Documents reveal UAE president owns multibillion-pound property portfolio spanning London’s most expensive neighbourhoods
The row of 1960s-built houses with untidy gardens on a quiet cul-de-sac near Richmond upon Thames appears to have little in common with Ecuador’s red-brick embassy in Knightsbridge, where Julian Assange spent seven years in hiding, just across the road from Harrods.
Continue reading...Alice Temperley’s designs are filled with colour and romance – just like her historic house
Back in the spring, fashion designer Alice Temperley was scouring online marketplace Preloved for vintage fabric and ended up in the pet section. “Within an hour, I had driven five miles up the road and come home with a house rabbit. Florence is an amazing character, either very rampant or very cuddly. She lives under the piano in the sitting room, where we all hang out.”
“We” is Temperley and Fox, her 11-year-old son, any chickens who “just come into the house when they feel like it” and of course Florence. The four llamas live outside. “They’ve always got their heads just slightly over the garden wall.”
Continue reading...Heres’s a horticulture happy pill just when you need it most
I’m a fair weather gardener. As someone who works in horticulture I am supposed to claim that each season has its own wonder and that I embrace all the changes nature offers, but that wouldn’t be honest. As temperatures and light levels plummet, the growth of the vast majority of plants grinds to a halt. This means that if you get a mood boost from living green, winter can be tough. However, there is one much-overlooked group of plants that does the exact opposite, bursting into life just as most garden residents are slipping into dormancy. Moss provides you with a horticulture happy pill just when you need it most.
Mosses are an ancient group of plants that don’t follow the rules of other garden species. Their growth rate isn’t so much determined by light and heat, but by the availability of moisture – and that is something we don’t lack at this time of year. Given the right conditions, their rugged constitution makes them incredibly easy to propagate and establish. And they can be sourced for little to no money.
Continue reading...Heres’s a horticulture happy pill just when you need it most
I’m a fair weather gardener. As someone who works in horticulture I am supposed to claim that each season has its own wonder and that I embrace all the changes nature offers, but that wouldn’t be honest. As temperatures and light levels plummet, the growth of the vast majority of plants grinds to a halt. This means that if you get a mood boost from living green, winter can be tough. However, there is one much-overlooked group of plants that does the exact opposite, bursting into life just as most garden residents are slipping into dormancy. Moss provides you with a horticulture happy pill just when you need it most.
Mosses are an ancient group of plants that don’t follow the rules of other garden species. Their growth rate isn’t so much determined by light and heat, but by the availability of moisture – and that is something we don’t lack at this time of year. Given the right conditions, their rugged constitution makes them incredibly easy to propagate and establish. And they can be sourced for little to no money.
Continue reading...For fiery beech trees and golden ferns, savour the changing seasons at these glorious gardens
Some gardens are all about effect. Created in the 18th century near Bath, Stourhead is a Palladian ideal of a landscape, augmented by temples, grottoes and follies – it’s magnificent. But explore beyond the oaks and fiery beech trees and there’s a sense of wildness and abundant autumn fruits on this National Trust estate, including rosehips and crab apples.
• nationaltrust.org.uk
For fiery beech trees and golden ferns, savour the changing seasons at these glorious gardens
Some gardens are all about effect. Created in the 18th century near Bath, Stourhead is a Palladian ideal of a landscape, augmented by temples, grottoes and follies – it’s magnificent. But explore beyond the oaks and fiery beech trees and there’s a sense of wildness and abundant autumn fruits on this National Trust estate, including rosehips and crab apples.
• nationaltrust.org.uk
The Danish plot requires plenty of wood work at this time of year, but we still had time to enjoy the changing of the seasons
Do spaces have personalities? Do different gardens speak a different language, demanding you to be a different gardener?
I am not quite saying I am more of a Viking at the Danish seaside plot. I leave that to Bo, the local tree surgeon with his flowing plaited beard and hair and his missing index finger. But I wonder whether he might hear nuances in the language of the land here that I may at first miss.
Continue reading...