Latest Posts
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Fabulous Fountain Grasses
Garden, Info, Ornament Grasses
I am not quite sure when I first fell in love with the fountain grasses but there is something rather seductive about their fluffy often almost caterpillar like cylindrical rounded heads of flower that are so enthusiastically produced over the summer months that I find it impossible to resist their particular appeal. And I have…
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Grasses for Informal Garden Hedges
DIY, Garden, How to, Ornament Grasses
The value of ornamental grasses in our gardens is becoming well known, but their use as simple highly effective and rather beautiful informal hedges, or space dividers, might not be so obvious. Grasses happy combination of unique form and line can be used so easily to create tall or short internal screens or hedges that…
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Grasses for Dry Shade
Garden, Info, Ornament Grasses
Most people would agree (usually from experience!), that shade and especially dry shade is about the most difficult condition to plant successfully in our gardens. Of course there are many degrees of shade from the relatively minor shade cast by a north wall or fence to the deep shade cast by mature trees both broadleaf…
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The Show Must Go On……
Garden, Info
Even though the gardens themselves are currently closed (the nursery is very much open and busy), for the next week or two while the storm damage is made safe (see last weeks blog), this doesnt stop the annual pageant of trees and shrubs from providing their welcome displays. I have always loved woody plants and…
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The Romance has gone; the Valentines Day storms
Blog
I shall long remember Valentines Day 2014 as the night the garden experienced the most serious amount of damage that I have seen in my 20 years of being at Knoll. As we closed the nursery and gardens on Valentines Day evening we were happy enough that we had coped with all the damage the…
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The Tender Trap
Blog
Like many people who love plants I find it so difficult to resist the fabulous, often brightly saturated colours and magnificent foliage that so many of the tender plants have to offer. I try hard not to collect too many but…….. Its easy enough in the spring and summer to happily plant them out in…
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Favourite Miscanthus for Garden Use
Garden, Info, Ornament Grasses
Miscanthus are a great group of ornamental grasses that can do brilliantly in our gardens giving lots of pleasure and requiring very little work in return. They are many of them and, inevitably, I have some favourites; those that stand out as being especially effective or useful. Miscanthus are really known for their fabulous displays of flower…
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Backlit, Beautiful ……and Free
Garden, How to, Ornament Grasses
A free light display is something most of us would probably love to have in our gardens if asked. Yet so often when planning and planting our border displays we make no provision for, or possibly even think about, using those plants such as the ornamental grasses that have the ability to be spectacularly lit up by…
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Magnificent Moor Grasses
Garden, Ornament Grasses
Purple moor grasses are botanically all forms of Molinia caerulea and, as the common name might suggest, these native grasses are often found on open grassy spaces such as commons and heathlands, sometimes in patches, sometimes covering acres of ground and in association with heathers, pines, gorse and silver birch. Although when in its native habitat these…
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The Wonders of Spindle trees
Blog
Taken only a few days ago at Knoll this image looks out across our newly extended Gravel Garden towards the Lower Lawn where in the distance a magnificent, tall native grass Molinia arundinacea can be seen showing its fabulous butter yellow autumn attire. The deep pink foliage that catches the eye immediately belongs to one…
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