GARDENER'S WORD - IDEAS AND TIPS

Scilla Forbesii (also known as Chionodoxa Forbesii) has a beautiful flower growing from a bulb. The flowers are a very striking blue and I have grown it (in a pot) for the first time in decades of gardening. I had never heard about it until the end of last year when I was hunting online for spring bulbs. According to the RHS, ( RHS link to Scilla Forbesii ) this little bulb is extremely tolerant of conditions such as growing medium, light, exposure, aspect and is hardy down to -15c.   Another name for it is Giant of the Snow as well as Forbes Squill, I kid you not. Scilla forbesii aka Chionodoxa forbesii

Scilla siberica bulbs put on a delightful show, especially the blue variety as the colour is quite intense. I am growing them in a container of compost along with Muscari which haven't yet flowered. Scilla siberica tolerates full sun or partial shade and mine are in a spot which is sunny for much of the day. However, as you can see from the below image, the blue naturally appears deeper with a bit of shade.   Scilla siberica Blue Scilla siberica Blue

I made the mistake of planting Crocus vernus 'Pickwick' corms in a bulb lasagne without labelling the bulbs in the lasagne. I must have been gardening in a dream that day.  Anyway, I managed to find the name of the below crocus by trawling through online orders and comparing images. Pickwick is a fabulous Dutch crocus with quite a large flower which makes it stand out in the crowd.  Crocus vernus Pickwick It grows in a large plastic pot of compost in a sunny position.  I thought a bulb lasagne was a great idea until the plants started to grow and some of the crocuses in flower got buried under tulip leaves.  I will remember later this year although I am thinking of sticking most of my spring bulbs in the borders for next spring.  Crocus vernus Pickwick

At last, despite the continuing rain of the last few weeks here in West Yorkshire, England, the spring bulbs are putting on a show in my garden containers. I admit, I went a bit mad last autumn and planted spring bulbs by the hundreds, literally. They aren't just in tubs but in the borders too where they are a bit slower to appear. Below are various irises (reticulatas), crocuses (luteus Golden Yellow), tete-a-tete narcissi, and thick tulip leaves with a promise of flowers yet to come.  I hate winter and spring is my favourite time of year. Why? Because when March arrives I have months of spring, summer, and autumn to look forward to.  The below Iris reticulata bulbs are a new variety for my garden. They are an intense violet-purple and  'Spot On' seems the perfect name for them as those splashes of white on the falls really do make them rather special.  Iris reticulata 'Spot On' Last but not least, Iris reticulata 'Harmony' which I have grown for years. It ...

You gardeners know how it is, the garden shed begins with enough room and then you add this and that and eventually it all becomes a mighty jumble where you can't find anything. I, more or less, resolved that problem last summer by adding hooks to the shed walls. Have a look! Oh, and that white thing?  A refrigerator shelf broke off. I am still hoping to find some use for it as I have run out of wall space.  Increasing storage in a small garden shed The thing is, having more space meant I have more room for more garden gadgets and it's now starting to look a bit full again but the above is how it looked at the end of April 2025.  That grey thing at the bottom left of the image is an Amtech S5640 60kg Folding Aluminium Sack Truck. I t folds flat and opens up to a little platform that can be used for lugging heavy bulky things from the car to the garden.  The black hooks are heavy duty 'AinDen Garage Wall Hooks' The lawnmower is suspended from an old stainless-steel cl...

It is 16 October 2025 and a recent arrival to my garden is Acer palmatum Sango-Kaku, also known as the Coral-bark maple. I'm already hooked on Japanese maples (acers) but am limited with regard to numbers by the size of my garden which, at most, is 30ft by 30ft, and already houses a garden room and a shed.  In the images below you can see its spring and autumnal colours and even when all the leaves are shed, there will still be that outstanding bark!  UPDATE :  It is now the 7th of May, 2026, and Sango is doing well.  I have taken new photographs to show that.  Acer palmatum Sango-Kaku - May 7, 2026 Sango-Kaku can, over time, achieve 8 metres if left to do as it pleases. It is of bushy habit and mine is going to be restricted by root pruning. It is already 3ft (90cm) tall and reaching for the stars.  It needed repotting as it was already rather root bound and I don't want to inhibit its growth just yet.  Acer palmatum Sango-Kaku - May 7, 2026 I didn't...

In May 2014 I bought an Acer palmatum 'Orange Dream' from a British store that sells everything from clothes, to beauty products, to flowers and food. Not so much plants nowadays. The plant was small and cost me £15, which was quite expensive back then. It was a beautiful thing but it quickly died and that was when I first discovered that dreaded vine weevils had arrived in my garden and had eaten all its roots! In 2023, I finally eradicated vine weevils by desperately bombarding my garden with Nemasys, not just as recommended but monthly, I wasn't having those munching weevils and their little root gnawing offspring killing off anything else. It was expensive but money well spent.  Acer palmatum 'Orange Dream' - October 2025 - repotted A week or so ago, I decided to buy another 'Orange Dream' and so I ordered one from a seller on Amazon for just short of £13. I had used them before and they were excellent but, oh boy, the 'Orange Dream' turned up ...

Now why on Earth would anyone in their right mind spend a lot of money on a pair of secateurs and snippers? I know why I did. Not in any particular order, I like that mine have yellow handles and are easy to spot when I absent-mindedly put them down somewhere and then try to remember where I put them.  I like the simplicity of them, not much to go wrong. Niwaki GR Pro Secateurs and Niwaki Sakagen Flower Snippers What I do not like about the snippers is that, if I am not careful, I can get my finger nipped when shutting them; they need a little whatever-they-call-it between the handles to stop them closing quite so completely.  What some might not like, but it doesn't bother me, about the secateurs is that when you undo the magnetic clip at the bottom, they open really wide. For me, even though I haven't big hands I have long fingers and a wide finger span (great for playing the piano!) so I've never regretted the investment. My Niwaki tools have been snipping and cutting aw...

For three years now I have grown the Mignon variety of dahlias. They turn out an abundance of flowers and pollinators love them.  They are so easy to grow too.  I even, accidentally, left one planted in the garden over last winter, forgot all about it, and it appeared this year and put on a fine display. What a lovely surprise!  These, in the image below, are grown in large pots with two Mignon dahlias planted in each.  Mignon dahlias in yellow and white Obviously, Mignon dahlias are as happy in the ground as they are in pots but I will still protect the tubers indoors over winter. The weather is so unpredictable and where I live, on the Pennines of West Yorkshire, I try not to take risks. I will do what I always do, wait for the frost to arrive, carefully dig up the tubers, remove as much soil or compost as possible, and then trim back the stems to a short length. Then I will let them dry off (I try to tip them upside down so any water in the stems tips out, th...

For quite a few years now I have had the Japanese anemone 'September Charm' growing in my garden and it is a beautiful thing. Some people are shy of growing Japanese anemones as they have a reputation of being invasive. I don't consider them invasive as they are easily controlled just by dead heading the flowers before they make seed and pulling up any offspring produced on runners if they are unwanted.   Japanese anemone hupehensis 'Snow Angel' The above plant was delivered yesterday, 26th September 2025, bought from Thompson and Morgan, and it is healthy and full of buds.  Japanese anemone hupehensis 'Snow Angel' The RHS have a webpage dedicated to it:   RHS Anemone hupehensis Snow Angel  and they have titled it Anemone hupehensis 'Ifansa'  PBR  (Fantasy Series). It is totally hardy, quite unfussy as to aspect preferring full sun or partial shade, and achieves a height and spread of between 0.5 and 1 metre.  It flowers summer and autumn whi...

Winter-flowering violas are such generous little plants, bright faces that eventually turn into seeds which happily find there way into all sorts of odd little places. This year I found some violas had self-sewn between paving slabs on my patio which only gets morning sun, and I was happy to leave them right there. Others found their way into a trough that housed spring bulbs, again in partial shade given by nearby dahlias in tubs. This morning I spotted a viola flower peeping out from a jungle of other plants' leaves in a south-facing border but protected from hot sun by the foliage of other plants. They will tolerate some sun but really do prefer partial shade, hence the places they are self-seeding, all in partial shade.  Violas 'Beaconsfield' and 'Raspberry I bought some more for winter, Viola 'Beaconsfield' and Viola 'Raspberry' hoping they would cheer up the winter months until the spring bulbs take over. They are surprisingly hardy. I've put t...

As the years go by it is natural that gardening becomes harder and more challenging than in our more energetic youth.  I have a strip of cultivated soil at the front of my home which I decided I really didn't want to have to deal with any more, having enough work to do at the back of my home, so I edged the area with pre-rusted heavy duty (14 gauge) Corten steel which I hammered into place. I then put down Melcourt Sylvabark Pine Mini Mulch. Perhaps it wasn't the prettiest solution but I didn't want to pave it or do anything permanent to it which, if I decided to plant something in it later, would be problematic. As it happens, a year later I did want to plant something. The more I looked at it over time, the more it cried out to me 'plant something, plant something'. So I have planted something and that something is four Spiraea japonica 'Goldflame' shrubs which achieve a height and spread of about 3ft or 1 metre.  Spiraea japonica 'Goldflame' This ...

My Japanese maple, Acer palmatum 'Katsura' needs a trim. Last year I turned what was a large shrub, which was using up too much ground space, into a multi-stemmed tree. As my garden is small, around 30ft x 30ft or less, lots of things have to be kept under some kind of control. Of all the gardening equipment I have accumulated over the years, I did not have a pair of gardening shears, except for lawn edging shears, so I was on the lookout for something that would last, which is something I expect from every piece of equipment that I buy, and I chose the  amazing Niwaki Karikomi shears.  As I pulled them out of the box, I could see that these are seriously sharp blades. Even the sound of them, as I opened and closed the blades, gave that satisfactory but alarming 'shing' sound. Niwaki Karikomi shears I'll share photos when I've trimmed my ' Acer palmatum Katsura '. At present it looks like this... Acer palmatum Katsura grown as a multi-stem tree - August ...

I thought that the dahlia, Feline Yvonne, was very similar to Great Silence at a glance when the buds started to open but when in full flower, Feline Yvonne is a vibrant pink with a deeper more purple-pink centre and a dark stem, a bit of an in-your-face show-stopper really, whereas Great Silence is a coral pink with a gold centre and a paler stem, 'quieter', more silent. 🤣 They both achieve a height of about 1 metre, 3ft 3". Dahlia 'Feline Yvonne' Dahlia 'Feline Yvonne' Below - Great Silence Dahlia - Great silence

In the past I have grown Liatris and they have always been a pink variety so this white one caught my eye when I was mooching around a garden centre. The label said its growing habit was 60cm height x 30cm spread. I repotted it into a somewhat larger pot and now it is about 140cm high. I take it that it likes its new home.  Update: 28 February 2026. This plant died so not exactly a success.  Liatris 'Floristan' - August 2025 I have to tell you that Floristan took quite a bashing not long ago when we had very strong winds here high on the Pennines of West Yorkshire but it didn't break and there was no damage at all. The pot is in a position where it couldn't fall over but perhaps other plants and containers also protected it to some degree.  Liatris 'Floristan' taller than expected The label describes it as "Bottle brush spikes of white fluffy flowers standing proud over clumps of narrow linear leaves. Loved by bees and butterflies."  It achieves a ...

Dahlia 'Great Silence' has been trouble-free and was the first dahlia to flower out of several that I've grown in large terracotta containers this year. While dahlia 'Princess Nadine' doesn't seem to last too long when cut and put in a vase, quickly dropping its petals, Great Silence lasts quite a while, turning more and more yellow as it goes along. Dahlia 'Great Silence' I find it best to keep dead-heading and cutting dahlia flowers for indoor use as it promotes new growth, allows side shoot flowers to form and, if cut ruthlessly from time to time, sacrificing a bud or three, stops it getting leggy, creating an overall stronger plant.  Dahlia flowers do not tend to keep opening once cut so a decision has to be made as whether to wait for all petals to totally unfurl (taking energy from any side shoot flowers) or cut it less fully open.  Dahlia 'Great Silence' ready for a vase Dahlia 'Great Silence' in a vase with a little Princess Nad...

I have noticed that violas are opportunists. By that, I do not mean they are invasive but those little seeds will germinate in the most unlikely places. The only time I pull something out of my garden, including the patio, is when I know it is a nuisance weed.  Over winter, I had a pot that had held self-sown violas and everything had died back, or died.  I moved the shallow pot to another position as I thought, think, there are little spring bulbs in it. There was nothing to be seen above the surface of the soil but those little violas must have put down seeds which had dropped onto the pavement unnoticed.  I think it is so lovely. Where else but a garden can you get something for nothing? There are a few straggly bits of grass lurking among them but if I pull them out, it could dislodge the violas and I'm not risking it.  Self-seeded violas growing between paving slabs The violas are in a shady spot close the house that gets morning sun, under my Lazy Susan garden ...