Hints and tips:
...Plants include the African tulip tree, Lobelia stuhlmannii, and other exotics, alongside familiar weeds from nettles to docks....
...So if there are nettles around the beds, that is a good thing – they are home to the ladybirds in the winter. We also plant trees in the middle of the flower beds....
...There is far more to take home than drab patches of nettles or “sustainable” bindweed. As I hoped, the pre-show press belied the reality....
...Even smaller are the reticulate iris, such as vivid-blue Harmony and white-and-purple Painted Lady, which reach just 15cm tall and flower in late winter and early spring....
...My flower of the show is an unusually clear yellow iris with white standards, Vicomtesse de Curel....
...Digging happened but usually only in order to plant, or to remove fat white bindweed roots, evil arrow-sharp roots of couch grass and the leathery variety that anchors nettle....
...In Britain a sustainable garden would be one filled with ground elder, bindweed and nettles. Change and impermanence are part of a gardening year....
International Edition