gardening

RHS Chelsea 2025 - my favourite bits

I spent the day at RHS Chelsea wandering round, taking photos and generally looking for ideas to take away, of which there were plenty. And one garden…

May 21 •

A nature inspired garden, making compost and coping with ground elder

This week I’m writing about a wonderful garden nestled by a river in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. If I mention its a RHS Partner garden, you will…

Apr 18 •

Make your own potting composts and a seed sowing experiment

Do you buy bags of potting compost / mixes? Why not make your own from readily available ingredients? And do you use a commercial seed sowing compost…

Apr 9 •

Peat, climate change, and mushrooms

Summer in spring, the importance of protecting the world's peatlands to combat climate change and why we should avoid spent mushroom compost

Apr 3 •

Spring, snowdrops, and saved seed

As we look forward to a new growing season, I look back on the snowdrop season, and think about saved seed and its genetic diversity, plus I delve into…

Feb 26 •

This week's post is all about the lack of genetic diversity in many of our gardens and why we need to address this in order to create a more…

Feb 19 •

Roses and a changing climate

Resilience 4 Roses, climate change, pests & disease, treating black spot and the role of the phyllosphere

Feb 7 •

Keyhole gardening, push/pull control of pests and growing amaranthus

Some take away ideas for gardeners from the Oxford Real Farming Conference and some questions about roses

Jan 22 •

Flood risks, feeding birds, Chinese artichokes and a giveaway

This week I look at the Environment Agency’s recent assessments for flood risk, how bird feeders can spread disease, and give away some Chinese…

Dec 18, 2024 •

Plants that make your mouth fizz, tingle and go numb

This week I look at the numbing ability of Szechuan peppers, chillis and those crazy electrifying flowers known as buzz buttons or electric daisies

Nov 13, 2024 •

Growing in sand

Peter Korn at the Beth Chatto Symposium, quarries, Chatto Wood and creating an experimental raised sand bed

Oct 9, 2024 •

New pests, more rain and climate stats

We’ve had more than enough rain in September.

Oct 2, 2024 •

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