Go Dutch!
No problem!
This wonderful tree nursery in north Germany moves huge trees as if they were saplings. Everything is possible, and you can see from the second...
Water Lilies
Here I am looking small and insignificant in front of one of Monet’s enormous canvases in their gallery in Paris. The two close up photographs show...
Finding English oak planks
In deepest Wiltshire, looking for two top rails for a pair of important oak gates, where the grain hopefully would follow the curve of an old...
A Genius!!
Joanna came to Oxford to give a talk and she was so brilliant, interesting, supremely eloquent, razor sharp and wittier and more elegant than ever!
York stone
Here are three photographs from a fabulous quarry I recently visited near Bradford in West Yorkshire. Wonderful, friendly, warm hearted people made...
Layers of time
In an off-the-beaten-track corner of Rome a week ago, I realised that the layers of living, shown here by the excavation, have a quality which is...
A National Treasure!
I was just looking for some really good reclaimed slates and then Mark was on the end of the phone, and the next day I met him! He has been buying...
Too Much! Ouch!
For whatever the reasons, this is just too much! Nature left on its own makes a perfect shaped oak tree that we can wonder at and admire. What...
Colour, colour, colour!
A visit to the old Tate a few days ago, found us standing in front of so many wonderful paintings by Turner. I still haven't recovered and don't...
Seasonal Posts
Beauty beyond words!
Such colours, such luxury, such style, such opulence, glamour, joy, and then such scent as well! Beyond dreams, beyond belief, imagination, beyond anything we could ever make! And you can have this every spring by just taking a tiny bit of trouble, looking forward,...
Tulips
With the cold late spring passing, so too have the tulips. I pulled the last tulips up on the 20th May for a clean slate to trial and experiment again next year. (We make sure the clients only get the best!) Less than a week later, after some beautifully warm...
Importing Dutch bulbs to the UK
I was fascinated by this photo taken at the end of the 19th Century in Northern Holland. After the bulbs were harvested from the fertile polders, they were packed and transported by men and dog carts who walked to the nearby ports, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam....
Lent Lily
Driving back from a meeting in Norwich after the Easter weekend, my breath was caught when I glimpsed banks of our wild daffodil, Narcissus lobularis, naturalised to perfection in a Suffolk churchyard.St Mary, Henstead has always entranced me. It is raised proudly on...
Tulip time!
I have not long returned from some very sunny days in my fatherland for a Tulip Trade Event. In true Dutch celebratory style, Holland’s largest bulb exporter opened the 3 day event with a famous illusionist Steve Carlin who was mighty convincing and fun. But I was...
Plant hunting
We drove through beautiful meadowlands enjoying the warmth of early spring sunlight on our way to Fibrex Nurseries near Stratford, holders of both Hedera and Pelargonium National collections. One could almost feel the sap rising despite the remnants of snowdrifts in...
