A Winter Homage to Finlay and Frosts
“Formal Gardens are (as it were) statues to Nature.“– Ian Hamilton Finlay 2 “Weather is a third to place and time” – Ian Hamilton … read more
The Pond Garden
Info
The Pond Garden is a formal design at the far end of my back garden. It consists of several L-shaped raised beds which surround a small rectangular pond with a bridge across the centre. Fruit is trained along the boundary. Prior to their transformation in 2019 these beds were used for vegetable growing.
A Dry Meadow Theme: The planting in the raised beds consists of lowish herbaceous plants, bulbs, herbs, alpines, lavender and roses. The main season is high summer: June – September with an aim to attract insects and butterflies.
Myrtle spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites)
throughout the year
In this post I look at the amazing design potential of this wonderful perennial which has a very long season of interest from January … read more
Four Artemisia varieties for Silver planting schemes
Artemisia abrotanum (top-left) Artemisia alba ‘Canescens’ (top-right) Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ (bottom-left) Artemisia schmidtiana ‘Silver Mound’ (bottom-right) The Wormwood family (Artemisia species) include some very … read more
Fairy Thimble Bellflower
This pretty little alpine plant is Campanula cochlearifolia ‘Elizabeth Oliver’ also known as Fairy thimble bellflower, which is at its peak right now in … read more
Early pastel colours for the dry garden
#rockgarden #mediterraneangarden #drygarden #gravelgarden #pastelshades Here are four less common perennials currently in flower in my new Pond Garden. They are highly floriferous, easy-care … read more
Architectural Pond Plants
A bud of Water Lily (Nymphaea) Gonnère pushing up through the spiky leaves of Water Soldiers (Stratiotes aloides) Photos taken 22nd June 2019
Creating a Planting Plan — The Design Process
A good coherent planting plan arises out of careful considerations that take into account multiple factors In my last post (The New Pond Garden … read more
the New Pond Garden Planting
This is a new part of my garden which has replaced the vegetable beds that used to be here with something more ornamental. The … read more
Renovating the Vegetable Garden
Background Ideas I am in the process of repurposing and revamping the vegetable garden. It’s not really going to be a vegetable garden anymore. … read more
Water soldiers
These aquatic ‘spider plants’ are Stratiotes aloides or Water Soldiers – a British native, that is to my mind, a highly desirable ornamental pond plant. You … read more
First flowers of water lily ‘Gonnère’
This is only their second summer since I planted them in the double pond that forms a central feature in my formal vegetable garden. I have … read more
Formal pond in the vegetable garden
The centre piece of my vegetable garden is this formal pond, which was started in 2012. It’s overall size is about 6′ x 11′, … read more