it gets dark; the closest we get are the blue jets [...]

What beauty! It has been a long winter this year, but spring is finally here. My front garden is suddenly blooming; flushes of new green leaves and splashes of colour everywhere. There are pinkish red flowers on the camelia, purble tulips, bright yellow cowslips, orange on our exotic oak, yellows, pinks, blues of primulars everywhere. [...]