I planted the Golden Rain Tree, Koelreuteria paniculata oh, twelve years ago, having checked its hardiness and tolerance of chalky soil. I liked the name. Soon I was attaching bird feeder to its branches. Now, it blots out any summer view from the bedroom above. In spring ferny pink leaves appear, later green. In late July and August sprays of tiny gold flowers bloom. These fade and fall, but the show is not over. The tree is covered by sprays of little Chinese lanterns holding the seed. Eventually, leaves and lanterns...
> MOREMy garden is the nearest I get to paradise. It is my sanctuary. Years ago I went – I don’t know when – to see Painting Paradise, the Art of the Garden at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, with plant and garden paintings gathered by the royals over the centuries. I loved the manuscripts of Islamic gardens with octagonal ponds and chenar (plane) trees, lovers and flowers (their deep symbolism barely mentioned in explanatory notes). Ditto Rembrandt’s painting of Christ as a gardener, complete with trowel. Ditto...
> MORENo Chelsea Flower Show this year – the cloud of Covid still hangs over us. But the 2019 RHS Plant of the year was Sedum takimense Atlantis, and I bought two, and this summer Atlantis in its pot has been glorious, white and pale green shoots topped by flurries of tiny gold flowers. In sun for only half the day, it has flowered for weeks and been a consolation for everything. This photo I am sorry to say was taken towards the end of its glory. The other Atlantis, in the front of a border, has not been happy. I moved it to a...
> MOREApril and the tulips in the pots and scattered over the garden make the place look on fire. Apeldoorn Elite particularly is a star, with the three essential Apeldoorn signatures, soft orange red petals, a black star at the base of the tulip bowl, and reappearing year after year. In the time of 17th century tulip mania, when Dutch bulbs exchanged hands for thousands of guilders, the most coveted were ones with flames streaking up the petal sides. In fact this was caused by a virus, so no wonder these prized wonders did not last that long! ...
> MOREIt’s March, and the weeping cherry at the end of the yard is blooming. If I step through the weeping boughs when the sun is out, it’s like being dressed in palest pink glass. Even though the tree is old and odd boughs have died, it still draws people into our...
> MORENo one knows where Dungeness is. Bill thought it was near Aldeburgh and Rosie Sturgis in Wales. It’s a high spur of shingle deposited by floods in Kent when a frozen North Sea thawed after the last Ice Age and flooding the vast plain of Doggerland pushed through the Channel. Ann and I found we were both reading Derek Jarman’s Journals, and had to visit his garden in the shingle of Dungeness. Jarman started the garden when he was already dying of Aids but it took more than four years to kill him. He bought this black wooden fisherman’s...
> MOREThe Hive is the big excitement. Kew Gardens have bee hives, and their sound is amplified through a construction of metal network, a huge mound of interlacing silvery hexagons. The varying sounds indicate begging for a food sample, pointing to food supplies, ‘tooting’ and ‘quarking’, but you hear not so much a buzz as a throb and hum: live music and the sound of heaven. Perfect for meditation. At ground level we looked up and saw the feet of people through a circle of murky glass, then we climbed and entered the centre...
> MOREJUNE The gardens in our village are open today. Broad Street is lined with sedate Georgian houses all built within decades of each other because two massive 18th century fires burnt their predecessors down. Their gardens extend behind, some as far as 75 yards. Every house, in fact the whole area, is listed, which means the owners can’t alter the front facades but behind they can erect garden sheds or summer houses or conservatories. The backs are a contrast, relaxed and higgledy piggledy. You enter a garden, via a gate or garage which was...
> MORECHELSEA FLOWER SHOW! 2019 Yes, it’s over. I’m critical but I love it, the vibes, the brief excitement in this tiny area of plants, gardens, pop up shops, food vans, stalls selling Pimms, uplifting mottoes all over the place, furniture, gazebos, and sculpture, naff and ok. I went on the final day, and hardly bothered with the show gardens, because they’ve been on TV and they’re about spectacle not reality – they look stunning for a week before being slung into refuse vans. What has a Yorkshire canal lock to do with gardening? It’s...
> MORENo seeds this year. Sheer laziness, no, just lack of time. And so, Plants! Container annuals from Sarah Raven, and leeks, golden beetroot and a variety of lettuce from Mr Fothergills. Handy research for Gardening Forever.
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