Home Sweet Home

Who needs to travel the highways & bi-ways of the country on garden visits when you can stay at home & hide away in a veritable oasis of greenery, cup of tea in hand, the tinkle of the fountain in the background, the scent of lilies filling the air, a cat purring happily close by........ actually that last bit should read cat escaping over fence as if pursued by rabid dog but lets not be picky.

Not bad for a little terraced house, even though I say so myself. You see even lazy trollops can be proud of their achievements, even more proud than most in fact as these are gained at great cost to the individual!

This little bout of self-congratulation was brought about as I spent a large part of the day wandering round Borde Hill gardens with a good friend. The weather was lovely, the company was scintillating (I really should check the meaning of that word) & the award winning gardens were, well, disappointing. Now purely by chance we had got into the garden for nowt: free to RHS members until the end of July. Think how much more disappointed we might have been had we paid £7.50. I expect the place looks much better in the spring when the azaleas & rhododendrons are out but it really looked quite neglected. Even the borders round the very nice pond were half empty when they should have been full of colour. I don't expect perfection but I expect something better than that. I am not posting any pictures of it. You got mine instead.

Now for a little advice for other lazy gardeners. Grow Group 3 clematis: they grow, become a mess because you failed to carefully train & tie them in, they flower beautifully, you cut them right back in the late autumn/spring & make all sorts of resolutions to do better the next year & so the cycle continues. Here are some of mine.