Twenty-plus years of the Bold and Brilliant Garden

The purpose of this blog is to share my discoveries of recent varieties of plants which help provide a "Bold and Brilliant Garden".  I thought one way of doing this would be to list my five top favourite plants.  Only one of them is mentioned in Sarah Raven's great book The Bold and Brilliant Garden .  The rest have emerged onto the market since the book was published in 1999.  What these plants have in common for me, apart from their all-round excellence, is that I have several of each of them, despite the smallness of my garden.  1. ROSA 'WARM WELCOME' This is a climbing rose which is recommended in Sarah Raven's book.  It has not been improved upon! It has small orange flowers.  These are beautiful single flowers in a clear, definite orange.  They are lightly scented: I can detect the scent when the plants are flowering well. And they DO flower well, for ages.   There are some flowers on the plants most of the time.  They are a joy in...

Having a decent autumn garden is a matter of choice.  You simply choose plants which make your garden look great in the autumn months.  It took me a long time to realise this as a gardener.  Occasionally as a thought-experiment I consider how one could have an exclusively autumn garden, where the garden looks indifferent in summer but amazing in autumn.  In practical terms that isn't necessary: a garden can look great in both seasons. Writing this piece in mid-September, my garden is reminding me of three ways to extend the season of the Bold and Brilliant garden into autumn. 1. GROW LONG-FLOWERING PLANTS Pelargoniums, heleniums, alstroemeria, roses, begonias, may all look good coming into the autumn.  It depends on the variety.  The task of the gardener is to select and plant the choice varieties which will put on a colourful show over a very long period. My garden on 15 Sept - still colourful 2. GROW PLANTS WHICH FLOWER IN AUTUMN Asters (Michaelmas daisi...

This is a success story. Begonias do not loom large in Sarah Raven's The Bold and Brilliant Garden and it is easy to imagine why.  In the last century they had a bad reputation.  They were exactly the sort of insubstantial regulation-municipal-garden plants which one wanted to avoid: small, with small flowers and unenticing foliage. In recent years they've improved no end.  The great step forward was when Begonia 'Glowing Embers' came on the market.  It is a terrific looking plant with stunning orange flowers and interesting dark foliage.  Many other lovely varieties came in its wake. Begonias have a host of advantages.  They flower for ages from summer to late autumn.  They are often happy in shade as well as in sun.  They can survive a certain amount of neglect.  Some survive winter and come back for years on end.  Above all they are great for the Bold and Brilliant Garden as they can come in wonderful shades of orange, red, yellow ...