Near Sittingbourne, Kent.
To visit the intriguingly called ‘No Name Nursery ‘in East Kent is an exhilarating experience. In just three years Steve Edney and his partner Lou Dowle have established a veritable horticultural tour de force. The scope of the enterprise is astonishing for both its vast range of plants and also for how well established the
Read MoreThe delights of the South London Botanical Institute, based at a Victorian villa on the busy Norwood Road, are myriad. ‘School children often gasp when they walk into the building. It reminds them of Harry Potter, says Nell Gatehouse, the Administrator. The Institute has an enchanting garden brimming with more than 500 plants, and has
Read More‘I have 115 different varieties of geums’ says Sue Martin who holds the national collection. The irresistible crinkly papery flowers are available in a wide range of colours from subtle shades of dusky pink to bright orange. ‘They are such useful plants in late spring flowering from February until June and the seed heads are
Read MoreAn attractive dilemma for garden lovers pondering where to go for a staycation is to choose between renting the Wayside Byre at the internationally renowned plant nursery, Marchants run by Graham Gough and Lucy Goffin in Sussex,or the Potting Shed adjacent to celebrated topiarist Charlotte Molesworth’s magical garden in Kent. Both holiday lets are well
Read MoreThat an extensive 800 year-old garden is hidden just behind Canterbury’s St. Peter’s Street is, I suspect, virtually unknown to the scores of shoppers and tourists strolling along the bustling thoroughfare. The Franciscan Gardens date from 1224 when the first Franciscan Friars to be sent to England by Francis of Assisi arrived in Canterbury. Today
Read MoreKing’s College, Cambridge, has a new energy-efficient development on Cranmer Road, designed by Allies and Morrison and built to Passivhaus standard, to provide new accommodation for the College’s graduate students.It is a haven of floriferous joy: an exquisite slate memorial frieze, brimming with flowers designed and carved by the renowned Cardozo Kindersley Workshop, complements the
Read MoreThe last year has witnessed a national surge of interest in gardening and nature and the powerfully therapeutic effect both have on us. Two veritable beacons of joy, amongst all the angst and tribulations of the dreadful Pandemic. Capitalizing on these trends, the enterprising curator and writer Natasha Goodfellow is organising Herbival, an exciting new
Read MoreOf the many imaginative creative projects that have sprung out of Covid, Maude Smith’s range of tea towels and tiles celebrating the natural world have jumped out at me from Instagram. (@maude_made) The beguiling tea towels have a naïve charm with a particularly English sensibility. Butterflies, grasses, leaves, mushrooms, sheep, birds eggs, British birds, British
Read MoreThe Glasshouse Botanic Design is an inspiring new social enterprise initiative launched earlier this year, at East Sutton Park, an open women’s prison in Kent. The brainchild of social entrepreneur Melissa Murdoch, and Kali Hamerton-Stove, the Project Director, the idea is to utilise the abandoned glasshouses that these days are to be found languishing at
Read MoreOver the years, White House Farm, near Sevenoaks, has become a mecca for plantsmen the world over. Home to more than 200 different kinds of magnolia, hundreds of hydrangeas (many of them bred by Maurice), an outstanding collection of climbing roses, a fine arboretum of more than 3000 trees and shrubs, masses of viburnums, over
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