Rosa ‘Roseraie de l’Haÿ’ arrived not with grace, but with grandeur.
Unboxed beneath a rare Aberdeenshire sun, she emerged from her cardboard carriage with the slow disdain of someone well aware of her own myth. Known here simply as Elektra, one word suffices, but her full name commands respect. One bloom. One warning.
Continue reading “PLANTING ROSA ‘ROSERAIE DE L’HAŸ’: A DRAMATIC ARRIVAL FOR A RUGOSA ROSE”
A garden border as a stage—divided not by theme, but by tone. This post introduces Acts I and III of ‘My Name is Red,’ a narrative planting with theatrical intent and emotional depth.
This is not a linear telling. (But then again, what gardener ever planted anything in a straight line—narratively or otherwise?)
The border does not begin at one end and finish at the other—it breathes in three acts, each with its own rhythm, palette, and emotional register. This post introduces the two outer chambers of that unfolding structure: Act I, the entrance, formal and upright; and Act III, the close, shaded and solemn.
Continue reading “MY NAME IS RED: ACTS I & III — MIRROR AND ECHO”Prologue: The Broken Border
Every garden has its secret shame. Here, it was the back border — the stretch beneath the old stone wall that separates us from the local primary school. A wilderness, really. Brambles. A compost heap verging on sentience. Turf stacked like a geological layer. Even a football. Watching me. Always watching.
Continue reading “MY NAME IS RED: DESIGNING A GARDEN BORDER AS LIVING NARRATIVE”
THE CULTIVATED STAGE 