Category: Uncategorized
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A sprig of jasmine in a water bottle – a walk round Scicli Cemetery
The gardens I remember the most aren’t always where I expect to find them. On our holiday in Sicily last week, we stopped the car to walk round this massive cemetery. From the road it looked like a row of beach huts so we wanted to know what it was like inside… But inside it was the…
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If you have a garden and a library,
… you have everything you need. So said Cicero, and so, it seems, the Carnegie Library in London… I visited this library on Wednesday to sit on a session of the adult literacy group, the Ruskin Readers. But first, I couldn’t resist a quick peek at the ‘Reading Garden’. Admittedly it wasn’t the perfect day…
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Catching a healthy dose of Pteridomania in Canada
It was a real treat to meet one of my favourite gardeners (and friends) when I was in Canada recently. And also to be introduced to the delights of ferns. Which I’ve always thought were just there really to fill up some space. (I KNOW! I have an invisible speech bubble saying – #confession –…
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Joining the Blackthorn Garden community
I am so pleased to say that I’ve just been appointed as a Trustee for the Blackthorn Trust. This garden and therapy centre near Maidstone is a very special place that I’m proud to have supported for several years now. Here is a little bit about their work from their website: Anyone can be struck down…
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Sowing poetry seeds in two very different gardens
Over the last month, I’ve ‘appeared’ in two very different gardens… Just last week, I was lucky enough to read from Digging Up Paradise at Long Barn, probably one of the most beautiful and interesting private gardens in Kent. The evening was organised for the charity, Haller, aimed at empowering communities in Kenya. It was…
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Happy birthday, Digging Up Paradise!
Hard to believe that my little book is a year old now. Especially as it’s out there walking and making its own way in the world without me! I’m still smiling with the memory of the launch though, and one particular moment when I stood in the shop window (where we were having the launch…
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A little wander round RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2015
An invitation to Press Day at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is definitely one of the most amazing things about running a website like this. Rain aside… Here are some of my favourite bits of the show. First of all, of course, the big show gardens – Matthew Wilson's Royal Bank of Canada Garden. Just…
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Cauliflower cheese with Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens isn’t an author I normally associate with writing about gardens. The grimy back streets around Covent Garden might come closest, but last week, recovering from a nearly all-night election watch, I visited the Charles Dickens Museum in his childhood home in Doughty Street… … and had a pick-me-up bowl of cauliflower cheese soup…
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A Little Chaos – the fictional dream
Imagine the excitement in the Writer in the Garden household this weekend: There’s a film about proper gardening. Even Tim Richardson says it’s ‘squarely and actually about gardens and garden design’. Do we need to book? I think we should book. I’m worried it’ll be full…. Hmmm… we didn’t need to book. Sadly the cinema…
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It is here now! It has come, the Spring! Dickon says so!
Writer in the garden, pah! Bricklayer in the garden more like… or at least for three bricks! Inevitably having a wall built round my garden has sent me back to one of my favourite childhood books, The Secret Garden. And then it was even more of a joy when I saw how beautifully Frances Hodgson…
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Painting Paradise, and sneaking looks at Buckingham Palace garden through bars….
Now, Writer in the Garden hasn’t been getting out as much as she’d like recently, but when she does, she goes in style. Last week I went off to the launch of Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace no less. That’s the curator, Vanessa Remington above, who wrote…
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Writer in the Flower Shop
How to wire an orchid The weakest part is the throat, submerge head then pull up by the stem and twist – you’ll feel it. Go up and push a little harder. Don’t spear the leaf, but cut to show the silver. Pinch and pinch and then stretch and then twist wire into gutter tape.…