I have a new best friend in the garden. He’s eight foot tall, has three legs and seems perfectly happy for me to stand on him for extended periods. I am of course referring to a tripod ladder, but not just any tripod ladder. This is the tripod ladder I’ve had my beady eye on ever since I began gardening as career, and it’s made by the UK company Henchman.
Read moreDahlias. Beautiful varieties for home and garden.
Flamboyant, fabulous – on occasion demurely restrained – the dahlia is an exquisite conundrum that encapsulates the vibrant energy of the garden as high summer turns towards autumn. In her latest book, Naomi Slade explains her fascination with the flower, and introduces us to over 65 captivating varieties.
Read moreAt Great Comp with William Dyson
Seven acres of beautifully landscaped gardens in Kent, boasting award winning perennials and more late summer colour than you can shake a stick at. When an opportunity came up to meet the garden’s curator and the man behind Dyson’s Salvias, I wasn’t about to refuse.
Read moreFive things from Sussex Prairie Gardens
Pauline and Paul McBride know how to do summer perennials, and I’ve been keen for several weeks now to get down to Sussex Prairie Gardens to see how the plants have been coping in the heat. We chose a sweltering day for it. There may also have been cake.
Read moreThe Gardens, weeds & words podcast
Do we need another gardening podcast? The question is moot – we’re getting one anyway, and I’m afraid it’s all my fault. With a blend of slow radio and garden musings, the Gardens, weeds & words podcast will offer a soundtrack to this blog, with the first episode due in early Autumn.
Read morePosy practice
You may consider the assemblage of flowers and foliage won from the garden into posies an appropriate activity for a big ’airy gardener. You may not. But if it’s good enough for that Dan Pearson, it’s good enough for me.
Read moreA gardener’s tools: the table fork
For this, the second post in the series on A gardener’s tools, we’re introduced to a fork with a difference. Carly Green of the National Botanic Garden of Wales gives us a peek into her tool roll.
Read moreRHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2018
Monday – press day at the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show, beneath a sun that shone with almost cruel intensity upon the show ground. So intense was the light that I’ll have to ask you to forgive this year’s photographs for being a little more washed out than usual – golden hour shots would have done the gardens more justice, but I was on site neither early nor late enough to catch the low slanting rays.
Read moreErigeron – a doughty daisy
Simplicity and delight in a flower, or a weedy menace? As is so often the case, it depends on your approach to gardening. One thing beyond debate is that, once established, this doughty little daisy will flower its socks off all summer long.
Read moreRHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018
With so much to take in at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, one visit is rarely enough. I was fortunate enough to be able to get there for a second time, this time later in the day, to catch up on those gardens and plants I’d missed on press day, with a change of camera lens and a mind to focus on the details.
Read moreRHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018
If Chelsea is to be any more than the (admittedly rather fabulous) latte froth upon the upper lip of the horticultural industry, it needs to have something to say, not only to gardeners like you and me, but to homeowners with an emerging interest in their outside space, to indoor gardeners with not so much as a balcony and, I’d venture to suggest, to park bench philosophers.
Read moreStihl cordless hedgetrimmers
Behind every glorious garden, whether the overriding style be neatly formal or wondrously wafty, there’s a machine-wielding gardener keeping the underlying structure in trim. It’s as necessary in a small domestic garden as a large public one, and in this post I’ll be putting machines aimed at both ends of the spectrum through their paces.
Read moreGardening as a career
Gardening? It’s not the career of choice for most people. Especially when there are so many other ways you could be earning a living. In this post, I explain why I took the choice to make a career of it, and try to gain an understanding of why this decision seems to cause mild discomfort for others.
Read moreMarch in the garden
March 2018 – what the heck was that? Just as we were beginning to enjoy the first signs of spring, the Beast from the East brought snow and cold weather from Siberia. Twice. Thankfully for us, rumours of its return at the end of the month proved to be groundless, though our friends in the north were less fortunate. We just got very wet instead.
Read moreA day in the life of… Gardens, Weeds & Words
A trip to Hever Castle Gardens with the Garden Media Guild. Daffodils, miles of yew an impressive Italian Garden...and an unexpected encounter with bedding plants.
Read moreA day in the life of… Gardens, Weeds & Words
A day in the life of a garden blogger. Spring rebooted, the vernal equinox. Surely winter's finished with us now?
Read moreBrilliant & Wild. A garden from scratch in a year
With one almighty flounce, Winter departs, and Spring asserts itself upon the outside world with a conviction that grows by the day. It’s the perfect time to be thinking about how you want your garden to be over the next year, and if that’s something you’ve not attempted before, Lucy Bellamy’s *Brilliant & Wild: a garden from scratch in a year* might just be the book for you
Read moreJanuary & February in the garden
From a dull grey start to a bitter, snowy end, winter has been topsy-turvy, and is now in the throes of a tantrum at being asked to go home. We may struggle to keep up; the garden, of course, takes all this in its stride.
Read moreThe Virgin Gardener Podcast
There’s a new gardening podcast in town. Co-hosted by yours truly and Sunday Times gardening columnist Laetitia Maklouf, it’s aimed squarely at newbie garden owners and enthusiastic amateur gardeners, and comes with a no-jargon, no-nonsense approach and take-home tips aplenty from the great and the good of the horticultural world. It’s called The Virgin Gardener Podcast, and you can find the teaser episode on iTunes right now.
Read moreWhen to sow chillies
Do you ever feel you’re getting buried under the weight of information and conflicting opinions on the internet? It’s as true with gardening as any other subject you might throw at Google. So in this post, I’m recommending you buy a packet of seeds and get on with sowing the contents. Then you can read the advice, contradictory or otherwise – but at least that way you’ll have avoided the procrastination hump.
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