Janet Queen

  ‘The grandest of all silverlings’ is how Graham Stuart Thomas, one of the most renown garden writers, described artichokes. If you are growing them in your garden, you will…

Glazed, swirling-colour pots, filled with flowers, shine out from a small gravel yard that is my neighbour’s garden area. Lilies, lobelia, miniature roses, strawberry plants, stocks and lavender are lush…

Night scented stock, Matthiola bicornis, is already in flower in gardens where it was sown last month. It is one of the easiest annuals to grow for perfume, and seed…

Erysimum ‘Bowles’ Mauve’ is in full bloom. Its sturdy stems of purple flowers have been a feature in the garden since the middle of March, and it will continue to…

The native foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, is well known and immediately recognisable. In cottage and woodland gardens, drifts of tall and slender spires of foxglove blossom create a dreamy, reaching-for-the-sky effect.…