I’ve been watching all of the posts on social media recently instructing us to prune this and prune that. You’d think if you didn’t prune something the world would end! Now, I hold my hands up to being guilty of contributing to this great prunathon with articles on the topic. It is true, that one of the big mistakes us gardeners can make is to not prune shrubs and climbers at the correct time and in the wrong way, which can lead to preventing flowering the next year by cutting off the buds, poor shape, unsightly stumps, disease, a shrub outgrowing its space or becoming congested. Pruning is al ..read more

What’s most important to you and your small garden: planting? A place to sit? A place to dine? A place to sunbathe or play sport? No matter the size of garden, the place I always start is with the question: how do you want to use the space? You probably already have some ideas about this, but it’s time to consider this question in much more detail because often, we don’t really know how we’ll really use a space in future when it’s locked in our imagination. Often our imagination is wrong. In a small space you can’t do everything, so what stays and what goes? There are a number of key question ..read more

Hazel’s true name is Corylus avellana, it’s one of our best known wild trees all across Europe. It’s been closely tied to humans because of its use in building, fencing and thatch. To grow stems that are straight and roughly the same size, our ancient ancestors struck on the woodland craft of coppicing, to cut the stem to the ground encouraging new young shoots to grow. They would have seen this happening naturally when large herbivores broke or ate the plants, causing regrowth. According to the Woodland Trust, coppicing hazel can extend its natural life from 80 years to many hundreds of years ..read more

I’ve recently been getting into growing edible mushrooms at home, including the delicious lion’s mane fungi. What strikes me is the large amounts of single use plastic involved for certain mushrooms; home kits come in plastic wrappers; professional kits come in multiple components wrapped in plastic; it’s suggested for sterility to use single use plastic bags. As I’ve actively spent much of my life trying to reduce the amount of plastic I use wherever I can – and I’m not perfect by the way, I can only do what I can – it was disappointing to see the mushroom growing sector not already trying to ..read more

If you’re starting to think about new plants for your garden, as I am, my best advice to you is to follow the below steps to selecting plants like a pro. Follow these tips for the best chance of success, reducing disappointment. There are thousands upon thousands of plants available today in the UK and thanks to the internet, we can research them better to find out if they are suitable for our gardens. It’s always tempting to go with what we know or what looks best in the nursery, but I never plant gardens in this way. I will always use data and a bit of desk research when selecting plants. 1 ..read more

WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF AN INFECTED BITE On Tuesday, during a photoshoot for Gardeners’ World magazine, something in our garden bit me, but it was a nothing bite, tiny and I forgot about it. Later in the week, I was down in London to meet my literary agent and I noticed the bite felt itchy on the Thursday evening. I hadn’t slept much the night before due to a house alarm going off all night and I’ve been a bit stressed recently, which meant I was probably more run down than usual. By Friday morning I noticed the bite had inflamed a fair amount, I had my meeting and th ..read more

Back in January I passed the fairly significant personal milestone of the five year anniversary since I took my landscape design business into a full-time venture. Five years running a landscape design business as well as being asked to write for various newspapers, magazines and fitting in a few books has certainly been fulfilling, if a whirlwind. It’s been a lot of fun but I would be lying to say it hasn’t come with stresses and pressures of running a new business. I thought it was worth reflecting a little bit on what has happened in that time, for me as much as anyone who might be interest ..read more

For our summer holiday this year Chris and I spent most of the week in Tenby, Pembrokeshire on the south west coast of Wales. I’d mixed up our dates however, which meant first we had to travel to the other side of the country to do a talk at the Charleston Festival of the Garden in east Sussex. This led to an enormous triangle from our home in west Yorkshire and we made the most of it visiting as much as we could. 1) Stoneywell in Leicestershire It was torrential rain all day on the Friday as we head to Lewes before my talk, making the drive down hell except for a pit stop at the St ..read more

It’s been a long time coming but this year I visited one of the reintroduction programme sites for one of the UK’s rarest wildflowers, a wildflower so exotic looking it’s hard to believe it grows on our damp island. On an east facing slope a little further north of where we live in the Kilnsey Park trout farm of all places, is a damp calciferous meadow with alkaline conditions suitable for the Lady’s slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus. The plants here are the offspring of the single remaining plant rediscovered in the 20th Century. Cypripedium calceolus was never widespread in the UK, reco ..read more

It feels like the RHS Chelsea Flower Show has finally found its feet again after having the rug pulled from under it by the pandemic. Gardens were big budget, the nurseries were out in force in the tent. For me, this year was all about the main avenue big show gardens, when previously I was more interested in the smaller artisan gardens. Main avenue in some cases seemed to adopt the wilder spirit of the artisan category, which left some bemused, but I think these were the best and in a number, the most personal of the show. 1) Cleve West’s weeds You know me, I love a weed, or as we prefer to ..read more