Author Archives: Martin

One of the delights of English woodland in spring are the vast sheets of wood anemone that you can see. And they do grow in vast expanses, don’t they? Except my friend Barry found some in a very small local … Continue reading →

I cut back last year’s growth on the I.Pot the other day and so I thought it was time to do an update on what’s been happening. This year is the first time I have actually cut the grass (quaking-grass … Continue reading →

As the eyebright has just started to flower- it’s a late summer flowering species, no idea which one – and I haven’t written about my I.Pot for a while I thought I’d do a review of the year so far. … Continue reading →

  Way back in 1918 J. W. Heslop Harrison wrote a paper on a survey of the Lower Tees Marshes in which he describes the “Trollius Bog” at Billingham Bottoms. This exciting marshy area contained such delights as Marsh Helleborine, Grass-of-Parnassus, … Continue reading →

I love reading about plants and gardens but sometimes, just sometimes, the same words get used a bit too often or there is a phrase that catches my eye and I wonder what the writer really meant, so I thought … Continue reading →

The bee orchids flowered again; two out of the three plants, just like last year. It’s always exciting to see such a complex looking flower, more so when it’s sitting in a pot next to your door. They seeded and … Continue reading →

This summer I’ve been taking local people out and about along the Cleveland Coast looking for wildflowers on the beaches with the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust.And up cliffs (It’s just like plant hunting that adventurers go on in foreign places, … Continue reading →

Guerrilla gardening in the UK is a sign of failure; a sign that the local community is not functioning properly; that citizens are not talking to elected local councillors; that people feel isolated. It’s not a solution. Guerrilla gardening is … Continue reading →