However, things are looking up as we come into a period of rain, so I’m waiting to see what happens during the first part of the month, hoping that some plants might revive and get going again. This is what happens in Mediterranean gardens, with some perennials going dormant during the summer months, to return full of vigour with the autumn rains. The trouble is, our plants aren’t adapted to the unprecedented heat and drought we’ve had this year, so I wait on tenterhooks to see how many plants I’ve actually lost.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d highlight a few September plants that are performing well despite the dry weather.

Plants for September Colour

Hylotelephium: with their thick, fleshy leaves and tuberous root systems, hylotelephiums (formerly sedums) are extremely drought resistant and hardy, thriving in poor soils. In richer soils they have a tendency to put on lots of growth early in the year, and then flop, but this can be stalled by Chelsea chopping them in May. Producing satisfying mounds of foliage, their flowers emerge apple green before maturing to various shades of pink in September and October. I have ‘Autumn Joy’ (sometimes called ‘Herbstfreude’) in my garden but I’m coveting ‘Pink Dome’ and ‘Matrona’ to add to my collection and quite fancy trying the related yellow-flowered Sedum spathulifolium ‘Cape Blanco’ in a pot.

Salvia: The late flowering salvias originating from Central and South America are fantastic in September and through into autumn, and I have a growing collection of them in beds and pots. This year they have been particularly good in pots, as an alternative to needier bedding plants. There has been an explosion of different hybrids recently, so there are so many colours and types to discover, from the small-flowered woody salvias such as S. gregii, S. microphylla and S. x jamensis to the large-flowered species such as S. involucrata and S. guaranitica. Browse the Middleton Nursery website to see their huge range. I have a few of their plants including ‘Pink Amistad’, ‘Salmon Dance’ and ‘Peach Parfait’ as well as many others that I have been given cuttings of. Even though these are drought tolerant plants, they need to be watered well until they are properly established.

Aster: Some asters haven’t done as well as others in the drought this summer, including my Aster frikartii Monch which flowered well but faded very quickly. One of the best for dry summers is Aster amellus and its cultivars, originating in Italy. The species itself has vivid purple flowers, but there are many variations and shades available in the cultivars, from the handsome rich purple ‘Nocturne’ to lavender pink ‘Rosa Erfullung’ and palest mauve ‘Rudolf Goethe’. I have recently seen this species flowering in two zero-irrigation gardens - at Knepp, and in James Hitchmough’s garden in Somerset.

Vernonia: Ironweed is a north American plant that flowers at the end of the summer and into autumn, with rich purple flowers that attract bees and other pollinators in droves. Vernonia lettermanii, the narrow leaf ironweed, is particularly drought-tolerant, growing up to 1m tall with clusters of bright pinky-purple flowers.

Rudbeckia submentosa ‘Henry Eilers’: This is one of my all time favourite plants for September, and it seems to be more drought-resistant than other rudbeckias like ‘Goldsturm’. It makes tall clumps of willowy stems with unique, narrow petalled subtle yellow flowers. If you look closely you’ll see that some of the petals are slightly quilled at the ends like tiny spoons. It isn’t a flamboyant plant, but the flowers are so unusual and I love cutting them to bring inside where you can appreciate the blooms up close.

Seed harvesting

Although some plants like Digitalis grandiflora didn’t flower well and therefore didn’t produce good seed, other plants are still giving me a good seed harvest - hollyhocks, ammi, poppies, Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’ and Dianthus carthusianorum are loaded with seeds, and I want to collect them before the weather gets too wet. Orlaya and cynoglossum plants have also produced masses of seed - I love how every single seed is designed in a different way. Orlaya seeds are big and tactile, with bristles around the edge of their flat discs. The Chinese forget-me-nots (cynoglossum) produce seeds that stick to your clothing as you harvest them; I’m always finding them on the cuffs of my cardigans.

I harvest the seeds one species at a time, snipping the seed heads off and putting them in trays which I will then leave in the greenhouse to dry for a few weeks. Then I’ll sort through everything, a job that I love. There’s something very therapeutic about shaking poppy capsules or ammi seed heads into an envelope or paper bag and to see the prodigious amounts of seed you can harvest from just a few plants. If you have too many you can make your own seed packets and give them away. Once they are dry, you need to separate the seeds from the chaff before storing them in a cool place - or sowing some of them straight away.

Sowing annual seeds

I love sowing seeds at this time of year. As everything else is slowing down and dying back, you can focus on coaxing a handful of seeds into life and nurturing them as autumn turns into winter. It will also give you a head start in spring, as you’ll have bigger, stronger plants a few weeks earlier than if you sowed them in spring. You can sow any time between the beginning of September and the first week or two of October before it gets too cold, either directly into the ground or in seed trays. If it’s the latter, then you’ll need a cold frame or cold greenhouse to overwinter them. These are hardy plants, but in pots or trays they will need protection from wind and rain, and from slugs and other pests.

Sow into good seed compost that has been pre-watered, and keep the seedlings well-watered as they grow in autumn, reducing the watering as it gets colder. In spring, up the watering again and plant them out in the garden in early spring as soon as the ground is workable.

What you can sow now

Ammi: Ammi majus is possibly the most useful annual I grow. Like a refined cow parsley, it has lacy white flowers that pad out a border, linking other plants together and bringing that ever-popular naturalistic feel to the garden. It is very easy to grow from seed and can be sown both in autumn or in early spring - possibly more than any other hardy annual it is worth sowing this in autumn as the plants tend to be bigger, stronger, and flower earlier than those sown in the spring. I sow them into modular seed trays, two seeds to a cell, and pot them on later in the autumn, before planting them out in early spring, filling gaps in the border.

Calendula: marigolds are brilliantly easy to grow from seed, and you can either sow them direct or if you want more control, in seed trays. Their little sea-horse-like seeds are easy to handle and can be sown one or two to a cell in a modular seed tray. The classic bright orange marigold is great for edging vegetable beds, making an excellent companion plant, while other varieties like ‘Orange Flash’ and ‘Touch of Red Buff’ are more subtle and blend into a more formal border.

Larkspur: these annual delphiniums can be tricky to grow from seed. They don’t need heat to germinate, and indeed can benefit from a week or so of cold in the fridge before sowing. They can either be sown direct into the ground in September, or in modular seed trays so you can keep control. Plant them out in late winter as soon as the soil is workable, at the same time making another spring sowing for a succession of flowers. My favourite variety over the past few years has been Consolida ajacis ‘Misty Lavender’ which has dusky lavender-pink flowers.

Nigella: Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) is another one to sow direct in autumn. Once you have sown it for the first time, you can then collect seed from your existing plants at the end of the summer and scatter it round the garden where you want it to pop up the following year. Other types such as the lovely Nigella papillosa ‘African Bride’ are just as easy to grow.

Orlaya: Orlaya grandiflora is an umbelliferous plant like ammi, smaller in stature but with more substantial flowers - truly lovely woven in with emerging perennials and other annuals. Sow the seeds in modular seed trays and grow them as you would grow ammi, potting them on if necessary before planting out in early spring. You could also try sowing some direct by just scattering the seeds where you want them to grow. Now that the winters are getting warmer, I’m finding that it is self sowing in my garden. In the wild it is a meadow plant that grows among grasses and other wildflowers in many parts of the Mediterranean.

Garden tasks for September

• start dividing herbaceous perennials

• harvest seed from early summer flowering perennials and annuals

• dig up and store any remaining potatoes

• sow hardy annuals such as ammi, cerinthe, scabious and cornflowers

• take softwood cuttings from pelargoniums, salvias and fuchsias

• sow winter salad leaves such as mizuna and mustard leaves

• keep harvesting vegetables and pick apples and pears

• order spring bulbs if you haven’t already done so

• plant narcissus towards the end of the month

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I have many horticultural heroes but I’m introducing you to two this week - James Hitchmough and Joshua Sparkes - who both have a huge amount of knowledge and wisdom to impart.

August 14th

It’s always interesting when you revisit somewhere you’ve been before to see how it has evolved. I’m very excited to be going back to Birch Farm in Woolsery, North Devon, which I first visited four years ago to interview head gardener Joshua Sparkes. Led by Josh, the farm is practicing an amalgam of various different forms of permaculture and it seems like a beacon of hope for a sustainable future food system.

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My diary this week has been quieter, which is just as well because it was Mat’s birthday at the weekend so there were lots of celebrations. No big party, just small gatherings of family and friends that made the weekend very special. My present to him is a trip to Lundy island this coming weekend. He has wanted to go ever since he was 12 and in the sea scouts, when he sailed past the island but didn’t set foot on it, so I hope after so many years of wanting to go there it lives up to expectations.

Other than that, Monday was a highlight, with another trip to Knepp - my third visit over the past four years. It was fascinating to see how it has matured and grown, and even in the midst of this intense drought, it was looking spectacular.

August 10th

I emerge into the walled garden at Knepp through a small gate in one corner and it’s like stepping into a different world. You’re in a Californian desert garden, perhaps, or Mediterranean garden with grasses and silvery foliage plants punctuated by the odd tall cypress. Seed heads are left intact to mingle with flowering plants; lime-green euphorbias, lavender-blue echinops and luminous yellow coreopsis provide shots of colour among the drought-bleached backdrop. Poles apart from a conventional garden, it is incredibly dense in plants and alive with insects. Almost as soon as I walk in, I’m entranced by several hummingbird moths on a buddleia; clouds of flies rise upwards as I brush past a shrubby bupleurum, and hundreds of small white butterflies create a moving veil above some lavender.

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My diary this week knits together several disparate events to show how plants and flowers can be transformative in so many ways. I’ve been up in Manchester talking to someone who is determined to help transform our urban spaces with planting; I spent five hours in a church arranging home-grown flowers for a funeral; I whizzed up to Cumbria and back to see an extraordinary garden made for the employees of the New Balance factory; and in total contrast I had lunch at the Ritz in the newly designed Secret Garden. I love this about my job - and life in general. I can be in so many different places in a week meeting people from all walks of life, and the one common denominator is plants.

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Hello everyone and welcome to my monthly post, free for everyone to read. Paid subscribers get a weekly diary post from me detailing all the plants, people and gardens I come across in my job. Some examples of recent diary posts include my epic trip to Kyrgyzstan to see wild tulips, a visit to Charleston Farmhouse to walk through the hollyhocks, and a conversation with Sarah Cook, who has spent many years collecting Cedric Morris’s irises. As a paid subscriber you’ll get access to the whole archive - three and a half years worth of articles, including a whole series on designing a border with plant lists and planting combinations, as well as a series on cottage garden planting. I am a passionate gardener myself and am constantly learning from the inspirational people I meet, and I hope to pass all this on in a readable, understandable and hopefully enjoyable way. It costs £4 a month to subscribe - or even less than that if you subscribe for a whole year (£40).

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My very dry garden

The last couple of months have been challenging to say the least, with bursts of incredibly hot weather and very little rain. It was one of the driest Mays on record in my area, 50 miles west of London. In June, we had a day or two of heavy rain at the beginning of the month, which ensured that the garden was looking green and full of flowers for the open garden day in aid of Maggies. But since then, for almost nine weeks, there has been nothing more than a hint of drizzle. It’s tough, and we’re reminded every day of the catastrophes that this extreme warming is bringing with wildfires breaking out in Suffolk, Scotland, France, Italy and so many other places. Climate change denial is a joke, and we all need to face the music and encourage our policy-makers to make sensible decisions.

My garden is looking muted, turning into itself. The grass is like straw and even the plants I thought I could depend on (like Salvia involucrata) aren’t flowering much. Some plants have to be kept going with buckets of water - including the poor Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ whose huge white flowers are nodding downwards in pain, above wilting leaves. The beautiful ‘Annabelle’ in the middle of my back border may have to come out next year - on my walk this morning I was imagining perovskia in its place.

Most of the cosmos plants I carefully grew from seed have had to be sacrificed now that we have a hosepipe ban. I planted a few in big containers and these are being kept going with washing up or shower water. The rudbeckia that used to be a big feature dotted around the front garden is now reduced to a few paltry patches, its wilted leaves showing how much it hates the drought. And the delphiniums I foolishly planted to add an injection of colour for the open day will undoubtedly succumb now that I can’t water the borders.

I wrote about the most resilient plants that seem oblivious to the heat and drought in last month’s post. This month the penstemons and Dianthus carthusianorum have gone over and the large-leaved Salvia involucrata has stopped flowering. The small-leaved salvias like ‘Violette’ are generally OK, especially those I planted in pots near the house, which get special treatment. Some of the roses are still flowering, including the valiant ‘Tottering by Gently’ and the pale pink ‘Silver Wedding’. And the hollyhocks are still with me, just. The breezy Oenothera lindheimeri (which used to be Gaura) is a saving grace.

The ornamental grasses are undeterred by the heat - especially the golden oat grass Stipa gigantea, which matches the colour of the faded ammi that I’ve left in the borders for structure. The stipa is a Mediterranean plant that I’ve seen in the dry meadows of central Spain, so it is well adapted to the drought, as is Stipa tenuissima, the Mexican feather grass from the dry, mountainous slopes of Mexico and western Texas. I have a single Pennisetum villosum growing in the gravel garden and it looks lovely weaving in with the tiny dotty flowers of Scabiosa ochroleuca. It comes from the dry climates of northeastern Africa and the Arabian peninsula so is also well adapted to this weather. It hasn’t self seeded here so I need to find a way of getting more plants into my garden.

Other plants doing well in the heat include the South African Gladiolus papilio ‘Ruby’, the bee-magnet globe thistle Echinops ritro ‘Veitches Blue’ and a curious white poppy that I can’t remember planting. The pleasantly minty Calamintha nepeta is oblivious to the heat, while some of my seed-grown dahlias are at last being coaxed into flower, although they aren’t quite as abundant as they might be.

How plants adapt to lack of water

I find it fascinating to learn about how plants adapt themselves to conditions of drought. Plants like rosemary or Pinus mugo have tiny, needle-like leaves less surface area to be exposed to the sun or wind. Others, like the holm oak (Quercus ilex) or the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) have thick, leathery, sclerophyllous leaves with a waxy coating that locks in moisture and resists the heat.

You’ll often find that Mediterranean plants have silvery or grey leaves - lavender, santolina or teucrium for instance - that reflect the sun and keep leaf temperatures down. These plants are often aromatic, with essential oils that reduce evaporation and protect the plant from grazing animals. And some, like the appropriately named lambs ear, Stachys byzantina, have leaves that are covered in fine hairs that protect the plant from desiccating winds. Some Mediterranean plants such as cistus drop some or all of their leaves as they go into a summer dormancy, ready to re-emerge in autumn when the first rains arrive.

Most of these plants have deep, penetrating root systems once established, seeking out any existing moisture deep underground. This post from fellow Substacker documents some fascinating research into the root systems of plants from a book called Wurzelatlas which publishes black and white drawings made over 40 years in Austria. The root systems of over 1000 plants were painstakingly excavated and accurately drawn to show the underground parts of the plant. When you see visual representations of the amazing, spreading and densely fibrous roots of Deschampsia cespitosa and the metre-long, probing roots of Dianthus carthusianorum, you can see exactly how they are able to survive in such tough conditions.

Tips for gardening in a heatwave

Clever watering: using saved water wherever possible, water deeply with a watering can, pouring slowly to give it time to soak down to the roots. Don’t water with a sprinkler which results in evaporation loss and can encourage mildew on leaves. A trick I learned from my allotment days was to cut the bottoms off large plastic water bottles and dig them into the soil with the screw top off, before filling the bottle with water. This directs water even further down around the roots. Only water in the early morning or late evening, to minimise evaporation loss. After watering, mulch plants with compost or other organic matter that will help lock moisture in. Prioritise edible crops, container plants and recently planted trees, shrubs or perennials. Ignore lawns and let them turn brown - they always bounce back as soon as the rain returns.

Save water: I’ve started taking buckets into the shower, as well as using washing up water. Whenever I’m running the tap waiting for the drinking water to get colder I collect it in a tub or jug. It’s just a matter of getting into a mindset of not wasting a single drop.

Stop pruning: delay pruning hedges, topiary or fruit trees until the weather has cooled down. Pruning plants increases stress on the plant, accelerating moisture loss and increasing the risk of sun damage. Pruning will lower a plant’s ability to retain and regulate moisture, which is obviously crucial in a heatwave, and freshly-cut stems can attract pests and fungal disease.

Provide shade: if you have easily moveable container plants, move them into an area of shade for the duration of the heatwave, or use light fleece or a parasol to protect plants.

What I’d normally be doing in the garden in August

If you aren’t currently in the middle of a heatwave, let normal gardening continue, with the usual round of watering, harvesting and deadheading.

• prune wisteria. If you regularly prune wisteria in summer and again in February, it will flower more freely, as you are reducing vegetative growth which will encourage more buds. A summer pruning opens up the plant to allow air circulation and more sun to ripen new shoots. Watch a video here.

• summer prune trained fruit trees. This involves cutting back new shoots to allow light to get to the fruit. Cut back stems to three shoots above the basal cluster of leaves.

• keep deadheading cosmos, roses and dahlias to encourage new blooms

• start collecting seed from early summer plants such as foxgloves, poppies and sweet rocket

• cut back herbaceous plants such as alchemilla, nepeta and hardy geraniums to encourage a new flush of growth

• take cuttings of tender perennials like salvias and pelargoniums

• sow fast-growing crops such as radishes, salad leaves, pak choi and spinach

Enjoy the weekend, and if you are in the same boat as me, don’t despair just yet. Celebrate the small triumphs and bursts of colour and have faith in the steadfastness of some of your tougher plants. This is a period that we will get through - and it will teach us lessons about how to get through the next one.

Clare x

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July 18th

It’s suddenly cooler so I feel I can get out into the garden again. There is such a limited amount I can do in this drought, but I plant a few leftover dahlias and cosmos (only to find out towards the end of the week that a hosepipe ban is being imposed) and do quite a bit of tidying and cutting back in the borders. It feels good. I turn the desiccated compost and get some water into it to help things along. Like any other living creature, the organisms that power the decomposition process need water, and if there is no water, they can’t function.

We spend the evening in a friends’ garden watching the most delightful village production of The Wind In the Willows. Their garden has been home to the Blewbury village outdoor theatre for 50 years, and people flock there from miles around to see the performances each summer. It feels like an old-fashioned tradition is being kept alive, and it’s so enjoyable to be transported out of real life for a few charmed hours as the sun goes down.

July 20th

I find myself on a hot, dry allotment in the beautiful countryside around Great Malvern. I’m here to meet Katerina Knight, a textile artist who makes the most beautiful pieces using dried petals stitched into fabrics. She is young and completely passionate about what she does, having discovered the healing powers of gardening after several years in the fashion industry and realising it wasn’t for her. She describes her work and shows us her half-size allotment plot, where she grows the material for her textiles. ‘The beauty of this is that you only need a very small amount of petals or seeds,’ says Katerina. ‘Even from one stem of lavender you get such a lot of material. You don’t even need a garden - you could just have a couple of pots, or go out and forage for flowers.’

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‘Gardens are like jewels, they are meant to be nurtured, and looking after them is all part of the benefit of having one.’ Emily Erlam

In the city, gardens are perhaps more precious than anywhere else. These urban back gardens are places of solace where you can connect with nature and escape the hubbub of city life. Often hidden away behind rows of terraced houses, there is always a delightful sense of discovery about being taken into one of these secret spaces, especially where plants have been used ingeniously to create atmosphere and drama, as illustrated in the London garden of designer Emily Erlam.

Created over 20 years, this delightful garden beckons you through the house as the front door closes behind you, a luminescence of green visible through the windows. Like so many London gardens, this one was a long, narrow runway of a space when Emily first bought the house, and it was immediately obvious to her that she should divide it up into a series of rooms. ‘I always think that a long, thin axis needs to be made more comfortable and it made sense here to create different areas and to change the levels for each space,’ she says. From the floor-to-ceiling glass doors of the basement kitchen, visitors step out into a wonderful oasis of greenery and then embark on a little journey of discovery up a series of small steps to take you into the different rooms, each with different plants and character.

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I came back from a week’s holiday yesterday to find the garden looking weary and parched. The grass is yellow and crispy, and plants that I would expect to be flowering at this time are already over. But there is still plenty of drama from the hollyhocks and ammi, and much-needed colour from nepeta, salvias and penstemons. It feels like it’s time to reassess this garden and sort the sheep from the goats. I need to really look at the plants that are fading in the heat and work out whether it’s time for them to go.

The poor ‘Annabelle’ hydrangeas in full sun are showing their displeasure, leaves wilting and flowers downturned. To be fair, all they need is a bucket or two of water and they rally, but the question I need to ask myself is do I want plants that are needy in this weather? Wouldn’t it be better to have a garden that keeps going without watering in 30C temperatures? The astrantias are looking sickly too, even the ones in the shadier border, and the Digitalis grandiflora, usually so happy at this time of year, barely flowered before its flower spikes bowed down again and turned brown, defeated in the starter blocks. I’m going to cut it right back to see if it might flower again, but if the heat continues I’m almost certain it won’t.

I’m regretting planting three Angelica archangelica, which I have nurtured from seed. They are biennials, so haven’t flowered this year, but they are looking so unhappy, and no wonder. They are Norwegian natives of riverbanks and shady woodland edges, and need constant moisture. Do I keep watering them to coax them into flower next year or do I just give up? Sometimes it’s easy to get carried away with wanting a plant so badly you don’t check what it really needs.

Sadly a huge viburnum in a large bathtub pot has turned up its toes in the time I’ve been away. My son has been watering for me, but for a 21-year-old with better things to do, watering means holding a sprinkling hose over a pot for a cursory few seconds, and this pot needed ten minutes or more of soaking. Pots are particularly hard work in times of drought. Thankfully I resolved to have fewer pots this year and those I did plant up have salvias, erigeron, knautia and scabious, all of which are much more resilient than annuals like cosmos.

What follows is my list of the most drought tolerant plants in my garden - plus a few more on my wish-list for next year. It’s worth pointing out that even the most drought tolerant plants need watering in their first year after planting, to establish their root systems (unless they have self seeded, in which case they are adapted to the dry conditions and will find their own equilibrium). Also, all the plants in this list are surviving the heat but have also survived an incredibly wet winter, so perhaps we should call them weather-extreme tolerant, or just plain resilient.

The most resilient plants in my garden

Hollyhocks: I have just returned from Cap Ferret on the Atlantic coast of France, where it was 40C last week. Here and all along that coast hollyhocks thrive. They were just about over when we were there, but some still had flowers despite the fierce temperatures, showing just how resilient they are. The origins of Alcea rosea are in southwest China and they have naturalised in parts of the Mediterranean and Central Asia so they are well adapted to the heat, and in my garden they are revelling in it, multiplying faster than I can keep up with by self seeding in the gravel outside my house. They aren’t as tall as they were last year, and some are flowering at just knee-height which is really quite lovely among the fronds of Stipa tenuissima.

I look at them, so pretty with their trumpet flowers in shades of deep purple, pale yellow and every shade of pink, but their looks belie a steely nature. They are tough as nails and stubborn as heck - if they don’t want to be somewhere, they refuse to grow. I’m looking right now at the long border at the back of the garden which needs more flowers and thinking I must scatter some hollyhock seed among the existing perennials. They may or may not grow there - they have minds of their own. You can read more about hollyhocks in a previous post, including my tips on growing them from seed.

Scabiosa atropurpurea ‘Fata Morgana’: A tall, willowy perennial with pale creamy yellow flowers that turn apricot with age, this is a star plant in my garden this year. I grew it from seed last year, and it has come back in the large terracotta pots I grew it in last year. I collected seed from those plants and sowed it in spring, and those seedlings are growing where I have planted them in the borders this year - although they are still needing to be watered as they establish. Once their roots are down and they are returning for a second year, they need very little water - perhaps more in pots to stop the lower leaves going yellowy brown. I also have another scabious, S. ochroleuca, dotted around in the borders. With smaller, dottier flowers in a lighter cream, it is an understated but very resilient plant that will self seed in paving cracks or gravel. Another, larger plant in the same family and colour-theme is the giant scabious, Cephalaria gigantea, which I also have. It’s very drought tolerant but it can be a complete thug, self seeding liberally and popping up in places you don’t necessarily want it.

Knautia macedonica: This self seeds all over my borders, both the dark cherry-red species and the paler ‘Melton Pastels’ which has flowers in various shades of pink. It needs nothing done to it apart from deadheading or cutting back to encourage it to flower again, which can be done two or three times over the summer.

Dianthus carthusianorum: this tall, magenta pink dianthus is a beauty, with small flower clusters on willowy stems that sway in the breeze. Once established, it makes large clumps of spiky leaves with the airy flowers dancing above. In my garden they weave in and out of the white umbels of Baltic parsley (Cenolophium denudatum) and Stipa tenuissima, two other drought-tolerant stalwarts. I also sowed a few sun-loving sweet Williams, Dianthus barbatus, which I’m hoping will come back next year.

Penstemon ‘Garnet’ and ‘Blackbird’: Penstemons are fantastic value, flowering for many months over the summer and into autumn if you keep deadheading them. Once a plant is established, it is tolerant of very dry soils and the flowers can withstand heat, although they tend to last for a shorter period. I have magenta pink ‘Garnet’ and ‘Blackbird’ dotted all around the garden. ‘Garnet’, also known as ‘Andenken an Friedrich Kahn’, is one of the oldest of the so called European hybrids, introduced by a Swiss nurseryman in 1918. These hybrids are hardy forms of penstemon, which grow in warmer parts of North America and Mexico, and there has recently been a resurgence of interest in penstemons with lots of new varieties being introduced. This Gardens Illustrated article shows some of the best. While they are tough and drought-tolerant, they can also be short-lived and are susceptible to very low temperatures or prolonged periods of rain. They are very easy to take cuttings from, however, which I routinely do every year so that I have new plants waiting in the wings to replace the old. Here’s a rather younger looking Monty Don showing you how.

Salvias: Both the European salvias that include species like S. nemorosa, and the later flowering ones from South and Central America, are valuable plants for the hot, dry garden, but it is the later flowering ones that stand up particularly well to the heat, producing miracle blooms without a drop of water. I am building a good collection of them, which like penstemons, can be increased easily by taking cuttings every year. Salvia is a vast genus with over 1000 species, and the hardiest of those from South America have been adopted and hybridised for growing in European gardens.

We are also finding we can grow an increasing number of species in our warming climate, and I always find it fascinating to discover where these species grow in the wild. My fabulous pink Salvia involucrata, for example, which is just starting to flower now and will continue into the autumn, grows in Mexico on woodland edges where the climate is very hot and dry most of the year, but with very intense periods of rain in the summer. (Intense wet and intense heat sounds familiar here in Britain this year). There are various named forms available, including ‘Bethellii’ and ‘Mulberry Jam’. I also have the azure-flowered S. guaranitica which comes from Brazil. A new one for me this year is S. interrupta x candelabrum, a cross between two species, one from the Atlas mountains and one from the hills of southern Spain. It’s a beauty, with felty silvery-grey leaves and sprays of deep blue flowers, growing to about 1.5m. I took a cutting from it last year and it was pounced upon at my recent Maggie’s plant sale, but I can’t find any suppliers, so I think I need to take multiple cuttings this year so I can spread it around to friends. You can find both S. interrupta and S. candelabrum for sale individually. I also have an increasing collection of small-flowered salvia cultivars such as deep purple ‘Violette de Loire’, ‘La Mancha’, ‘Cerro Potosi’ and others that have come from random friends as cuttings.

Best of the rest: other plants in my garden that love sun-bathing are, in no particular order:

Teucrium fruticans, a blue-grey shrub from the Mediterranean that can be clipped or left to grow shaggy.

Oenothera lindheimeri: formerly called gaura, this filler plant produces sprays of long, arching stems topped with butterfly-like pale pink or white flowers.

Achillea sibirica subsp. camctschatica ‘Love Parade’: I grew this achillea from seed a few years ago and it is persisting in my garden. From Siberia, you wouldn’t think it would survive a great heat, but like other achilleas it is doing very well in the drought. It has narrow, saw-tooth leaves and domes of palest pink flowers.

Hylotelephium ‘Autumn Joy’: all sedums are remarkably drought tolerant. Mine are smaller-growing and smaller-flowered than normal this year, but their succulent leaves store every scrap of moisture.

Umbellifers. Four drought tolerant umbellifers are doing well in my garden: the annual Ammi majus, which is towering in my borders this year having self seeded; the shorter Orlaya grandiflora, a meadow plant in parts of the Mediterranean; Cenolophium denudatum, the perennial Baltic parsley and one of the toughest plants I know; and Ligusticum lucidum, a short-lived perennial that takes two or three years to flower, currently in just the leaf stage for me.

On my wishlist

Pseudodictamnus mediterraneus: I admired this plant on Joe and Laura Carey’s garden at Chelsea this year, with its mounds of felty minty-grey leaves and whorls of yellowish flowers.

Verbascum creticum and V. roripifolium: I have Verbascum chaixii ‘Album’ in my garden already, which is very resilient, along with the tall, yellow V. olympicum. I spotted the lovely V. creticum growing with foxgloves in Jim Marshall and Sarah Cook’s garden in Suffolk and immediately wanted it. And then I spotted an instagram post from Dan Pearson with V. ropripifolium and wanted that too. You can get seed of both from Special Plants Nursery, so I’ll be giving both a go next year.

Sideritis scardica: I came across this plant at Knepp last year. Also known as Greek mountain tea, it has silvery grey leaves below spikes of yellow-green flowers. I think it would make a good counterpart to Pseudodictamnus, dotted around in the gravel in the front garden. You can read a previous post about drought tolerant planting ideas from Knepp here.

Althaea cannabina: I have tried and failed to grow this hollyhock relative from seed, so I need to try again - or cheat and track it down to buy as a plant. It makes a tall, branching plant with a cherry blossom covering of small pale pink flowers. It was one of the plants Chris Brown chose for my Resilient Plants series in House & Garden, which you can read here.

I hope you’ve found this useful. I’d love to hear from you if you have other suggestions for plants that are doing well in the summer heat.

Have a lovely weekend.

Clare x

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June 22nd

I’m travelling up north today to meet 70 year old Colin Parton who has been growing delphiniums all his life, and now has a National Collection on a small plot behind his house in a suburb of Leeds. His children and grandchildren call him Delphinium Dad and he is the most delightful man who spends all his waking hours growing, tending, taking cuttings, saving seed and improving soil in order to keep his collection of 180 Delphinium elatum cultivars going.

We pull up to a row of white semi-detached houses and knock on the door of Delph Cottage. No one is around, so we walk round the back, over a track and through a gate next to a garage, to emerge into a completely different world. It’s like stepping into a colour-enhanced photograph - rows of incredible delphiniums dwarf us as we walk through. ‘Hello?’ I call, and as we get to the far end of the garden we see Colin with his barrow. He grins and comes over. ‘You’ve got here in the nick of time,’ he says in a broad Yorkshire accent. ‘Everything flowered so early and now they’re going over quickly in this heat’.

To me, they all look pretty good. Plumes of white, pink and many shades of purple and blue cluster together to form an impressionist swathe. ‘I haven’t watered them at all,’ he says proudly, which is all down to the many tonnes of farmyard manure he digs into his soil each time he replants. Replenishing old stock, he tells me, is crucial for the existence of the collection as delphiniums aren’t long lived plants, losing vigour after four or five years. He is constantly taking cuttings to grow new stock plants, and with 180 varieties to keep going, he generates over 1000 new plants every year.

He still grows ‘Conspicuous’, the first delphinium cultivar he fell in love with at the Harrogate Flower Show when he was 15, and has been rescuing other old cultivars from extinction. ‘I drove 500 miles and back to Scotland the other day to get a plant from a lady who’d got in touch about a historic variety,’ he says. There are so many different delphiniums here it is difficult to choose which ones to photograph.

As I tune my eye in, I start picking out favourites - I prefer the sky blue varieties with a white eye (Clifford Sky) rather than the ones with a darker eye (Blue Jade), and for some reason I’m not so fond of true purples like ‘Bob Geldof’. I like the pure colours rather than the two tone blue and pnk confections such as ‘Blue Dawn’ or ‘Orpheus’.

I like some of the pinks, but prefer the dusky light pink of ‘Titania’ to the darker, more vibrant mauve-pink of ‘Cymbeline’.

I start getting obsessed with the central frilly disk known as the eye of the flower. I even get my glasses on to have a closer look. ‘Walton Benjamin’ has a blue and white stripy eye like a pair of old fashioned bloomers, while ‘Tiger Eye’ has a brown centre with curious yellow hairs, set against its lilac flowers.

They all have their different looks and personalities. ‘Constance Rivett’ is elegant and demure, while ‘Cassius’ is a playboy, electric blue edged in pink.

We photograph until the sun goes down, accompanied by the sound of Colin’s canaries chirping away in cages next to the delphinium field, distracting us us from the noise of the motorway just a field away. Colin’s partner Alison comes down to pick sweet peas, which are the only other flowers on the patch, grown to make up for the fact that delphiniums have no scent. She starts telling me how she met Colin in lockdown, and how she fell for him after he told her the story of his ‘Blue Bird’ delphinium.

Back with Colin, I learn more about how he grows his plants. He propagates his collection by taking basal stem cuttings in early spring, and he is happy to share his tips on taking successful cuttings, having put them up on a big banner for his open days.

The named cultivars that Colin grows are good strong growers and are likely to return for five or six years or even longer, but the seed strains offered in the garden centres have less longevity, unlikely to last longer than a couple of years. More fool me then, as I recently paid a fortune for a garden centre grab of three delphiniums that I meant to go to Home Farm for, but ran out of time. (I wrote about the Home Farm delphiniums in February and had my eye on some specific varieties).

I’m looking at my garden centre purchases right now though as I write (outside in this heat) and they do look very handsome in the border, their spires a pleasing contrast to hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ and a froth of ammi and knautia. However, I now have three new ‘proper’ delphiniums to add to them, a parting gift from Colin, so I will take cuttings from these next spring and hopefully start perpetuating my own little collection. I’m a complete delphinium convert.

I hope you’re not sweltering in the heat too much - it’s been extraordinarily intense, hasn’t it, and not good for gardens in the slightest. The only things that seem completely impervious to the heat are my hollyhocks, which are suddenly all flowering at once, just as I’m about to go away. Enjoy your weekend.

Clare x

June 12th

It’s the Magical Gardens event around Tetbury today so I’m up early to walk the dogs before heading off down to Rodmarton with my gardening friend and neighbour Sheila. This biennial event is quite something, with 20 private gardens to see over two days. We can only do one day and I want to pack in as many gardens as I can. Apart from Rodmarton, which is always inspiring, there were two out of the five gardens we managed to get round that really stood out.

Easton Grey is rarely open to the public, so it was a real treat to see it, not least for its magical setting in its own valley overlooking a tributary of the River Avon. The drive winds through sheep pastures and suddenly you come across the 18th-century house clad in the most prolific wisteria I’ve ever seen. ‘You’d need a cherry picker to prune that,’ says Sheila, craning her head to see if the fronds have made it up to the roof. They have. Immediately around the house there is little planting apart from a box parterre and a single wide herbaceous border - but the view needs nothing else. The real gardening takes place in the traditional walled garden behind the house, which is looking incredible, flowers, fruit and vegetables all immaculately grown with not a weed in sight. We wonder who will end up eating all this amazing produce.

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June 4th

It’s raining when I arrive at Gasper Cottage but as I drive in, the colours in the garden are extraordinary, turned up a notch by the rain. I first visited this garden on the Stourhead estate in Dorset about five years ago, and its owner Bella Hoare has developed it further since then. Bella is a fascinating person. It is interesting to come across a banker who is also an artist, and this dichotomy and how it is expressed in her garden interests me. She is a partner in Britain’s oldest privately-owned bank, C. Hoare and Co, and started painting after the loss of her first husband in a car accident in 2008. This was also the time that she started making the garden, and the intensity of planting, the joyfulness of it all, speaks louder than words.

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Welcome to my monthly post for all subscribers, with a mix of what’s happening in my own garden and the jobs that you can be doing in your own gardens.

Roses

We’ve had a mini heatwave here in the UK which has brought everything cascading into flower at once. The roses are out in full force a good week earlier than they were last year, the hot temperatures shortening the life of each bloom - and in the cases of the yellow or apricot roses, bleaching their petals almost as soon as they emerge. I’ve been deadheading madly, and thank goodness we’ve had cooler temperatures this week with plenty of rain so hopefully the second wave of blooms will have longer on the catwalk.

I now have at least 10 different roses dotted throughout the garden, some given to me, some additions that I have planted in the last couple of years. Two were gifts from my late mother in law - ‘Jude the Obscure’ clambers over the shed while the unnamed patio rose that she correctly told me was a climber, winds up an arch to meet ‘The Generous Gardener’ in a romantic tryst.

I fell in love with ‘Tottering by Gently’ in a friend’s garden and bought two for the back border to lighten it up in early summer. One is doing much better than the other so I need to give the smaller one some TLC - a mound of compost perhaps to help it catch up. The stronger, properly tottering one is covered in a mass of single butter-yellow blooms that in the heat were fading to parchment-white almost as soon as they emerged.

I bought two persica roses when I visited Pococks nursery last year. The most floriferous one is doing really well in a pot: the eye-catching tangerine-orange ‘Bernstein Rose’. I imagine it’s not everyone’s cup of tea as it’s a very punchy colour, but I love it. The blooms fade to a softer, paler apricot before going over. It gets prime treatment as it’s right outside my kitchen where all the pots get frequent washing up bowls of water, and I’ve also been feeding it with diluted kefir. More on that later. The other one, ‘For Your Eyes Only’ is taking a while to get established in the cottage garden at the front of the house, and has only produced a few small blooms so far.

I have two old roses, the spectacular moss rose ‘William Lobb’ which I only really got to grips with pruning correctly early this year after going on an excellent rose pruning course held by David Austin Roses at Highgrove. After that, I had the courage to really prune it back hard, and it seems to have worked a treat. Having said that, I didn’t get round to pruning ‘The Generous Gardener’ and that is also absolutely covered in blooms, so maybe it doesn’t matter if you miss a year.

The other old rose ‘Charles de Mills’ is in the front garden, with tightly clustered, flat-faced blooms in dark magenta, the colour of an old smoking jacket. He looks very distinguished standing next to a grey-green mound of Teucrium fruticans. The old roses flower only once unlike modern hybrid roses like the David Austin English roses, which have been bred to repeat flower over the summer. The old roses have such classically gorgeous flowers with strong scent, so it’s nice to have a mixture of both.

On the wall at the side of the house I have a climbing ‘New Dawn’, brought with us from the previous house, and the final two to mention are the floribunda rose ‘Silver Wedding’ which a friend gave us last year, and David Austin’s 2024 rose launch ‘Emma Bridgewater’ which they sent me to trial. Both were planted in the front garden last autumn, and are still finding their feet with a just a few perfectly formed blooms.

The vegetable garden

I’m trying to do better than last year in the veg garden, which has involved a lot of watering. I bought so many seeds from Real Seeds this year and I’m annoyed at myself at not having had time to sow many of them. I have a mixture of Brussels sprouts and calabrese doing quite well under hastily made hazel cloches, having watched a video of the very watchable Troy Scott Smith making some. Mine don’t look nearly as good but they have kept the pigeons off so far. I’ve been watering these and the lettuces with my homemade nettle tea as both are nitrogen-hungry crops that benefit from the leafy-power-boost of the nettle elixir.

My courgette and squash plants got caught in one of those unexpected frosts - I’d taken them out of the greenhouse and forgot to put them back in at night, a fool’s error. But the frost had nipped only at the edges of the leaves, and they seem to be doing fine now they are in the ground, although sometimes I worry that they won’t ever get going properly after that early setback.

The French beans were also caught by the frost and are looking very sickly, with pathetic, thin fronds that are barely winding round their canes. I keep thinking about replanting some more straight into the ground but haven’t got round to it. At the beginning of June, there is still just about time to do it.

Other things I’m growing this year include pak choi that was a garden centre grab last week. I feel bad doing this when I have so many seeds sitting there but there just aren’t enough hours in the day!

June garden jobs

Planting out: one of the most time consuming jobs at the beginning of the month is to plant out all the seed-grown plants and the dahlias I’ve started in pots. This week I’ve planted dozens of dahlias and cosmos, as well as scabious, phlox and zinnias. I’ve also started planting up my summer pots. And then everything needs watering - not just once but consistently until they have established. This week we’ve had some welcome rain, so I sped up the planting to get as much in as possible before the rain to save that initial flurry. Watch out though, as it’s easy to think things have been deeply watered when all they have had is a brief shower. We had consistently dry weather here for at least two months, so the soil was bone dry and it takes a massive amount of rain to properly saturate it.

Weeding: little and often is my motto. If you’re watering your vegetables you will also be watering the weeds, so keeping on top of them is crucial. Ten minutes hoeing saves a whole lot more time pulling knee high weeds out in a few weeks’ time, and even tiny weeds clustered round your precious crops will be taking nutrients and water away from them.

Pinch out tomatoes: this is one of my favourite evening jobs. I water the tomatoes in my greenhouse, and then search for shoots to pinch out on the joints between the main stem and the leaves. You need to do this on the tall cordon types and not the smaller bush tomatoes; if you don’t do it on the cordon types, the plant becomes unruly with masses of side shoots and not much fruit. It’s a task that can become obsessive, and it’s amazing how easy it is to miss one, to find it already huge a week or two later. Watering tomatoes regularly is also really important - if you do it sporadically, the tomatoes can get blossom end rot, which manifests as an unattractive brown blotch at the bottom of the tomato. One final tip is to feed every couple of weeks with a potassium based tomato feed or seaweed fertiliser as soon as the flowers go over and the tiny fruits have set.

Prune spring-flowering shrubs: I have two spring-flowering viburnums that need to be pruned as soon as possible - they flower on old wood (last year’s growth) so if you leave it until the end of summer you’ll be hacking off next year’s flower buds. Take out any dead or diseased wood, and anything in the middle of the shrub that makes it look congested, and then if you want to keep it to a manageable size, cut it back to the size and shape you want, trimming just above a strong, healthy pair of buds.

Emergency staking: my ammi plants have suddenly rocketed up and at over six foot, they have started toppling in this week’s heavy rain and wind. I stake them with canes and string to keep them upright, and do the same with anything else tall and willowy that is looking a bit wobbly.

Chelsea chopping: if plants like geraniums or origanum suddenly start collapsing from the centre leaving an unattractive hole in the middle, chop them back brutally to see if you can get another flush of growth and flower. I have recently had to do this with the geums, which went over very quickly in the heat.

Feeding plants: as I mentioned earlier, I have been using nitrogen-rich nettle tea to feed brassicas, lettuce and chard, and I have also used it to give my courgettes an initial boost before the flowers and fruit start developing. Using too much nitrogen-rich feed will encourage too much leafy growth at the expense of root and flower, so later feeds should be potassium-based fertilisers like seaweed or tomato feeds. I also use diluted kefir as a feed as it contains beneficial Lactobacillius bacteria that help to break down organic matter in the soil, making nutrients more readily available for your plants. I also use it as a foliar spray to help fight fungal diseases like rust and powdery mildew - and I have proof that this works. I suddenly realised that two of my hollyhock plants were badly affected by rust, which had spread all the way up the stems. The plants were starting to flop so I gave them a couple of doses of diluted kefir and they are now recovered. The rust spots have even changed colour. I’m now making double quantities of kefir to feed my plants as well as myself.

Thank you for reading this month’s post. Next week paid subscribers will be hearing about two interesting garden visits I made last week. The gardens were polar opposites: one an arts & crafts garden with incredible structure and an interesting history and the other a cottage garden with so many inspirational planting combinations I didn’t know which way to look.

Until next week.

Clare x

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May 22nd

‘Stop!’ I screech as Andrew drives at 40mph down a country lane. ‘It’s got to be that one.’ We have just driven past a house with a sea of crimson oriental poppies at the front, and although we’re here to see irises, I know it must be the one. We reverse at speed and pull in to the driveway to see a large bed full of irises at the back of the house, as well as the most phenomenal drifts of crimson Tulipa sprengeri. Jim Marshall and his wife Sarah Cook live here, and we’re here to photograph Sarah’s precious collection of Cedric Morris’s irises, often known colloquially as the Benton irises.

Morris bred around 95 named irises, raising about 1000 seedlings a year and obsessively selecting the colours that appealed to him as an artist. I was first introduced to the Benton irises by Dan Pearson who gave me some offsets from his own collection a few years ago. I had no idea what I was choosing, but I ended up with ‘Strathmore’, ‘Nutkin’ and ‘Opal’, which are now growing happily in gravel in my garden. Like so many other people I have fallen in love with them, and since then I have learnt more about Cedric’s irises and the beguiling colours he created. I have seen the paintings he made of his beloved irises and swooned. And I have been to Benton End to see his garden coming back to life.

So it is such a great thrill to meet Sarah and hear her story of how she came to make this historic collection. At 75, Sarah has memory problems, and it is touching to see how Jim, who is 10 years older, supports her. ‘We still do talks on the irises, but I prompt her by asking questions,’ he says. ‘It’s all still there, I just need to help her find it.’ When we sit down to talk, she answers all my questions seamlessly, looking to him only a couple of times to jog her memory.

Sarah tells me about her career as a woman gardener, via a stint as a fishmonger in Cornwall. ‘I was in charge of four men in my first job, and they had an emergency meeting when I first arrived to work out whether they could handle having a woman in charge,’ she laughs. She then ended up at Sissinghurst working under the legendary Pam Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger, learning fast under their strict regime, and then becoming head gardener herself. In the early days at Sissinghurst, she remembers seeing the dark purple ‘Benton Nigel’ growing in one of the borders, which she loved because it reminded her of home. ‘Sarah grew up around here and used to go to Benton End with her mother and grandmother,’ says Jim.

20 years ago, when they both retired from horticulture (Jim was Gardens Adviser for the National Trust for many years) they needed retirement projects (as gardeners do). As well as making a new garden around their converted Suffolk barn, it seemed the logical thing to start developing their own plant collections for Plant Heritage, the plant charity that they have been involved with for many years.

Jim is now known for his collection of historical Malmaison carnations, which he fell in love with when he was asked to source some for the Queen Mother after a visit to the National Trust garden at Lanhydrock. Sarah chose Cedric Morris’s irises because of her connection with the area. She embarked on a journey to track down as many of these as she could, meeting old friends of Cedric’s and tapping into a network of local gardeners that might still have the irises growing in their gardens. The quest went further too, to Ireland, where the most recent discovery ‘Benton Baggage’ was found in Altamont Gardens, and to Basel, where no less than seven of his irises were found growing in the University Botanic Garden. The story of Sarah’s quest is told in eloquent detail by Barbara Segall in this interesting article.

Outside, Sarah is keen to show me all her irises, of which there are about 30 in total. A couple, she says, she can’t be 100% sure are pure Benton types, so the official number is 27. I’m like a kid in a sweetie shop, burying my head in them to absorb their unique colours and markings. I’m familiar of course with my own, and the few that Sarah Price memorably included in her 2023 Chelsea garden, but some of them I have never seen or heard of before. ‘Crathie’ for example, or ‘Silvery Moon’. I’ve never really been aware of the scent of bearded irises before, but planted en masse like this, they give off a collective scent that is thick and sweet and unlike any other flower scent I know. It reminds me of some kind of confectionary, bubble gum perhaps, or a rhubarb and custard sweet.

As well as flowering in one large bed, the irises are dotted around the garden in other areas, charmingly growing alongside rhubarb, sweet peas and vegetables. In the main bed, some of the wild tulips have crept in. Sarah laughs about these tulips, having been to a talk by Fergus Garrett in which he said that Tulipa sprengeri was almost extinct in Turkey and that it was very difficult to naturalise in Britain. ‘I was very naughty and put my hand up to contradict him,’ she says, as we walk between two beds absolutely thick with them. ‘But Cedric grew them at Benton End so we feel they are right here.’

I wander round on my own for a while to take everything in, and find odd corners with lovely cottage garden plants. I’m obsessed by the combination of yellow Verbascum creticum with the native purple foxglove. The sun is still very strong and I find Andrew dozing n the back of his car, waiting for the moment he can capture the irises in lovely light. We share Jim and Sarah’s supper of meat pie and veg before starting the shoot at about 6.30pm.

May 23rd

In my own garden, the intense heat is bringing everything popping out. Suddenly the ‘Generous Gardener’ rose I forgot to prune is a mass of flowers, almost more floriferous than it’s ever been. I should forget to prune more often, perhaps. The first hollyhock is almost in flower, which is unheard of for May, and - drumroll - one of the ‘Cleopatra’ foxtail lilies I planted two years ago is flowering! Isn’t it ridiculously exciting when something like that flowers for the first time? I do a video of Cleopatra to send to Lucie, who I am thinking about every day as she travels up to London while her husband has chemo. There isn’t a lot you can do when your best friends are in free fall after a sudden cancer diagnosis but I know for Lucie that plants can be a good distraction, and that her own garden will be an enormous help in the agony they are going through.

In addition to Cleopatra, I find the perennials or biennials that I have sown from seed that might have taken two years to bloom, the most exciting to see finally coming into flower. The oriental poppy ‘Coral Reef’ plants that I sowed three years ago are now bulking up nicely and covered in flowers, and there are three strawberry foxgloves (Digitalis mertonensis) finally coming into flower after a year sporting just dull rosettes of leaves. They are squatter and sturdier than the normal willowy foxglove, with gorgeous dusky pink flowers.

I’m sure I sowed some ‘Amazing Grey’ poppies in the front garden and none of them seem to have come up - but there is one gloriously and randomly flowering in the veg garden among the usual pink opium poppies. And the ammi this year! The self sown plants are monsters, just starting to flower with a lofty network of white lacy flowers, woven in perfect formation throughout the back border.

First thing in the morning we go for a walk with the dogs and come across a workshop with beautiful gates and woven willow obelisks. There’s no one around but there’s a phone number pinned to the wall, and we end up walking away with the most beautiful plant support. I love these impromptu happenings, and then of course it triggers a visit to the garden centre to buy a (hideously expensive) clematis. I spend the rest of the day ordering my poor husband around, laying things out for him to plant to save my knee (which is still not right - almost certainly meniscus damage). In the extraordinary 35C heat, we can’t do any meaningful gardening after about 5pm, but we (he) manage(s) to get a lot of the seed-grown dahlias and cosmos in, and the rest of the nicotiana. I still can’t believe the incredible change in temperature in the space of a week - freezing at Chelsea on Press Day and bikini gardening by the weekend.

May 26th

I’m at the Garden Museum this evening to chair a talk with the Ukrainian photographer, Sergii Polezhaka, about his incredible photographs of war-stricken gardens in Ukraine. We’re joined by the garden designer Camellia Taylor who has done a thesis on the relationship of people and their land and gardens in times of conflict. The talk is incredibly moving. Sergii tells the stories behind each garden and we are all choked with tears when he describes how one woman who was trapped by the Russians when they occupied the area around Kyiv in 2022, had to bury the body of her son in her garden. It is unimaginable what they are going through in Ukraine, but his photographs and words at least make it possible for us to understand a little more deeply what is going on over there and to feel some connection. There was so much tragedy in his pictures, but they were also full of hope.

He ended his talk by telling us about a memorial garden being made near Kyiv by the wives of some of the men killed on the frontline, which you can read more about here. It’s a project I really want to see work, so if anyone has any ideas about fundraising for them, let me know. Perhaps one day I’ll go over there and be able to write an article about it. You can read more about Sergii’s project in this H&G article.

Thank you for reading today’s post. As ever, I’d love to hear your comments and find out what you’re up to.

Clare x

The Chelsea we see on the cameras is all about the big splash - the medal winners, the celebs, the biggest, boldest gestures. What I like doing is to look at the real detail - the plant combinations, the ingenious ideas and the unusual, quirky details. There is never enough time to take everything in, and everyone’s view is different - so here is my tuppence worth and some honest opinions.

My first observation was that I really liked most of the gardens along Main Avenue, which is unusual. But they were all quite similar in terms of planting and design with a loose structure and an airy fabric of plants in tasteful but quite recessive tones. Personally I’m very much drawn to this meadowy aesthetic but I can see why some people are unable to find the oomph in it. Sometimes it lacks focus and can look very samey, particularly when laid out side by side at Chelsea. And in terms of inspiration for a real garden it is limited unless you are committed to transforming your back garden into a Knepp-style meadowscape.

There were virtually no traditional herbaceous borders in evidence anywhere this year, and I think that’s a shame. The current thinking is that the old fashioned ways of growing ornamental perennials (with lots of compost, manure and water) is no longer sustainable in our warming climate where we should be thinking much more about preserving our finite resources and not creating monster plants that demand more and more attention. I am fully bought into this, of course, but these ornamental plants are so much part of our heritage of plant collecting and expert cultivation, and it would be a tragedy to lose them. We need to keep growing these plants to protect them from disappearing altogether. Plant Heritage is a fantastic organisation striving to do just that, supporting the formation of National Collections of plants held by individuals up and down the UK. They had a garden at the show, and I was immediately drawn to their display of eclectic plants, from peonies to roses.

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An extra post from me at a peak gardening time of year. I’ve had a great first day at the Chelsea Flower Show, privileged to be able to see the show before it opens to the public - and even before Press Day, which has become busy with celebs and corporate groups in recent years. I wanted to give you my first impressions. There is always so much to take in, and so much to take away - but also stuff that isn’t so interesting too. So here is my take on the show gardens, with my honest opinion and gut feelings from this first Sunday visit. Unlike some years, there were lots of gardens I felt really drawn to this year. I’m going to try and set them out here, in order of personal preference, although it really was neck and neck for the first three.

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I continue my diary this week with more garden visits, mainly recces for potential articles. It’s been so cold, so lots of things in the garden seem to be in slow motion - some of the irises have looked like they are about to unfurl for days, but remain stubbornly shut, and rose buds similarly held back in shivering limbo. I don’t blame them really. I’m looking forward to Chelsea next week, which as usual has completely crept up on me, and I think I’ll be wearing a winter coat rather than a summer dress! I’ll be sending an extra Chelsea preview post for paid subscribers on Monday just in case any of you are there and would like my take on what to see.

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10th May

It’s a weekend of two seasons. Saturday is warm and sunny; Sunday cold enough to light the fire in the evening, with an arctic wind. I’m in the garden both days, all day long. I make the classic mistake of planting dahlias, courgettes and squash out - and then have to scrabble around with fleece to cover them up as the temperature drops dramatically. I have so many plants that need to get into the ground - they will just have to wait.

I wrote last week that the garden was in a quieter moment. It’s incredible how quickly things can change. The peonies and irises are starting to flower, and the pink cistus is fully out, adding bursts of colour to the wilder-looking base planting of the front garden. Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’ and Cenolophium denudatum are suddenly quite tall, flower stems pushing upwards and giving movement to the planting. The flowers of the cenolophium are camouflaged against the finely cut leaves, deep glossy green umbels before they mature to white. The centranthus is everywhere. Sometimes the balance gets out of kilter, it crosses over a line, and I have to start ripping plants out to regain the equilibrium.

Peonies have such a short time of impact, I sometimes wonder why I grow them. But those huge flamboyant flowers are such a source of joy that I couldn’t be without them. Rather like the tulips, they have their moment and are part of the ebb and flow of the garden. My most prized peony started flowering this weekend. It’s an intersectional peony sold to me as ‘Kopper Kettle’, and I bought it as a mail order bare root plant three years ago. However, I’m not sure it actually is ‘Kopper Kettle’. My flowers are deep raspberry pink with silvery white woven through, wheras KK is much peachier. I don’t necessarily mind - this one is still very beautiful - but I’m now determined to get the real KK, and I can feel an expensive habit starting (all the intersectionals come at a cost).

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I continue my diary this month as garden visiting starts ramping up for the season. I get so many ideas from seeing other people’s gardens, and most people are happy to spend time showing me round and talking me through the planting. My own garden is having an in-between moment - the tulips have gone and the peonies and irises aren’t yet out. And it is also very, very dry, which is holding things back a little I’d say. The plant that is the happiest in this drought is the Cistus ‘Silver Pink’, which has just started to flower. I bought three plants last year, and I’m so glad of them now. They flower and shed their petals in one day, but the joy is that they keep forming endless buds for weeks on end. I find it fascinating the way some plants have this endless supply of flowers waiting in the wings, while others are one hit wonders.

April 24th

I head down to the Somerset/Dorset border today to see a garden that I have been longing to visit for some time. It’s known by the name of the quirky railway carriage that sits in the garden, Long Hill Carriage, and I have followed its owner, Annie, on Instagram for a while. She posts beautiful photos of the cottage garden she has made on a sloping site there over 30 years, showing a very pleasing mixture of flowers and evergreens clipped into soft hummocks, which she tells me was inspired by the former gardener and Hermes designer Nicole de Vesian.

I can’t help telling her about the mad trip I once made to La Louve, Nicole’s garden, nearly 30 years ago when I worked for Gardens Illustrated. In the south of France for a work trip (John Brown of John Brown Publishing flew his entire business down there for a jolly), the GI editorial team (all seven of us) decided to peel off for the day to visit this legendary designer and her garden. I remember it so well, and perhaps my love of rounded, clipped shapes comes from that day. Immaculately dressed, her white hair pinned back in a bun, Nicole walked us around her garden, a perfectly balanced piece of art expressed in evergreens of different shapes, sizes and shades.

I have recently come across a new term for a collection of clipped evergreens like this, coined by the folk at the evergreen plant nursery Architectural Plants: a blobbery. I’m not sure this is the most attractive word for something so aesthetically pleasing, but I suppose it creates the right picture in your mind. Here is the nursery’s list of their top five plants for using in this way. I realise that I myself am in the process of making a blobbery under my oak tree, with Teucrium fruticans, Lonicera nitida, Osmanthus burkwoodii, yew and sarcococca. As the plants get bigger, I’ll start to clip them gently and the aim is that they will gradually grow into each other to make an undulating tableau of evergreens in different textures and shades of green. For the moment, I have sown sweet rocket, honesty and foxgloves in between to pad it all out.

Back to Somerset, where I follow Annie, as chic as Nicole de Vesian, as she descends along a curving brick path down the garden, a spectacular view of the Dorset hills beyond. ‘There are no straight lines in my garden,’ she says, apologising because the tulips have gone over and she feels the garden isn’t looking its best - but it really looks gorgeous. The wisteria is out, the honesty and forget-me-nots drift through the borders, and the hummocks of box, yew, holly, euonymus and osmanthus mean the garden feels designed even without much in flower. The railway carriage, salvaged 15 years ago and beautifully restored as a holiday let, is rented out by Canopy and Stars. The deck in front of the carriage looks out over the garden, and there is a separate, tiny private garden for guests too. It’s pretty idyllic.

April 25th

It feels like summer so I put a dress on to go to the launch of Jonny Bruce’s new Field Nursery near Cirencester. I wrote a profile piece on Jonny recently for H&G. He’s one of the rising stars in the horticultural world, and I think his nursery and the garden that will undoubtedly grow around it, will be a draw for many people over the next few years. Open by appointment at the moment, the nursery sells an eclectic range of beautifully grown plants, and I think this is what sets him apart from others. He is determined to grow organically, peat free, and without pots wherever possible, so his plants will be of top quality. You’ll also be able to find plants there that you possibly won’t find elsewhere in the UK.

I feel quite honoured to have been invited to this opening, because it’s filled with the great and the good of the horticultural world. Mary Keen is holding court at the table, presiding over a wonderful seed tray cake made by Jane Porter. Dan Pearson and Huw Morgan are here, mildly embarrassed by the behaviour of one of their dogs during Jonny’s speech, and it’s lovely to chat to my old boss Rosie Atkins, who founded Gardens Illustrated.

April 29th

Another garden visit that I’d been long anticipating today - a relatively new garden near Newbury designed by Piet Oudolf. He first told me about it three or four years ago, and I have been trying to get in ever since. I’ve almost given up when the photographer Jason Ingram sends me a set of photographs saying that the owners might be open to a feature in H&G. I jump at the chance. It is the most jaw-dropping garden around a newbuild mock Georgian house. Piet’s classic perennial borders are designed in sweeps around not one but two swimming pools, and there is an experimental seed-grown meadow designed by James Hitchmough, as well as acres and acres of wildflower meadow. It’s really not the right time to see a Piet Oudolf garden, with planting designed to come into its own in summer and autumn, but it is fascinating to see the layout and all the perennials coming to life.

And as if this wasn’t enough, the garden is surrounded by vineyards which I was amused to find that Piet had also designed - not in standard straight rows but in circles and curves and patterns that can only be fully appreciated from above. I am impressed that the owner has managed to persuade Piet Oudolf, now in his eighties, to design a private garden in the UK at this late stage of his career. For this reason alone, it will be an important garden of the next few decades, and I am hoping that when they launch their new sparkling wine, they may also open the garden from time to time.

May 1st

A double garden day today, thanks to a bout of opportunistic map studiying and juggling. First, it’s the wonderfully named Applethatch Cottage in the hills just south of Bath. I’m used to narrow winding lanes where I live in the Berkshire Downs, but these are off the scale, surrounded by high banks and hedges, the kind with a smattering of mossy grass up the middle. Owned by a most delightful couple who I could have spent all day chatting to, the garden is just up my street, designed by someone called Tom Eaglestone (@tomgardens). There are masses of old-fashioned cottage garden plants and a lovely haphazard path made from blocks of local stone. This is a recce visit, so no photographs are taken today, but roses, lupins and foxgloves are about to burst so now it’s a case of staying in touch to find the right moment to send the photographer.

Half an hour away is Corsley House. I came here in the middle of winter to photograph the garden with Andrew but today I’m back to meet the owner, Keith Johnson (@kcorgi), who has made this garden in partnership with his head gardener Jo Downes over the past six or seven years. Keith used to be chief buyer for Anthropologie, specialising in antiques, and his creative flair is second to none. With this vision and drive, he has designed a garden that looks as if it has always been here. Everywhere you look there are salvaged objects (stone troughs, gates, tiles, finials) that give it just the right kind of patina to match the 18th century house. Keith magics up elegant tables from concrete slabs and builds water features that feel as if they’ve been lifted from an Italian villa. Jo has designed all the planting with the relaxed naturalistic aesthetic that Keith likes, and they are clearly a good team. ‘To equate the garden to interiors, I do the furniture and Jo does the soft furnishings,’ says Keith.

May 2nd

In my own garden, things are looking slightly perkier this morning after a two-hour bout of heavy rain yesterday. It’s amazing to see the seedlings that have started growing overnight, although when I dig down to plant some sweet Williams, only the top inch of soil is saturated: it’s still bone dry underneath. I have been going through the front garden editing some of the seedlings popping up in the gravel - there are self seeded verbascums, poppies, honesty, nigella, foxgloves and a host of other good things that I want to keep. On the list to edit out are the prolific cenolophium, centranthus and linaria seedlings. I love the way that these seedlings govern how the garden looks each year, and I wrote about the best self seeders in this post last year.

Throughout the year the garden feels like it follows the path of a transverse wave, with lots of different peaks and troughs - perhaps I can liken it to a fanfare of trumpets versus a quiet piano concerto. It’s having a piano moment just now, after the tulips go over and before the peonies, roses, foxgloves and irises come out. But the geums and the wallflowers carry it through, and I realise that the back border needs lots more wallflowers, as the only colour in there at the moment is from the alliums. I need to take some more cuttings this weekend, and you can find a short video about this on my instagram feed.

The one thing that doesn’t need dialling up is the scent in the front garden at the moment. As you go out through the front door, the sweet, fruity perfume of the wisteria hits you. Turn to the right and almost immediately a different scent reaches your nose - it’s my favourite, the fresh, lemony scent of the Pittosporum heterophyllum, an unusual and highly versatile pittosporum that I am successfully clipping into a cloud-pruned shape. At this time of year, its tiny flowers send out an impossibly strong cloud of perfume. (I have a bunch sitting next to me on the kitchen table right now to breathe in as I work.) Then walking on towards the far corner of the garden, the lemon turns to honey from the huge Euphorbia x pasteurii moulded between wall and fence. Its rounded flower domes produce tiny yellow-brown flowers that are sweetly honey-scented, turning sticky as they mature.

May 5th

A quick dash down to Somerset to see my parents, armed with seedlings for Mum, who says she hasn’t had much time to sow annuals this year. We are also anxious to see if their new dog has settled in. Their old Labrador Ace has reached the grand old age of 15 and is starting to fade, so they have taken on a nine-year-old border terrier who belonged to my friend Salli’s mother, who has sadly just died. Having engineered this adoption, I’m thrilled to see that Toggle has adapted perfectly to his new life and my parents have very much bonded with him. We absolutely love dogs in our family, and as my father has dementia, it seems essential for them to have a dog as a positive focus in his life.

Just before we leave Somerset I remember at the 11th hour that I’m meant to be writing a profile piece on David Attenborough for the H&G website by Tuesday. Mat drives and I write the bones of an article on my phone on the way back home. Later, I watch a documentary with Attenborough looking back at the making of Life on Earth and it makes me tearful. He has been and continues to be (at 100) such an incredible ambassador for the natural world. You can read my article here.

May 7th

Another garden this afternoon. I get the train to Richmond and the 371 bus out towards Petersham to visit interior designer and antiques collector Tamsin Saunders. As I walk towards her house along a street of 1930s semis, I know from afar exactly which one is hers: the entire front garden is a sea of plants. At the back, the garden is an intriguing jungle with layers of shade-loving plants underneath fruit trees tangled with vines and wisteria, and sun loving cottage garden plants near the house. She has lived here for 13 years but it was in lockdown that she suddenly decided she would replace the lawn with plants, and now the garden is her lifeblood.

We instantly hit it off. We have children around the same age and I think we have the same relaxed aesthetic, the same love of art and antiques, and the same love of plants and gardening. She comes with me in the evening to a party at the Niwaki store in Marylebone, where owner Jake Hobson is launching his quirky new Camo range of clothing. They have cleverly put the design on a fleet of London taxis that look very smart lined up outside the store. As well as clothing, Niwaki sell a fantastic range of Japanese garden tools, and if you don’t already own a pair of Niwaki secateurs, may I strongly suggest you ask for some for your next birthday. I absolutely swear by mine (and this is not a paid advert!)

We have another bank holiday weekend to look forward to here in Britain, but wherever you are I wish you a weekend of sun (or perhaps longed-for rain) and happy gardening.

Clare x

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May in my garden

Sweet, flowery May. Long evenings in the garden. Foxgloves and irises and the sugary scents of lilac and sweet rocket. This is the month that the peonies emerge, their huge flowers like crushed silk, opening quietly and mysteriously overnight to welcome the new day. The energy in all the plants is palpable, sap rising, leaves vibrant. I love the rounded hummocks that the sedums and geraniums make, and seeing the new flower spikes of the foxgloves emerging. Everything is so quick! Turn your back for a minute and you miss something. How did you not see those allium buds about to burst? Without warning, they are all in full flower.

My small collection of Benton Irises is in bud too, and I always look forward to these with huge anticipation. I divided them last year, so I wasn’t sure whether some of the divisions would flower, but most seem to be producing a flower spike - apart from the ones that I moved to the gravel either side of the front path. I kept forgetting they were there and trampling them, which was so stupid. In mid May I’m due to visit Sarah Cook, who has spent the last 15 years seeking out all the Benton irises and I’m really looking forward to seeing the full collection. Bred by the artist gardener Cedric Morris in the 20th-century, they have very distinctive colours, most of them in the gorgeous muddy pastels that characterise his paintings. I wrote about Benton Irises in a previous post last year.

May Planting Combinations

In my own garden, this photo taken last May shows the centranthus coming into its own, and it’s just starting to flower now in the garden. This valerian self seeds with abandon, and I’m forever ripping it out, but it is worth having for its naturalistic, airy flowers. I started with just the white one, Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’, but some of the bright pink is creeping in too, which I’m happy to accept because it echoes the magenta pink of Geranium ‘Tiny Monster’ and Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’. To balance the green, pink and white is the ever-useful Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’.

This combination above was snapped yesterday, and it shows the sugary pink Cistus ‘Silver Pink’ with apricot Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ and darker orange Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’. To balance the pinks and apricots, the deep blue Italian Bugloss, Anchusa azurea (foreground), is just starting to bloom, echoed in the distance by forget-me-nots and - sharp intake of breath - alkanet, which is a relative of the more manageable anchusa. Alkanet is quite invasive and has hairy, spotty leaves, but I let it creep in round the edges of the garden for its intense blue flowers that the bees love.

This photo above isn’t from my own garden, but one I visited in London last May. Designed by Charles Rutherfoord, it had some lovely planting for partial shade. Dark-leaved Geranium maculatum ‘Stormy Night’ makes a lovely pairing with delicate Tiarella ‘Sugar and Spice’. Framed by two acers, the textured foliage of Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ and Heleborus argutifolius is woven in with dusky-leaved Weigelia ‘Ebony and Ivory’, which works so well with the geranium.

May Garden Tasks

Making plant supports: I’m going to be making hazel plant supports this weekend. I still have a couple of obelisks that have made it through the winter, but I’d like to put some herbaceous plant supports in for geraniums and some of the laxer perennials, and this needs to be done soon while growth is still fairly low. I love the rustic look these structures bring to the garden and they can be as basic or as complex as you want - from a series of hazel uprights surrounded by string, to a more complex dome of pliable hazel canes tied together at various intervals with string. According to rose-sculpting expert Jenny Barnes, you can use pliable offcuts from fruit trees such as apples, willow or lime to weave in and out of the structure. I need to prune a trained apricot that has got out of control, so maybe I’ll use those offcuts. This is a useful article from Gardens Illustrated for inspiration.

Sowing vegetable seeds: The nights have been pretty cold so far this spring, despite some warm sunny weather during the day, so I have been slow to plant out or sow any veg apart from salad leaves and chard. Looking at the forecast, it’s still going to be chilly next week so I think I’ll hold off planting any beans outside for now. I have courgettes and squash that I want to get in the ground - but they are quite tender too, so I just have to bide my time.

Successional sowing: A good tip with lettuce and salad plants is to sow several successional sowings every three weeks, so you extend the harvesting season. You have to be well-organised for this, and I’m not, but I always aim to do it. I saw Huw Morgan, Dan Pearson’s partner, the other day at the opening of the excellent new Field Nursery near Cirencester, founded by Jonny Bruce. Huw is the vegetable grower in their household and he says he makes detailed lists of what needs doing so he knows exactly what should be going on at any one time. I’m a reactive gardener rather than a planned one, and I aspire to be like him - but he did say he was twitchy having to be out for the day as there was so much on his list that needed to be urgently done!

Pricking out and potting on: this is an almost constant task throughout May, making sure you aren’t hindering the growth of seedlings and small plants by keeping them prisoner in seed trays or pots. It’s amazing how quickly things respond when you give them fresh compost and a bigger pot. I’ve just moved on some snapdragon seedlings from cell trays to 9cm pots and their growth has accelerated exponentially. The initial pricking out process can take place as soon as the seedling is big enough to handle - sooner than this RHS video advises I reckon - and I don’t always wait until the seedling has its first true leaves (the first pair of seed leaves are often very different). The problem is accommodating all the plants as they start to take up more space in bigger pots - especially as most can’t go outside yet because of the cool nights. I use Sylvagrow multipurpose compost for both sowing and potting on - it’s so much nicer to work with than some other lumpy, dry peat-free composts, and it holds the moisture reasonably well.

Planting out dahlias and cosmos: hopefully later on this month the weather will warm up sufficiently to get these half hardy plants into the ground. But first things first, they need to be hardened off, as they are still huddled in the greenhouse. In the meantime, I’m taking dahlia cuttings to multiply my existing plants. It’s very easy to do if you’ve started your dahlias off in pots. Simply cut shoots 5-20cm long from the tuber, taking a tiny slice of the tuber off with the cutting. Put these in small pots of gritty compost and keep the compost moist - they should root very quickly in warm weather.

Remove tulips from pots and plant up summer pots: I’ll be doing this as soon as my seed-grown annuals are ready. They are growing quite slowly due to the cold nights, so I’m thinking this won’t be until the end of May. I wrote about my combinations for this year’s summer pots in a previous post.

Other jobs for May

• deadhead tulips and daffodils, leaving leaves and stems intact to photosynthesise and put energy back into the bulb

• remove clumps of forget-me-nots to leave room for later-flowering annuals

• hoe borders to keep weeds under control

• plant out sweet peas if not already done

• pinch out central shoots on cosmos to encourage bushier plants

• sow runner and French beans outdoors

Enjoy the long weekend!

Clare x

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Here are my diary entries for an unforgettable four-day trip to Kyrgyzstan organised by tulip expert Polly Nicholson. This area of Central Asia is where most tulips originate from, with 25-30 species endemic to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and neighbouring countries. All the hybrid tulips we grow in Britain are derived from these wild species. Joined by photographer Eva Nemeth, our aim was to find as many native tulips as we could to document for an article that will run in House & Garden next year to coincide with a major new exhibition on tulips that Polly is curating at the Garden Museum.

April 17th

We walk out of Bishkek airport into pouring rain at 8.30am - and it doesn’t let up all day. ‘You see the mountains from here, but not today,’ says our guide Sergei in his heavy Russian accent. ‘All tulips closed in this weather’. He’s dressed in khaki with a camouflage cap and looks like he’s just about to take us out on an army PT session. This isn’t a good start after a nightmare overnight flight with an inebriated man repeatedly slumping onto my shoulder.

We decide to forego our first day of botanising in the mountains for a trip to the city markets and museums. Kyrgyzstan’s capital city Bishkek is intriguing, a melting pot of cultures. On the legendary Silk Road, the city was captured by the Russians in 1862 and became a Russian garrison town, changing its name to Frunze in 1926. It was only in 1991 that the country became independent, and the Russian influence is still very much in evidence, especially in the Soviet-style architecture of the city. The Natural History Museum is a brooding stone box of a building with a huge, empty expanse of grey stone in front and a disproportionately vast flag flying mesmerisingly above. After a colourful walk through a local market, we drive half an hour to the southern suburbs of the city to our hotel.

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