This place was part of my life for only one summer, many years ago, yet I remember it well. I was seven years old, a thoroughly urban child, and my mother took me to a friend’s cottage in the countryside for a month. It was a wet August, but the rains came mostly at night…
Clingendael revisited: the Japanese garden in spring
It is May, and the time for my spring visit to the Japanese garden in Clingendael, the old country estate of the van Brienen family. Created by Marguerite van Brienen (aka Lady Daisy), the last real owner of the estate, the garden is now over a century old, and one of the very few original…
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Ten minutes of spring by the parking lot
Amidst the mad rush of a Monday morning school run, I pause. Just around the corner from the parking lot, spring is happening, unnoticed by the harried parents. Oh, the guilty luxury of ten spare minutes. I am greeted by a lawn full of burgundy red and white fritillarias , with their exquisitely patterned snake…
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A short yellow journey
An evocative post from one of my favourite bloggers, on the white blossoms that accompany her walk to school, made me realise to what extent my own school run this time of the year was a yellow affair. Bright splashes of flowering forsythia, kerria and mahonia, daffodils and dandelions punctuate the journey. My daughters love…
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An impressionistic postcard from London
It was such an unseasonably warm and sunny patch that it felt surreal. We were in London at the same time last year, late February, and I remember trudging along the Thames in a snowstorm, public transport virtually at a standstill. That memory still fresh in my mind, London looked at once dazzling and dazzled…
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Garden Chronicles – The Magic of the Compost Bin
Am I really writing a post under that name? To start a series of posts about gardens and gardening in November (of all months!) and with such an “exciting” subject to boot is not just risky, it probably looks very silly. I mean, who is going to want to read about this, now? (Or ever).…
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It was strange to see the Japanese garden in Clingendael on such a day. It was raining, the strong winds of the previous two days had made the trees look half naked, the tree trunks a glistening, stark black. At last the autumn has come fully into its own. I don’t think I have actually…
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The Journey Begins
Thanks for joining me! Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
My roots and bulbs 