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Purple patch: For a burst of colour next year, get thinking about bulb-planting now
05 August 2012 12:00 AM
Bad news. It is at this time of year, when we've finally seen some sunshine, that we must forget about tans and start turning our thoughts to wrapping up warm (ugh), going outside in the cold (yikes) and digging several hundred holes in stony frozen soil (blerg). Yep, it's bulb-order time again.
Joy brings happiness: How Joy Larkcom got us growing previously unheard-of vegetables
04 August 2012 12:00 AM
Mizuna, mibuna, Chinese chives and pak choi would still be strangers on British allotments, were it not for Joy Larkcom. A few seeds were available, thanks to Chiltern Seeds' catalogue, but the problem was the lack of any detailed guidance on how best to grow them. That gap was stupendously filled by Larkcom's Oriental Vegetables, first published in 1991.
The sweet smell of success: Patrick Alès magnificent garden is still going strong
04 August 2012 12:00 AM
Alès created his stunning garden to grow the plants for his beauty range in the Sixties. Fiona McCarthy gets a private tour.
On your marks: The summer Olympians of the plant world are under starter's orders
29 July 2012 12:00 AM
The Tour de France is over and the Olympics finally under way, so now we can spend the next three weeks gasping, 'She ran it how fast? HOW FAST?' and doing some mental arithmetic about the 20 minutes later we'd have finished.
Flights of fancy: What are the best plants for the tricky month ahead?
28 July 2012 12:00 AM
There's no need to rush, says our resident gardener – there's some pretty impressive bird watching to be had first…
Good enough for the Queen: Jekka McVicar's herb farm is a firm favourite of the royals
22 July 2012 12:00 AM
I am not sure just what percentage of you spend mid-week catching up with the latest from Grazia magazine, but just in case any of you missed it, in the last issue they actually name-checked a horticulturalist. Quite exciting, because you may be shocked to learn that it's not all that often that gardeners get discussed in Grazia. But this week was a positive turn-up for the books, because Jekka McVicar, herb grower and expert, got a mention in an article devoted mainly to comparing Kate Middleton's talents as a wife to Kate Moss's. Evidently the Queen gave Kate a copy of Jekka's herb cookbook, it being a royal fave.
'My best find was in a skip': Wayne Amiel reveals his dedication to abandoned plants
21 July 2012 12:00 AM
I used to know the streets round London's Clapham Old Town reasonably well, wheeling pushchairs past the grand façades of The Pavement, balancing small children on swings in Grafton Square, haring after scooters in Rectory Gardens. Someone once told me this was the oldest squat in London. I like Rectory Gardens – the random collections of stuff tacked on to walls, the small bits of garden laid straight on to the street, shored up with timber offcuts, casually, promiscuously planted with marigolds and lettuce, petunias and parsley.
Caravan of love: How Joy Larkcom transformed the way we grow, cook and eat our greens
15 July 2012 12:00 AM
Emma Townshend pays homage to a woman whose passion for vegetables saw her take to the roads of Europe in the 1970s.
Way of the triffids: The arisaema may look sinister, but it has benign intentions
14 July 2012 12:00 AM
Anna Pavord explores a Nepalese-style garden
The plant hunters: Adventurers who transformed our gardens would put Indiana Jones to shame
12 July 2012 12:00 AM
Victoria Summerley digs up their remarkable stories
- 1 What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers
- 2 'Something passed underneath us, quite close': Airbus A320 has close encounter with UFO
- 3 Rocky Horror star Tim Curry 'suffers major stroke'
- 4 Lord of the Sings: Sir Christopher Lee, 91, to release heavy metal album
- 5 Exclusive: Woolwich killings suspect Michael Adebolajo was inspired by cleric banned from UK after urging followers to behead enemies of Islam
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