A pretty screen Posted on June 30, 2014

An easy trio that works beautifully in London, scrambling along a fence, hiding the neighbours and giving us all pretty colours over the summer. Clematis ‘Perle d’Azur’, Solanum jasminoides ‘Alba’ and Eccremocarpus scaber ‘Tresco Gold’.

The solanum is a big commitment; a powerful plant that wanders everywhere. The clematis is no wimp, either, but flowers as reliably as any of it kind. The eccremocarpus is on a smaller scale, flimsy-looking but well able to keep up for a year or two. Then some hard pruning is needed.

Whether the last is truly ‘Tresco Gold’ I’m not sure; I grew it from seed from an old plant in another garden.

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Trad? Who’s he?

Trad’s Diary started as the editorial column of the RHS Journal when it was remodelled and relaunched as The Garden in 1975. I was responsible for the changes, wrote the column then, and still do when I have an idea, 45 years later. I am Hugh Johnson, author of Trees, The Principles of Gardening, and lots of stuff about wine.

Trad borrows his name from John Tradescant, gardener to Lord Cecil at Hatfield and to King James I, one of the first to introduce plants from abroad to England. His family name, having become extinct, seemed a fitting label for a column of garden jottings. It was adopted in 1977 by the new Trust for the Garden Museum in Lambeth, where John Tradescant (the accent is on the second syllable) lived and is buried. Today the museum is in full and exciting expansion mode. I urge you to visit its website, visit it personally, and support it as much as you can.

Trad took to the ether as a blog in 2008. There have been two anthologies, in 1993 and 2009, and since 2008 the text has been published quarterly in Hortus magazine. Scroll back, if you have time to waste, over hundreds of earlier entries. Better, use the Search button to look up things that might interest you. This index facility is priceless to the diarist; now he can see how often he repeats himself. Thanks to Simon Appleby and Bookswarm for making this happen.

Hugh’s Gardening Books

Sitting in the Shade

This is the third anthology of Trad’s Diary, cherry-picking the past ten years. The previous two covered the years 1975…

Hugh’s Wine Books

The Story of Wine – From Noah to Now

A completely new edition published by the Academie du Vin Library: When first published in 1989 The Story of Wine won every…

Friends of Trad

The International Dendrology Society (IDS)