At last the tree surgeons turned up today to give the garden its annual haircut. I usually book in August and get them Christmas Eve but this broke all records. Luckily they picked what seemed like the first dry, sunny day for weeks but oh! that wind! Anyway, we are now trim. I had to warn them to be careful of our wall. It seems that after all ( Read more... )

We live in a Victorian stable. Sort of. Once there was a big house of which ours was just an outpost. The big house was pulled down and the stable/cottage converted in the 1960s, before our time. It must have been nice then but land round here is valuable so the builders moved in and now we are an island of what I would like to call shabby chic ( ( Read more... )

It’s only recently that the term ‘Chelsea Chop’ has become common parlance. It means pruning your perennials and late May is a good time to do it, hence ‘Chelsea’. An American gardening writer, Tracy DiSabato-Aust, has even written a book on the subject: The Well Tended Perennial Garden. As with so many gardening fashions this idea has actually ( Read more... )