White Roses and Red Geraniums

 Calendula flowers are also known as the Pot or English Marigold. They are annual plants and each year they produce vivid orange daisy flowers that look like tiny sunshines. I am very keen on this plant because it is both beautiful and useful. I plant seeds (which look like toenail clippings) every year, starting them off in the greenhouse in March and planting the seedlings out in May. The new seedlings then grow alongside the seeds dropped by last year’s crop that have lain dormant over winter. This year I am also trying out a couple of variations on the colour – a ‘Neon’ and a ‘Sunset Buff’. I don’t plant these out in any regimented pattern, but scatter them randomly through my fruit and vegetable plot and my wildlife area. As well as being attractive to pollinators because of their bright colour, they also attract pests such as aphids away from your crops so they are certainly helpful. They are also very amenable flowers and don’t need to be mollycoddled. They will grow just ab...

 There's a bit of a colour gap in the garden at the moment. The spring bulbs are over, and although the apple blossom is out and the forget-me-nots are thriving in a delicate drift, there is little to seize the eye and provide zest. The pale blues and whites are submerged by the thuggish greenery of May, as all and sundry thrust out their leaves and crawl across the soil. But there is one thing. Thank you, Violas. I sowed two packets of viola seeds last autumn - one I had purchased and the other came free with a magazine. I left them to their own devices in the greenhouse over winter, and then when the first signs of spring came I put the little plants into the hanging baskets on my shed, and into a couple of small patio pots. You have to plant them in something small unless you have a heck of a lot of them, otherwise they look wimpish. It was easy, no fuss, but now those little faces are making a fuss of the best kind. Their vivid yellow and purple faces are nodding away in their ...

Summer is on its way, and those of us who like to mark the season with a glass of Pimms might have come across a small blue flower floating about in there. Borage is the traditional garnish for this drink, although in recent times it has become buried under a mass of citrus fruits and cucumber. The last time I bought a Pimms and Lemonade in a pub I was hard-pressed to get to the drink! Borage is also known as the Starflower because of its shape, and as well as being a pretty and bee-friendly addition to the flower border it has long been used in the kitchen and the medicine cabinet. Starflower capsules have been marketed as an alternative to evening primrose oil - a supplement taken by many women to help control PMS symptoms. There may be a connection here with the anti-depressant properties attributed to it in the past. The 16th century herbalist John Gerard wrote: "Those of our time do use the flowers in salads to exhilarate and make the mind glad." I have had borage in my ...