The gardening professions divide into two occasionally hostile camps, the horticulturalists and the designers, and what is one’s cup of nectar is often the other’s draught of poison. At its most extreme it is an obsession with new cultivars which … Continue reading
I have to admit I write about gardens I have been to several times, gardens that excite and inspire me, and ignore the numerous ones that don’t. Earlier in the year I came away from a garden feeling even more … Continue reading
Passing through deep-cut narrow Surrey lanes winding through tunnels of beech woodland, my first memory on arriving at Vann was of being confronted by a 12 year old boy whizzing round on a tractor, cutting the car park’s long meadow … Continue reading
As a small boy, I was a caddy to my father, a keen golfer who was recovering from heart problems. Most of the time, he played at Belton Park, in Lincolnshire; a landscape laid out by Emes, a successor to … Continue reading
We English are so polite. Like most of my compatriots, if I visit a garden that I don’t like, I don’t write about it; but all that is about to change, no more Mr Nice Guy. I have resolved to … Continue reading