Sweet peas are wonderfully cheery flowers to have.
They are beautiful as cut flowers with a heavenly scent. You can sow them in March but you’ll have better plants, with longer flowering stems, if you sow them now. [Read more…] about Gardening Tips for February from Wellie
This is a great time to plan what you would like to do in the garden for the rest of the year, take a note book and walk around the garden.
Look at seed catalogues for ideas of what to sow.
Midwinter can be a tough time for wildlife in the garden. Make sure there is a continuous supply of food and fresh water. [Read more…] about Gardening Tips for January from Wellie
Keep raking up those leaves from the lawn and borders.
From now until the end of March is the time to plant any bare rooted trees, shrubs and roses.
Check stored fruit, throw out any that are rotten.
Reduce watering on houseplants. [Read more…] about Gardening Tips for December from Wellie
(Editor’s note: Welcome to our new gardening series written by Wellie. Her gardening tips will appear monthly on Chandler’s Ford Today.)
Jobs to do as winter approaches and the garden quietens. [Read more…] about Gardening Tips for November from Wellie
For three seasons of the year we have a stream running through the garden. It is dry in summer so it is really a bourne. The water authority have upgraded it to the status of ‘river’. This gives them control over what we do with it in case we want to dam it, change its course or make a culvert. [Read more…] about A Bridge in the Garden
Judging by recent comments on Streetlife about hedges overhanging pavements, I believe many will support my request to have our footpaths returned to us.
If you go for a walk in the evening with a friend, dog or children, you will come across obstacles. Plants escaping from peoples’ front gardens will make your trip hazardous. [Read more…] about Please May We Have Our Footpath Back?
I am lucky enough to have a friend who works for the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), who got two free tickets to the show on Friday. So off to London I went, meeting up with my friend at Waterloo.
After a quick Tube journey to Sloane Square we emerged onto the busy London street and facing the station was a ticket tout offering Flower show tickets! [Read more…] about The Splendour of Chelsea Flower Show 2015
It was a crazy idea from the start. A mixture of the imagery of Vita Sackville West’s White Garden at Sissinghurst and watching Jurassic Park just once too often. Could I have a pre-historic garden like the ones where dinosaurs must have browsed?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger found a lost world, I would create my own lost world.
[Read more…] about A Dinosaurs’ Garden
Butterflies in February? Poor things will be caught in the next frost. But not if they are in a hothouse.
For the next week or so there is a magnificent display of butterflies in the Glasshouse at the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens at Wisley.
[Read more…] about Butterflies in February
Now is the time of the foxglove. It grows naturally and is therefore regarded by some gardeners as a weed but it is a noble flower. Upright and stately in a royal purple colour it rises above others as a bright symbol in shady places.
Why Foxglove? This strange name for the flower has been around since the 14th century and was sometimes called ‘folksglove’. [Read more…] about The Foxglove
I have just gone through a period of losing things. At least I hope I have gone through it and will not lose any more essential and valuable objects. Some years ago odd socks would appear and no matter where I looked the partner for it never turned up. After hanging around in my sock drawer for a while I would throw the sock away.
The next day the other one would turn up. [Read more…] about Lost and Found
I have almost forgotten today is the Tomb Sweeping Day to the Chinese people.
I was reminded of the festival today when I read that the Chinese families of Chinese passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 are still hopeful.
Tomb Sweeping Day is also known as the Qing Ming Festival 清明节, literally Clear Bright Festival [Read more…] about Tomb Sweeping Day
“Oh, to be in Chandler’s Ford / Now that April’s there.”
(Sorry about that misquote, Mr Browning.)
Recently someone told me that Chandler’s Ford had no soul. He went by the name of Mephistophilis on the chat site. I asked him to define soul but he declined.
The soul must be in the gardens. [Read more…] about “Oh, To Be In Chandler’s Ford / Now That April’s There”
