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A Golden Moment in La Ville-Lumière
We all know about Paris in the spring – the lilacs, pleached limes and cafe society – but few people set out to explore this beautiful city in winter. I have been blessed with fine weather on my...
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Gathering Moss
I spent yesterday touring the garden centres of Holland, looking for Christmas inspiration. I found it in spades, from delicious Oliebollen (literally oil-balls, rather like a spherical doughnut spiked...
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Going Dutch
In an unusual turn of events, I am sitting still today even though there are more important things I should be doing. I am not poorly, but I am out of steam after two weeks of globetrotting. Today is...
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The Very Best of 2013 – A Year In Pictures
When I wrote my equivalent post this time last year, I thought 2012 was a momentous year, but reflecting on 2013 I find the last twelve months have more than measured up. I celebrated my 40th...
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Aeonium Envy
I have loved a great many aeoniums, and lost a few too. Not to frost, which is is their main enemy in UK gardens, but to lack of sunshine and a mysterious, munching caterpillar. Back at home in...
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Bruges to the Sound of Bells
Winter exposes Bruges in all its architectural splendour. With fewer tourists under one’s feet and nature taking a back seat, the city’s fine medieval brickwork can be properly admired, accompanied by...
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Miraculous Mosses
Along with ducks, umbrella salesmen and water companies, mosses are among the few things enjoying this frightful spell of wet weather. The rain brings them out in all their spongy, hummocky,...
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Bruges, Venice of the North
Judging by the number of tourists visiting Bruges annually, reckoned at 2 million, this Flemish city needs little introduction. If you are looking for classic Belgian attractions – finely gabled...
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Wild Tresco
Twenty eight miles from mainland Britain, the Isles of Scilly offer migrant birds first landfall on their arduous journeys across the Atlantic. The Isles have been divorced from the rest of Cornwall...
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Birthday Bombki
I celebrated The Frustrated Gardener’s second birthday yesterday in one of the farthest corners of Poland, near the city of Wroclaw. The countryside in the south west of the country is pastoral and...
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Hollyhocks from Holland
There are no front gardens in old Amsterdam. Instead, householders adorn their doorsteps with potted plants, or grow roses and ivy through gaps in the pavement. Ever the opportunists, hollyhocks also...
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Amsterdam Open Gardens Weekend 2014
We all know Amsterdam as a city arranged along tree-lined canals. Some are fronted with fine houses, others modest ones, but all share similar characteristics – lofty edifices, punctuated by vast...
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Top Tips: Preparing Your Garden for a Summer Holiday
The school summer break is over and the kids are back for the autumn term, which means it must be time to take our holidays. I love September: the hazy light, the gentle warmth that seems to radiate...
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Flower Market Road, Hong Kong
Since the 1970s, Flower Market Road (花墟道) has been the go-to place for plants and flowers in Hong Kong. The term ‘market’ conjures up an image of a large open space packed with stalls, but Hong Kong’s...
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The Topiary Thieves
My regular trips to China offer few opportunities to observe nature up close. By and large I’m confined to big, ugly cities few people in the UK have heard of, but today I am in Hangzhou which must be...
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Gnoming in the Gloaming
Like the RHS, I am not normally at home to gnomes, but who could resist the charm of these cute little fellows peaking out from a mass of festive foliage? I’ve travelled three countries today looking...
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Jet Lag
That’s it, I am done with travelling for 2014. I am stuck indefinitely at Amsterdam Schiphol airport with my colleagues, half of us with raging temperatures and chesty coughs, facing the prospect of a...
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Miraculous Mosses
Along with ducks, umbrella salesmen and water companies, mosses are among the few things enjoying this frightful spell of wet weather. The rain brings them out in all their spongy, hummocky,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wild Tresco
Twenty eight miles from mainland Britain, the Isles of Scilly offer migrant birds first landfall on their arduous journeys across the Atlantic. The Isles have been divorced from the rest of Cornwall...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Afternoon Delight
After a night of tumultuous storms, Saturday, the day of our friend Karen’s annual beach hut party, dawned bright and fresh. We made our way to Whitstable on the train and, by way of Regent Street, to...
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