Posts from ‘January, 2010’

I’m sneaking in a few last-minute chores before seed-sowing begins in earnest. One of the quickest and most satisfying is giving those autumn raspberry canes a little chop back. You should cut them down to ground level in winter, while the plants are still fast asleep, and then give them a little pick-me up in [...]

Click here to visit the Fennel&Fern Flickr group and upload your own images
{Weekly wrap-up}
Hot posts, stories and images from the web this week
Stunning knitted vases on Design*Sponge
Fabulous shrubs for winter interest from A Way to Garden
Beautiful forced bulbs by Elspeth Thompson
Win a raised bed on the Guardian Gardening Blog
Don’t forget to enter the January giveaway [...]

…these mini squash from Marshalls. I have always loved Patty Pan squash for the UFO shape of their fruit, and you can grow them and eat them in the same way as courgettes. This year I am also going to grow these ‘Sweet Lightning’ squash on the balcony and over the trellis as [...]

The walled garden at Rousham is one of those must-see sites, a fabulous example of English landscape design. Unlike many of the real gardens we feature on F&F, Rousham has remained largely untouched since its inception in the eighteenth century. There are still fat herbaceous borders, a small parterre and marvellous espalier apple trees.
Here are [...]

Snowdrop ‘Lady Elphinstone’
Some plants are everywhere. Everyone knows what they are, and most people love them. But that doesn’t mean you should settle for the bog standard variety that everyone grows. Digging deeper into a genus reveals real gems: plants that truly stand out from the crowd. Every month, the Collector’s Item will bring you [...]

The snow and freezing cold weather has restricted our visits to the allotment to gathering winter vegetables. This lack of activity gave us the ideal opportunity to plan for the coming season and finalise seed orders. Now we have everything that we need to start the new season…except favourable growing and soil conditions.
It is tempting [...]

Digging up the veg in this potager must be a rather bittersweet experience when every lettuce and tomato is part of such a marvellous picture. This vegetable patch might be far more than just functional, but it still keeps the owners of the Old Rectory, Tony and Ann Huntingdon, supplied with plenty of crisp, immaculate [...]

Image by Virole Bridee
Why do we always think of orchids as houseplants from the tropics? Lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium calceolus) is a terrestrial orchid that rivals any tropical species. It’s sad to think that in recent times it was nearly lost to the history books here in the UK when over-collecting and destruction of habitats [...]

All too often big fat reference books are dull: you dip in and out of them, taking only the information you need. And all too often personal accounts of gardening are dull too: they don’t teach you enough to make you feel well-fed with gardening knowledge and inspired.
But Anna Pavord’s book, Bulb: a hand-picked selection [...]

This soup is lovely hot or cold. It offers a sweet, yet, spicy warm flavor with beautiful creamy orange color.

It has been a shamefully long time since I spent a couple of hours in the garden, but this weekend, I finally managed it. I have been hiding inside, cold and grumpy that the snow was halting my normal routines. And I was rather worried that when I stepped outside, I would find a great [...]

Image by Anne Tanne
The woman who planned my childhood garden was one of the best designers I ever encountered. There are too many clever things she did to list here, but one of my favourites was the Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ that she planted by the gate. Every morning in winter as I left for [...]

Garden designer and writer James Alexander-Sinclair is well-known for his stunning country gardens. But he has also designed some incredible town plots. He gives us a tour of three of his best designs.

Doddington Place was once moulded out of plasticine. Not in the James May style that left so many gardeners grumpy at the Chelsea Flower Show last year, but in its nascent stages, on a wooden board. The garden was planned this way, with the then-owner Mrs Douglas Jeffreys seating herself on the terrace of her [...]

Helleborus niger likes to be known as the Christmas Rose. But if it were a Christmas present, it would be one that arrives a few weeks after the event, a little apologetic and flustered. It prefers to flower from mid-January rather than arrive on Christmas Day. Just as even late presents are lovely and kind [...]