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Rows of large trees

Plants for every garden situation

Unfortunately it’s generally considered that most retail garden plants come in standard sizes, I guess this is because gardeners are used to visiting the local nursery, garden centre or market stall, (and now discount centres and supermarkets) and seeing standard sized plants in standard sized plant pots in…well…a standard retail environment. It’s a plant with […]

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Cowslip

Shade Garden Plants

Once a garden is designed, built and planted it never quite finishes there. Being invited back to see a garden is always welcome and just last week I went and had a look around a previously planted garden – I was looking forward to seeing how the overall planting scheme had coped with several winters […]

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Euphorbia

I Planted One of Those But….

Garden centres are fascinating places full of tempting plants and garden products but  have you ever been and looked around the plants, then decided on a choice specimen because the label says it apparently has some amazing magic trick up it’s sleeve? This could be excellent flowering abilities, it may be a great ground-cover plant […]

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Crocus

Growing Crocuses

The Stray at Harrogate always amazes with a fantastic display of crocuses in a range of purple, yellow and white, it is a display that is undeniably impressive. Spurred on by this, late last year I purchased several hundred crocuses and planted them in raised beds in the garden. I now see the first signs […]

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snowdrops

February in the garden

This February seems such a cold, wet month for being in the garden, but it is actually a great month for catching up with garden tasks and also planning the months ahead. I think that all gardeners are looking forward to the spring when the weather will hopefully start to get warmer and the garden  […]

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Garden_shrubs

Right shrub, wrong place!

Right shrub but planted in the wrong place? Over the years I have moved many shrubs and small trees that have overgrown their allotted garden space and now is an ideal time for digging up and moving shrubs, there’s a good chance that they’ll survive too. I’m sure many gardeners will have bought plants at […]

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Pauls_Himalayan_Musk_Rose

The Summer of 2013

It was a good summer to be out in the garden in 2013, and if you visited a garden centre or nursery and saw the range of plants on offer (and the amount of people shopping) then you won’t be surprised to learn that the sales of plants increased markedly, this of course was probably […]

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Cotoneaster

Autumn Berries

Out and about I’ve been taking some photographs on my ‘phone of different berries I’ve come across in the last couple of weeks. These are just some of the pictures I have taken but they give an indication of the many different berry-ing plants that can be used in gardens….

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Achillea-plate-of-gold

Plant trials – Achillea

One of the great things I get to do with  gardening is the chance to experiment with plants and test planting combinations before they ever hit the customers garden. This year I have planted many new perennials in  trial beds to see how they cope in different situations and how they look with other perennials […]

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outside-nursery

Seeing plants grow

I have been away down in the Evesham area, it’s a great place to see many working nurseries growing and selling plants, as well as some of the enormous glasshouses on a commercial scale. One place that I often visit has a great outdoor growing area where all the plants are labelled up and growing […]

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