Posts under ‘flowers’

I’ve always found slighty odd things exciting. And plant hormones are just one of those things. I genuinely do think auxins are quite cool. I’m not expecting anyone else to jump on this bandwagon, but you could at least pinch out your sweet peas once you’ve finished groaning at me. I sowed mine back at [...]

My client wanted to combine her love of food and flowers in some arrangements for a wedding anniversary party. As the event was to be held on St. David’s Day, I chose to use a hand tie of Daffodils which were placed in a fishbowl vase.
Double-sided tape was used to attach several leaves taken from [...]

Image copyright Nobu.
I’m quite a fan of mixing purely ornamental flowers and veg, but sometimes I wonder whether this is rather silly, given the number of stunning flowers  which go on to produce fabulous edible crops. So before you plant up your patch with plants you can’t eat, here are some crops with very striking [...]

I have been scrabbing around for signs of spring for a few weeks now. First came the snowdrops and the aconites, and now the irises are starting to pop up. Early irises always make me giggle, because they look so alien and silly on their short little stalks, with their strangely-shaped flower heads.

Double form pink picotee Helleborus x hybridus
This month we’re collecting gorgeous hellebores from Ashwood Nurseries. The way hellebores hybridise makes it very difficult for the nurseries to give each cultivar a name, so you’ll find these plants labelled by shape and colour. And nursery owner John Massey has kindly shared his tips for growing hellebores [...]

I went for a little scamper around the city parks at the weekend. Southampton isn’t renowned for being the most aesthetically pleasing place in the world (although it is one of the most sustainable cities in England), but it has some marvellously beautiful parks right in the middle of all the bustling shops. And right [...]

A few weeks ago my fiancé and I set the date for our wedding: 12th June 2010. As some of you keen mathematicians will have noticed, this is a little less than four months away, which has a number of implications. Firstly, I now have little motivation to plant in my current garden, since I [...]

Image by Anne Tanne
I’ve chosen quite a few shy plants for February’s Six Plants to Love. I always think there’s something quite classy about a plant that just creeps quietly out to meet you. Woodland anemones fall into this group. Even though they don’t shout ‘Oi, I’m flowering, look at me!’, a carpet of them [...]

Ken Marten is our newest blogger at F&F. He is an incredibly accomplished florist who works for McQueens, and produces some incredible arrangements for hotels, parties, and other public spaces. And F&F readers are now going to get a monthly floristry fix from Ken, with photo posts featuring his work.
This particular design uses a combination [...]

Image by Anne Tanne
This is the spring perennial. I don’t care if every single person reading this site has already heard of the sweet violet: it is the most beautiful, most delicate and most welcome spring plant. I love seeing it carpeting flower beds at this time of year, with its little heart-shaped leaves and [...]

Image by Anne Tanne
A swathe of crocuses spreading slowly across a lawn is one of the best sights of spring. It’s a cheer-up, wake-up, and get-into-the-garden sight. I’ve always had a difficult relationship with many spring bulbs: sometimes their violent pastel shades strike me as a bit naff, but I love an enormous clump of [...]

I’m pretty relieved January is over. It really is the most boring month of the year, and come February, there’s hope that your shoes won’t forever be full of rain and your hair won’t ping into a horrible, frizzy halo (or that might just be me). So now the new gardening season is on the [...]

Last year I grew sweet pea ‘Matucana‘ all over willow obelisks in my garden. I’ve always had an awkward relationship with sweet peas: some of the colours remind me of thermal vests, and I used to think them an old lady plant.
That all changed when a good friend of mine picked me some from her [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]