JANUARY 2017
Today the first flowers started to open on one of my dearest plants – Edgeworthia chrysantha. I’ve had one for seven years now growing against one of the rear house walls, my husband having brought it for me shortly before our son was born for a Valentine’s Day present.

DECEMBER 2016
So Christmas is nearly upon us again, and I am sure many have retreated to gardening from their armchairs, browsing the seed catalogues. If you are like me, I’m sure you can expect a sprinkling of gardening presents among all of the usual candidates of socks and chocolates, but just how useful is the garden paraphernalia you get given?

DECEMBER 2016
As a child I used to continually dream about being in the jungle, searching the undergrowth for something elusive. I've done a fair bit of travelling in my time to some pretty exotic places, but I’m not the type to go camping or backpacking - there always needed to be a certain amount of civilisation in place. Therefore I don’t think I could ever of been a plant-hunter. I think of myself more as an armchair plant-hunter.

DECEMBER 2016
It is always at this time of year, when the trees have lost most of their leaves, that you can truly see the structure of the garden that forms the rigid skeleton the rest of the garden is supported on. We see classics such as Buxus (box) and Taxus (yew) used for this purpose all the time, but what about some of the more newcomers to the block.

DECEMBER 2016
About a year ago, I came across a rose with the promise of large, crimson single flowers with an exceptionally long flowering period - late spring through to the first frosts (although rumour has it , it has been known to flower well 12 months of the year including in snow and sub-zero temperatures!

JULY 2016
With milder winters, Salvias have perhaps become more popular in the last few years. One Salvia that should be on every collectors list is S. bulleyana, a true connoisseurs plant. There is some confusion over the naming of this, so you might find it listed under S. flava megalantha. It also grows by a trade name of ‘Blue Lips’.

JULY 2016
A fantastic hardy member of the ginger family, Roscoea, is a group of tuberous perennials with their orchid resembling flowers appearing between May and August and some varieties, when a sizable clump, can carry on flowering for up to eight weeks.

JUNE 2016
My husband and I, well more me really, as he is never that keen, have opened our garden previously for our local village garden safari raising money for the village hall. We’ve done this about four times. I’ve always thought what would it be like to open for the Yellow Book (National Garden Scheme).

APRIL 2016
Last year I purchased two varieties of hardy Impatiens to help prolong the season of interest from summer into autumn in our garden. Impatiens, like many plants, have got themselves a bad reputation.