Blogs & News

blog : Is Summer Coming?

Summer must be coming soon to bring us sunshine. The garden certainly does not need any more rain. It is true that we have had glimpses of summer sun and that  the roses in the garden are blooming. The Scottish Briar and Dog Rose in the fern garden have been in bloom for a few weeks. The Dog Rose is more visible than when I wrote about these roses in 2021. In anticipation of the summer warmth I

blog : Spring in the Garden

I returned to work in the garden last Wednesday and to the British Springtime. I had flown back from Spain the previous Saturday and had braced myself against the cold wind that hits you when you cross the tarmac to get to baggage reclaim and passport control. I had left a city where pelargoniums had been bedded out in the city squares in February, where strelitzias and clivia are permanently planted in the city parks and where the

blogsNnews : Squirrel Knutsford’s Unhappy Day

It was not a good day for Squirrel Knutsford. The week had started well. The man had newly planted some tulips in a pot in the sunshine, and Squirrel Knutsford had had a lovely digging forage, which rewarded him with a juicy bite of a plump bulb. But when he went back later in the week, the man had returned to lay chicken wire just under the surface of the earth in the pot and the bulbs were

blog : So why did you choose that plant?

It was early spring 2014 when the volunteer gardeners were able to get onto the space that is now the garden at Elizabeth Gaskell's House. In the years since then the space has been transformed. National Gardening Week starts on May 2nd, so it is perhaps a good time, after the disruption/hiatus of the Covid years and the more physical disruption of the winter storms, to remind ourselves of the thinking that lies behind the planting and maintenance