Category Archives: Uncategorized

Percy – The Nation’s Head Gardener

Percy Thrower was a household name during his long career in gardening programmes on radio and television.  A natural broadcaster, with quiet enthusiasm and a very hands-on practical approach, he built a substantial following amongst adults and children alike.  Always cutting a fairly formal figure … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Garden Menageries 3 … Osterley

Continuing with my occasional theme of menageries in the garden,  todays’s post looks at Osterley Park in west London and also reveals how garden history interacts with wider current research.  The East India Company at Home project  has been trying to put the country house … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gazetteer of War Memorial Parks and Gardens

This is not one of my normal slightly irreverant posts but a more serious one to try and spread the word about Parks and Gardens UK’s publication on-line of  the first Gazetteer of UK War Memorial Parks and Gardens. It’s amazing … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Almost everyone’s least favourite tree…

Shouldn’t be too hard to decide what that is!  Horror stories abound – and it must be one of the few plants ever legislated about. Yet it all started out innocuously enough on a beautiful country estate in Mid-Wales in the 1880s. … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Five vicars and some roses…

Over the holidays I’ve been planting new roses and thinking how nice it will be when they flower this summer…. that led to me to thinking about rose shows. If you’ve ever been to one then you have several Victorian … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment