Gardening

At the time of writing we are in the midst of our fourth heatwave of the year with no guarantee that it is the final one. Whilst, like most sun lovers, I revel in blue skies and warm (not hot!) […]

After the recent end to a long sunny period without rain and the premature flowering of so many plants, it is difficult to realise that officially, summer is only just beginning. Since I bought and planted numerous plants and shrubs […]

Whatever happened to the ‘April showers’? I have been heavily occupied with watering due to cracking ground and drooping leaves and not just for new plants. At the time of writing there are no clouds in a clear blue sky, […]

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) After […]

Come, children, gather round my knee; Something is about to be. Tonight’s December thirty-first, Something is about to burst. The clock is crouching, dark and small, Like a time bomb in the hall. Hark! It’s midnight, children dear. Duck! Here […]

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their […]

When summer’s end is nighing And skies at evening cloud, I muse on change and fortune And all the feats I vowed When I was young and proud. The weathercock at sunset Would lose the slanted ray, And I would […]