Lambley Gardens & Nursery, 395 Lesters Road,  Ascot,  Victoria 3364
Phone +61 (03) 5343 4303,  Fax +61 (03) 5343 4257

David Glenn's Garden Notes

Garden Notes From 2019

Aster frikartii 'Monch'

“Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’ is not only the finest perennial aster; it is one of the six best plants, and should be in every garden.” G.S. Read more about Aster x frikartii

Wandering through the garden to check for any damage caused by a very windy, wet August night I saw that one of the Californian lilacs was already in full bloom. Ceanothus arboreus ‘Trewithen Blue’ makes an evergreen small tree growing, with us, up to 5 metres tall. Its 12cm long, fragrant, powder blue flower panicles are displayed from August until early October. Read more about Storm Damage

I’ve had just taken my first walk around the garden in early July after a week’s spell inside sitting in front of an open fire nursing a heavy cold.

A week ago there was very little in flower but as the song goes “What a difference a week makes.” Read more about Winter Bulbs: What a difference a week makes

Garden Notes From 2018

Three or four years ago my good friend Simon Rickard gave me a large tree peony. It flowered beautifully in my garden this year in a hot north facing spot near the public dunny. I couldn’t remember the tale behind this plant and asked Simon for any information he had on it. The following is his reply. Read more about Simon’s Gift

We’re sowing our main crop onion seeds this week. The strain we’ll be sowing is Tilbury F1. We grew Tilbury for the first time last year and had a terrific result. Harvested mid January the onions are still in excellent condition now in mid August as you can see from the photograph. Read more about Blog August 2018

A couple of years ago the gardening world in the UK, Europe and America was bewitched by these new plants, the result of some brilliant hybridising by the venerable old English company Thompson and Morgan. Read more about Digiplexis

Dowdeswell’s Delphiniums is a family owned Delphinium nursery in Whanganui New Zealand that is recognised worldwide for their superb breeding work. Plants raised from their hand pollinated seed are much better than cheaper strains such as Pacific Giants or Magic Fountains. Read more about Dowdeswell’s Delphiniums

Beth Chatto died early this week aged 94. Her garden, on an inhospitable site in Essex, is an inspiration for gardeners the world over. Read more about Beth Chatto OBE

In her 1960 book, French Provincial Cooking, Elizabeth David writes “It was from marmelo, the Portuguese name for quince, that the word marmalade came into the French and English language.”

Quinces make a superb preserve and most of my family prefer it over Seville orange marmalade. Read more about Quince Marmalade

 For four or five years a couple of decades ago I grew the heirloom watermelon ‘Moon and Stars’. In all those years not one ‘Moon and Stars’ melon ripened properly. This was because this melon takes up to 125 days to ripen which is problematic in our area where there are spring frosts as late as the third week in November and autumn frost as early as the end of April. Read more about Watermelons at Lambley

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