The horticultural equivalent of having eyes bigger than your stomach is buying a plant more suitable for a large estate than the small patch of green outside your back door. This is exactly what I did last week.
While so many nurseries have monstered into garden centres, with their detritus of "decorative" items and unrelated books, Farm Lane Nursery in Ashtead, Surrey, has stuck to what it does best for 35 years. It seems tiny, but a visit that looks as if it will take all of five minutes easily turns into an hour, as you browse the rows of plants, nearly all homegrown, the "Bygones", which could make interesting additions to a garden, old tools, and stoneware. That temptation is a post for another day.
My last-minute purchase, grabbed from beside the payment hut, like a chocolate bar from a check-out, was Lonicera fragrantissima, in full bloom and smelling sweetly gorgeous. It's also only about 18 inches high. The owner made a shrewd assessment of me, and kindly explained that it was easy to keep in check at about 4ft if I pruned it before it got too big.
...Landscape Juice Network
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