All that shimmers: Plants to bring a sparkle to your garden

We’re visiting with Lilli Hazard today in southern Indiana.

After salad crop failures in Spain and shortages of courgettes, broccoli and other ‘long distance’ vegetables gardeners could to worse than focus on traditional and non-traditional root crops.

Despite my garden being full to overflowing after the spring rain I have decided to create a new area for a Japanese Garden. When starting a new project I was advised to have a name that may colour the end result. I opted for the grand title of ‘Japan Land’  This will be a long term project and I won’t rush it as I have on other projects in the past.

This summer has been damp and the plants have grown lush. In some way this has contributed to a dramatic cut in the number of greenfly on my roses and other plants (perhaps they found other feeding grounds or did not mate as prolifically).

London Holland Park’s water feature in Kyoto Garden.

Holland Park has some Zen like features but fails my Zen test. The classic elements of a successful Zen are stone, sand or gravel, water, plants and space. Then there is a question of balance between yin and yang. Cramped or cluttered gardens inhibit the flow of spirit so space is potentially the key ingredient of a Zen garden.

I will use Shangri-la as an all encompassing name for spiritually based gardens and areas of harmonious natural beauty stealing a name from James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon.

Feeling grouchy and ill-tempered then perhaps you should plant a crab apple and that way you won’t feel crabby much longer.

Native to Mexico and Central America, the dahlia (Family asteraceae) is a bushy and beautiful flowering perennial. The dahlia is Mexico's national flower, and its tuberous roots were eaten by Aztecs before the Spanish Conquest. Following Central America's colonisation, the dahlia was exported to European nations, where it thrived even in countries with harsh or cold winters. Since the 18th century, botanists, taxonomists and gardeners have held a certain fascination for the flower, identifying over 850 different species each with unique petal or stem structures (this number includes the plant's hybrids, too). Since dahlias are extraordinarily varied in appearance, they also tend to be categorised by the shape of the flower, with 10 categories that include anemone, peony, pompom, ball, decorative, cactus, single and waterlily.

If you’re well-versed in TikTok food trends—cottage cheese, rat snacks, or boozy pineapple spears, anyone?—you may already know about the recent sushi-related food trend that influencers are trying their hand at: the sushi bake. This riff on the super popular Japanese dish is quick and easy to prepare, making the flavors of sushi much more accessible from home.

A recent visit to Maplewood Gardens in East Flat Rock, NC where there is an incredible collection of Japanese maples. The Mr. Maple nursery specializes in these beautiful maples.

You can create fresh or preserved moss balls to add interest to your floral arrangements. If using fresh moss or reindeer lichen, please don’t collect entire populations of them from a single area. Only gather small amounts from different places to allow the moss or lichen to regenerate. Commercial dried moss and Spanish moss that has been sustainably sourced can be purchased from your favorite craft store. The dried materials will last much longer than the freshly gathered ones.