Hints and tips:
...I reviewed recently the book Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden by Jacqueline van der Kloet, Holland’s queen of bulb planting. She is not at her best on summer flowerers....
...Since October the British non-winter has been amazingly mild, wet and frost free and refuted it....
...Ever-earlier budburst increases the risk of spring frost damage. This hazard was formerly rare in these wind-coursed stonefields, yet astonishingly, they have been frost-hit in both 2020 and 2021....
...Storms and frosts may ruin them all anyway. As a spectacle this early season was heavenly. It was also wonderfully scented....
...In the old days they would flower in November and rapidly be hit by frost. They might try to flower again in February, but usually the frosts would hit the flowers all over again....
...Below the opposite high wall I will have a bush of the scented Daphne bholua Jacqueline Postill, which I described last week....
...In potted rows outdoors, the latest purple-flowered Indigoferae vie with forms of Daphne bholua even rarer than my beloved “Jacqueline Postill”....
...No one, of course, wants to be told this when they’re starting out, when their dream is to be Jacqueline du Pre or Martha Gellhorn....
...Opponents included the children’s laureate, Jacqueline Wilson (speaking tomorrow), and historian Antony Beevor (who spoke on Sunday)....
International Edition