The best of 2017 in middlesized gardening…
To wish you ‘happy Christmas’, here is ‘the best of 2017’ – the most popular posts published in 2017 in the Middlesized Garden, plus my favourite photographs.
Spring – romance and bulbs
The most popular post published in Spring 2017 was ‘How to Create An Irrestistibly Romantic Garden.’
Hearts and flowers – the most popular spring post was about creating a romantic garden.
And my favourite photograph of our own garden is this:
Taken in April, with the tulips and euphorbia. Something to look forward to.
Summer – the charity shop garden
One of my very favourite posts in summer was 11 charming small garden ideas on a budget. It’s a tiny garden in a newly built estate, and it has bags of character. The owners, Jack and Carolyn, have filled it with charity shop finds, imaginatively displayed.
It was in Faversham Open Gardens, which is held on the last Sunday in June every year, although the gardens are usually different each year. Make a date in your diary for Faversham Open Garden & Garden Market Day.
This was one of my favourite gardens to visit in 2017. It’s Jack and Caroline Wahlberg’s and is a tiny garden furnished with charity shop buys.
The most popular post published in summer 2017 was The best plants for amazingly low maintenance pots.
However, I personally also love this one – Which hedge is right for your garden? I got up at 4.30am to go to Doddington Place Gardens to photograph their hedges for the post. I now really understand about getting up early if you want to photograph gardens – there’s a magical quality to photographs taken in that hour after dawn.
I love the soft dawn light of this photograph, taken at Doddington Place Gardens just after dawn in June.
Doddington Place Gardens is open from April to October, and it also has an excellent garden blog.
Autumn – style your garden and dahlias
The most popular post published between August and October was How to style your garden – smart tips and finishing touches, with advice from the very stylish garden writer, Francine Raymond.
Francine’s style tips for middlesized gardens
And my favourite photos were of dahlias, of course!
The peach dahlia, Henriette, in the main border from the end of July until the first frosts. From the post ‘Don’t dig up your dahlias for winter – here’s what to do instead.’
Winter – Monty Don’s Down to Earth
Starting ‘winter’ at the beginning of October makes the review of Monty Don’s new book Down To Earth the most popular post published on the Middlesized Garden, and therefore, ‘the best of 2017’ for the end of the year. (note: links to Amazon are affiliate links. You can click through to buy, and I may get a small fee, but it won’t affect the price you pay):
Winter in the middle-sized garden:
I’m not sure why I love this photograph so much, as it’s nothing special – just frost and shapes, seen from one of our bedroom windows.
Most popular Middlesized Garden video made in 2017
And one more – a frosty garden…
These are photographs I took just as this post was published, but I think the frost and the light was so spectacular that I have added it in post-publication. It’s Doddington Place Gardens at dawn when the frost was around minus 6 degrees. I was trying out a photography tip from Clive Nichols, and I think it does really work!
Happy Christmas.
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Nice blog page :-) I stumbled across you on my reading travels, Alexandra, and am looking forward to hopefully reading more from you on a shared-passion ;-) Paul.
thank you.
Great round up of a great year for the blog! Now that the longest night has come and gone as Alexandra said, It now time to start getting excited to get back out in the garden again!
Thank you, and happy New year.
Great post covering all the good bits of 2017 – a nice way for a reader to hop from one popular post to another. How fast this year has flown – time to look forward to a new gardening year in 2018
It’s nearly the longest night – spring on its way after that!