My dedication to the art of topiary can be traced back to the last year of the last century.  The late and completely great Rosemary Verey was enjoying a high-summer garden visit to Highgrove. She entered The Black and White Garden (previously The Rose Garden, which she helped HRH The… Read More »EBTS ~ The European Boxwood and Topiary Society

Organic or conventional horticulture ~ my internal war and external battles.  Confession – My name is Nicola Hope, Organic Horticulture HND and former trainee at two prestigious, fully organic gardens – Highgrove and Lake House……and now regular user of really nasty Ultimate Bug Killer-Very-Definitely Not-Organic spray in the glasshouse.  So… Read More »Armed to the teeth

Leaving January glasshouse frustrations aside for a short while (see previous blogpost) – I have been drawing! I have come up with two separate concepts for a playhouse garden set amidst a much larger, formal (grown-up) garden.  The brief was for the 4 year old owner of the playhouse to… Read More »Doodles / concepts / sketches

Writing about watering is almost as difficult as watering itself.  I have been wanting to write about watering for some time but haven’t been able to find the words to express how important it is, how difficult it is, how frustrating it is, how time consuming it is and how… Read More »Watering

For a few weeks at the start of every calendar year I actively seek out colour in the garden. It is never immediately apparent. Winter colour never smacks you in the face.  Occasionally a blue sky accompanied by weak winter sun will throw a new light on Sorbus berries, bright… Read More »Winter Gems

I came back from a Christmas break to find that my Pelargonium cuttings and stock plants (older, more substantial plants from which I find the cutting material) had produced a profusion of red, pink and white flowers. They were twinkling at me through the January gloom. It was a bittersweet… Read More »#whatsinmywheelbarrow ? 8/1/2015