Empathy in the Flower Garden

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Embarking on the journey of creating and caring for a garden can be both exciting and daunting

You may know Nancy Lawson as “The Humane Gardener” (also the title of her previous book). She has a new book out called “Wildscape” (affiliate links) that asks us to adjust our senses to take into account everyone out there whose world it is—everyone else whose world it is, and was, before we intervened.Nancy Lawson is a naturalist and a habitat consultant based in Maryland who promotes animal-friendly plant strategies and challenges us to sharpen our awareness that we’re not alone out there. (Above, a spring mome

Better Homes & Gardens

Warm weather has finally arrived! Here’s what to do in your garden now.

The parrot tulip, Tulipa gesneriana var.dracontia, is an intriguing cultivated variety with twisted, curled, and ruffled petals streaked by vivid combinations of colors.We’re all familiar with tulips and their cheerful, colorful blooms that herald the arriv

Columbine, or Aquilegia, is an intriguing member of the Ranunculaceae family with exquisite petals that give it an ephemeral quality, like a briefly glimpsed hummingbird.It is an herbaceous perennial that blooms from sp

Whatever the habitat we were in, it was the diversity that was so exciting. With little human intervention, there was a balance that meant no single species dominated and every step revealed new species that gradually changed with the terrain evolving into perfect conditions for another array of plants. Close to the sea, a me

I do like a productive garden, especially when it has glasshouses and potting sheds. Those at Petworth are an object lesson in tidy order. The Vegetable Garden has been revamped so that it is decorative as well as productive – and a lot easier to look after in these days when it is no longer necessary to grow food for a household of hundreds.   This perfect corner

Why not see a few more modern gardens from some of the other shows.

The (Vegetable) Garden’s Gone to Pot In an attempt to keep the slugs and snails at bay I’ve been planting as much as I can in pots. We are on our 3rd sowing of runner beans on the allotment and unless a. the weather improves, or b. Andrew is prepared to spend the night there in pursuit of slugs and snails, it seems unlikely we will be dealing with the usual gluts this year.

Whenever we visit an art gallery, one of my favourite pastimes is to check the floral content of the paintings. I love spotting familiar flowers at the foot of the Virgin, or examining the landscape for familiar trees – it is a way of engaging with the artist who must have lived amongst and enjoyed the same plants as I do. On our recent visit to Seville we visited the Museo de Bellas Artes where Spring was painted wearing a most extravagant headdress that included roses, narcissi, irises, dianthus, marigolds and tulips. Equally charming w