Search Results for 'Anne'

I’m feeling a lot of love for Sorbus at the moment – they are such a super little tree. Our native Sorbus aucuparia is also commonly known as the rowan or mountain ash, which confuses people a lot – this is the kind of confusion that the use of botanical names, as opposed to common ones, helps to avoid. Anyway. You’ll know Sorbus aucuparia by its pinnate leaves – small leaflets arranged either side of a common stalk – and its abundant bunches of scarlet berries, visible from mid to late summer onwards. It’s a small, dainty tree, and this, as well as its long season of interest – bunches of creamy blossom in spring and good autumn leaf colour – make it a good candidate for a small garden. It’s also good for exposed locations, being completely unfazed by poor soil and strong winds.

No matter how lovely your garden is, you must admit that sometimes it would be really convenient if you could just add a roof. Fresh air is all very well and we need the rain for sure, but wouldn’t it be lovely if we could enjoy the garden without the rain actually falling on us while we do it?

Since that decided nip arrived in the air last week, it feels as though autumn is definitely here, although the golden sunny days might hang around for a little while yet if we’re lucky. It can be easy to give up on the garden at this time of year and I’ve definitely been guilty of that myself over the last month or so. As summer ends and growth slows, things tend to get overgrown and a bit neglected, plants sprawling and looking past their best – just like humans do at the end of a party. Not that anyone can remember what a party’s like just now, obviously.

Braemor Swimming Club is delighted to announce it’s return to classes in Clarinbridge on Fridays at 5.20pm and 6.10 pm. The 5.20 pm class caters for beginners and improvers. Under our expert care even the most nervous child can learn to swim. Our experienced, qualified teachers pay close attention to all of our pupils’ technique, ensuring they learn to breathe correctly on front crawl.

It’s getting to the time of year when berries abound on plants both wild and cultivated. This is when they can be enjoyed in the ornamental garden and hedgerow – visually, at least. A few weeks further on and a cold snap will see them stripped off by hungry birds, but just now, as the season turns and the leaves begin to do likewise, the jewel like clusters still adorn the branches.

One of the more important principles of garden design is good flow – a well designed garden will fit in and sit well, not just with the home or building to which it belongs, but with the wider environment outside, whether that be town or country, seaside or city centre. It’s well worth keeping this in mind before you make your final choice of paving, as your patio or terrace, steps and paths are probably your largest investment in terms of outlay when you are planning changes to the garden or indeed creating a new one.

When I’m discussing planting plans with clients they’re sometimes nonplussed by the botanical names of plants, and it’s hard to blame them - after all, not many of us are familiar with Latin in the twenty first century. There’s a very good reason for using them, though, and it’s not just to baffle you with hard to pronounce tongue twisters.

Regular readers of Gardenwise might remember me mentioning, earlier in the summer, that I always dread hearing about a hosepipe ban, because nothing is more guaranteed to result in torrential rain shortly thereafter. I’ll leave you to judge for yourself whether that observation has this year been justified, pausing only to point out that the ban has, for some weeks, been lifted.

We were roasting lamb the other day and I headed out to the garden for a few sprigs of rosemary, as you do. For ages after cutting, the gorgeous aroma clung to my hands, reminding me yet again what a super plant this is – so much so that I think it deserves a Gardenwise column all to itself.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a garden designer must have a great life altogether, wafting about among pretty flowers, stopping here and there to smell the roses, and smile as a butterfly flutters past. Sure it’s hardly a job at all! Except, of course, that’s not quite how it works in real life, so today ladies and gentlemen, a behind -the -scenes glimpse of one part of the design process, the Site Assessment. The parameters of this can be vary from a thorough walk through with observations and photos taken from every angle to a complete site survey with measurements.