Cuttings (13 MAR 2011)

Wouldn't it be ideal if you could cut off a little toe, wrap it up warm in a blanket, then watch it grow into a babe in arms who looked just like you ? - actually,  maybe not .....Here are cuttings of pieris, bay, magnolia , weigela,  tree peony, azalea, rhododendron & lace-cap hydrangea which I planted at the beginning of winter. The fact that they are all crammed into two plant pots or stuck in

Plant Reproduction (21 JAN 2011)

My mother used to be a gardener, not in a prolific or overtly passionate way though. Her garden flourished gradually year by year. In fact, till my late teens, I was under the impression that she approached gardening as an extension of housework. Then one day I pruned her rhododendron bush because it kept getting tangled in the drying laundry. When I saw her almost in tears, too upset to scold,