A recent visitor to the Lambley garden described the thousands of flowering white Iceland poppies as being like “a field of angels”. Read more about “A Field of Angels”
A shrub in our garden that has come into its own this year is Stachyurus praecox. Whilst its flowers have been a joy every late winter and early spring since I planted it 10 years ago, it has now grown large enough to show what an extraordinarily beautiful plant it is. Read more about Stachyurus praecox
Having spent my childhood and youth during the 1940s and 1950s in the East Midlands of England my knowledge of food, as you can imagine, was limited. Whilst my family lived in a rural area and our locally grown food was of good quality it was, to say the least, plain. Except of course the delicious cakes, tarts and puddings which my mother cooked. A meal wasn’t complete without pudding. Read more about Bok Choi Recipe
There are daffodils and there are daffodils. Some are so superior to the run-of-the-mill sorts that they deserve a place in every garden. Read more about Narcissus ‘Beryl’
I met my first Alstroemerias when working for Boulter’s Nursery in Olinda in the 1960s. The nursery had been started after the First World War by Mr Vic. Boulter and when I worked there was run by his two sons, Frank and Geoff. Read more about Alstroemeria - The Peruvian Lilies
Seventy years ago, when I was twelve years old, I started working for my uncle Cyril. Not full-time of course but during school holidays and Saturday mornings. My uncle grew cut flowers, tomatoes, vegetables and pot plants on his five-acre smallholding called Castle Nursery. Read more about Cyclamen
Walking into one of our large growing houses today I almost swooned from the intense fragrance from two batches of Parma violets whose perfume filled the whole poly house. Read more about Violets
There is, or used to be, a bluebell wood a short walk from my East Midland village of Lambley. When I was a child, the bluebells grew in such dense profusion under the ancient beech trees that one couldn’t take a step without trampling on them. Deep violet-blue flowers carpeted the woodland floor as far as the eye could see. Even so young, I found it breathtakingly beautiful. Read more about Bluebells
When I was a lad, some seventy-five years ago, my village, like much of the world at the time, had no sewerage system. My granddad Glenn, like everyone else, had an outside dunny. This dunny had a terracotta tile roof. On this roof grew a garden of houseleeks (Sempervivum). Read more about Houseleeks
I have had a love of snowdrops (Galanthus) since I was a very young lad. For many years I was a boy treble in the choir of the Holy Trinty Church in the village of Lambley. Built in the 11th century the church is a listed Grade 1 building meaning that it is a building of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be of international importance. Read more about Snowdrops - Galanthus ‘S. Arnott’
