Gardening inside and out...

Thank you for all your kind, sympathetic comments about my son's foray into indoor gardening.  What am I talking about?! You all LAUGHED.

Actually I did too but not while I was cleaning the floor and trying to get dirt out of the cracks. (some is there to stay)

Now to my outdoor garden. It's a work in progress so I took a stroll to get some inspiration and see what I should plant to replace my hedges. I found a lot of green. Green, green and more green. When did flowers go right out of style?

Luckily everyone's picked my favourite, the Iceberg rose. They look simply lovely lined up behind a white picket fence and the grey villas I like so much are a perfect backdrop. Icebergs are blousy and beautiful and wonderfully disheveled. We ordered Icebergs for my wedding flowers and the commercial ones looked nothing like they should - they were prim and perfect and quite overworked.

I loved these old-fashioned climbers peeking out from a less than perfect picket fence. The pale pink rose will probably go when the landscape designers move in.

So what did I learn from my garden tour? Green is good. Actually green is god. And lots of structural plants in rows at different heights with dark grey pots and edging. Crisp white paintwork and blousy white roses.

I came home and popped this Nicotiana or flowering tobacco plant in a pot.  I grew these in my London courtyard and they have a beautiful delicate scent in the evening.  Despite the name it is not the scent of smouldering Marlboro Lights.

Luckily hydrangeas are back in fashion - I read that somewhere this week but they're probably only talking about the white ones. I've just planted one in my new patch of soil where the hedge used to be. You know how I like to be dead on trend.