'March' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1951, with Spring in full bloom. There's pale pink bergenia in the centre; a beautiful mauve pasque flower; camellia and early iris just opening; cherry, pieris and ribes blossom; tooth-like blanched chicory and the first 'sticky bud'.
'February' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months, 1951. Other than a succulent stalk of forced rhubarb, and a florist's tulip, garden flowers now predominate. There's early primula allionii, dainty snowdrops, iris reticulata, celandine, sprays of daphne and winter jasmine, and two gladiolus bulbs.
It's pussy willow time! I don't know who the photographer is and some of the names seem questionable, but what a brilliant depiction of the different varieties. Each would have had unique properties for basket weavers.
Transatlantic alliance in 1929. British sweet pea breeder Henry Eckford (r) visiting Philadelphia breeder W Atlee Burpee in Burpee's garden. Eckford transformed the sweet pea at his nursery in Wem, Shropshire, raising 153 beautiful, large-flowered cultivars.
Alpine Pansy, Wills's cigarette cards, date unknown.
Just round the corner... Artist Angela J Simpson.
Thank you, Ken. And for you and yours.
Wishing you a happy, healthy and peaceful 2026 and a year full of gardening enjoyment.
Eliot Hodgkin, 'January', from 'The Months', 1950.
Wishing all you lovely people a very Merry Christmas. 'Forcing Garden in Winter', from Humphry Repton's 'Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening', 1816.
I've just looked at your blog, which seems to undermine your argument, as no post has attracted more than two comments! That's no criticism of the content, just an observation that perhaps you're not best placed to dictate what others should and should not be doing.
It was written by amateur pomologists as part of their application to our national fruit review panel. I agree blogs are a helpful medium and am setting one up to complement my forthcoming book on local Stamford UK apples, but am not in the habit of dictating how others should present their work.
This isn't my report!
3/3 from Tom Adams (Tom the Apple Man) and F P Matthews. In the meantime, the Marcher Apple Network has access to a limited quantity of scionwood. If you are interested in the latter please DM me, including your email address. Trees currently on the market are not DNA matches.
2/3 You can read the story of Rymer's rediscovery here 1drv.ms/b/c/30fab923.... Ainsleigh, Gary and I are now trying to unravel its early history and the possibility it was wrongly named 2 centuries ago. Young trees will be available from next winter
LOST APPLE 'RYMER' REDISCOVERED! Thanks to amazing sleuthing by Stephen Ainsleigh Rice in England and Gary Sully in Australia, this wonderful cooking apple has been confirmed rediscovered. Believed lost for nearly 100 years, DNA testing shows it was a grandparent of Bramley. 1/3
'December' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1950. The first Christmas roses, seasonal greenery, a dainty indoor cyclamen, a shop-bought anemone, a clementine from Spain and two shy early violets, with their promise of spring.
to his right the honorary secretary, Joseph Sabine, and to his left, head of the Society's gardens, John Turner. Turner did a splendid job gathering, planting and cataloguing specimens, but the year of this painting he fled to France having embezzled money from the Society. 2/2
'Exhibition Extraordinary at the Horticultural Society of London' (later the RHS), George Cruikshank, 1826, City of London archives. Presiding over this mockery of the Society's pomposity sit the chairman, John Elliott, 1/2
The Greenhouse and The Garden, Eric Ravilious, 1932
A selection of more than 100 varieties of apple grown at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, in Norfolk, displayed and labelled for its annual Apple Day.
'November' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1950. A brocade-coloured chrysanthemum, reddening geranium leaves, the first blanched chicory, arbutus unedo fruits, bulbs and seeds for autumn planting.
Not from Britain, but such a beautiful photo. Workers stripping jasmine flowers for the perfume industry in 1915, at a convent turned into a factory in Notre Dame des Fleurs, Grasse, Southern France. The fragrance must have been intoxicating! Meanwhile, further north, war raged ...
A good haul (and a well-loved, hand-knitted gardening cardigan)! Found, mid-century photo.
What a lovely memory. Crab apples are such brilliant pollinators and were also grown in traditional mixed orchards to provide root stock for grafting experiments. I once saw a photo of a gorgeous orchard planted only with crab apples, of every flower and fruit colour. Oh to have the land!
Golden Crab Apples, Eliot Hodgkin, 1957, private collection.
First published in 1956, and written by Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, 6th baronet (1897-1988, brother of the eccentric Dame Edith), this remains an excellent bibliographical record of two centuries of finely-illustrated flower books from around the world.
I believe cooking apples, but the jury is out
'October' from Eliot Hodgkin's 'The Months', 1951. Cooking apples take centre stage, flanked by grapes, fungi and the first celery and Brussels sprouts. There's a button chrysanthemum, fluffy Old Man's Beard, a shiny conker and a reddening leaf of Virginia Creeper.
'The Garden', Charles Mahoney, 1950
Tea in the garden for an unknown Edwardian family.
